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A bombshell critical assessment of Essendon Football Club from AFL legend Leigh Matthews has drawn surprising backing from one of the Bombers’ own greatest-ever players, with Tim Watson agreeing the club faces far more pressing challenges than retaliating against the Brisbane Lions board director.

Matthews, a premiership-winning player and coach widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in AFL history, pulled no punches during a radio interview on 3AW last week when discussing Essendon’s ongoing search for a new senior head coach. He openly stated that any reputable coach with alternative job opportunities would never consider taking the vacant role at the struggling Melbourne club.

“If you desperately want a job, you just go for it, right? But anyone who has choices ain’t going to Essendon,” Matthews said, adding: “Leigh Matthews wouldn’t go anywhere near Essendon.” He went on to argue that a coach’s success depends entirely on the quality of playing talent, support staff and leadership from the club’s top ranks, saying he had no confidence in the club’s current governance structure.

Following the public backlash to Matthews’ comments, journalist Caroline Wilson revealed on Channel 7’s Monday night broadcast that Essendon’s leadership had escalated the issue to AFL headquarters, asking the governing body to intervene. “Essendon CEO Tim Roberts was made aware of these comments and sent a transcript to the AFL and asked them what the AFL was going to do about it,” Wilson explained. The AFL, however, dismissed the complaint, framing the row as an internal club matter rather than a league-wide issue.

Speaking on SEN radio on Tuesday morning, Tim Watson — a three-time premiership winner who played 307 games for Essendon over a 17-year career — pushed back against his former club’s decision to report Matthews. Watson argued that the Bombers should be focused on fixing their deep-seated problems instead of targeting Matthews for his blunt comments, noting the club “has much bigger things to worry about than trying to dob him in.”

Watson added that Matthews has never been one to chase cheap media clicks, and that the Lions great’s harsh words contained a large dose of truth. “There’s enough evidence to suggest that what he’s saying is not completely untrue either,” Watson said. “I think the best thing that you can do in this business is point at the scorecard. At the moment their scorecard looks miserable.”

Those miserable on-field results are impossible to ignore. The Bombers have notched just two wins from their last 30 matches, with only one victory coming since they sacked former senior coach Brad Scott back in May. Currently sitting at the very bottom of the AFL ladder, Essendon holds a 2-18 win-loss record and a paltry 64.4 percent points percentage.

The club’s struggles stretch far beyond the current season, too. As of Tuesday, Essendon’s drought without a finals win has hit 21 years and 334 days, with their last September victory coming all the way back in 2004. Interim head coach Dean Solomon is the 12th different person to lead the club in that 21-year window, a statistic that underscores the constant instability that has plagued the Bombers for decades.

It was a bitter disappointment for Matt King when he walked away empty-handed from his 2024 bid for the New South Wales Blues State of Origin head coaching job. But that heartbreak has turned into a long-awaited breakthrough, after rugby league officials pulled back the curtain on a top-secret succession plan that had earmarked King as Laurie Daley’s successor from the very start.

The pre-existing blueprint explains how the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) was able to formally name King as Daley’s replacement just 24 hours after the incumbent confirmed he would step down from the role. King has signed a two-year contract with a third-year extension option, ending all speculation that Penrith Panthers mentor Ivan Cleary would take over the top job in 2028. Next year’s State of Origin series will also pit two former Melbourne Storm teammates against one another as rivals: King is set to go head-to-head with Billy Slater, who is widely expected to remain head coach of the Queensland Maroons.

NSWRL chief executive David Trodden laid out the details of the long-term plan during King’s official unveiling to the press on Tuesday morning. “We’ve had this succession plan in place since 2024. We’ve spent every step of that period watching Matt develop and grow as a coach,” Trodden explained. “I share a very close, honest and open relationship with Loz [Daley], so when he decided not to continue, it didn’t come as a major surprise to me. We have had planning in place all along. The plan was always that Matt would take this role because he is the very best person for it – the only thing we needed to do was make small adjustments to our timeline.”

Trodden added that the NSWRL board and its appointment subcommittee reviewed the original 2024 plan and confirmed that sticking to the prearranged strategy remained the right course of action. “Once we signed off, it was just a matter of executing the plan and moving forward. It’s actually a very comfortable feeling being in full control of a process like this. This didn’t happen by accident – it happened because it was carefully planned out,” he said.

For King, the disappointment of 2024 was raw at the time, but he now says the rejection was the best possible outcome for his career. “Total honesty, that decision stung me,” he admitted of his unsuccessful 2024 interview. “I was really desperate for the job then, but you know that old saying – things happen for a reason. I understand the board made the right decision back then, even though I was disappointed. Getting the chance to work alongside Loz for the last couple of years has only helped me develop and grow as a coach. Troddo [David Trodden] is telling the absolute truth when he says they always saw me as the eventual successor.”

King added that Daley retained the option to extend his tenure if the Blues had found success in his final two years in charge. “Troddo is a man of his word, and he kept the promise he made to me a couple of years ago, and I’m really appreciative of that,” he said.

The NSWRL did not interview any other candidates for the head coaching role, a clear sign of the deep organizational trust in King, a former Blues representative who played nine games for his state and won the inaugural Brad Fittler Medal as NSW’s best player in 2005. King has put in a decade of apprenticeship work to prepare for his first senior head coaching role, including 10 years as an assistant coach at the Sydney Roosters, three seasons as a Blues assistant coach, and a stint with the Lebanon national team at the Rugby League World Cup.

In his first message to players eligible to represent NSW, King said he will be tracking candidates across all clubs, and laid out the core traits he wants to see from his squad: players who are tough, play with clear strategic focus, and are prepared to step up in high-stakes moments.

The rookie head coach will not have an easy road ahead, after watching Daley cope with intense public and media pressure over the past two years in charge. But King says he is ready to embrace the weight of expectations. “I am so aware of what’s coming my way, and I’m choosing to sign up for it,” King said, speaking at the press conference alongside his wife and children. He joked that his palms were just as sweaty walking into the announcement as they were when he asked his partner to marry him.

King praised how Daley handled pressure during his tenure, noting that the outgoing coach never pushed stress onto his staff or playing group, absorbing all the pressure himself. “I really admired that, and I realize that absorbing pressure is a massive part of my job,” he said. “It’s a funny thing about pressure. I’ve got the weirdest love-hate relationship with it. We all face pressure at different points in our lives, and every time I’ve gotten through those moments, they’ve turned into some of the greatest moments of my life.”

King will wrap up his current duties as assistant coach with the Roosters by the end of the NRL season, and will officially begin his tenure as Blues head coach on November 1. He thanked a group of senior NRL coaches who unofficially served as his advisory board throughout his journey: Melbourne Storm head coach Craig Bellamy, Cronulla Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon, Brisbane Broncos coach Michael Maguire, and Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson – none of whom knew King had given them that unofficial title, but all of whom taught him the core qualities successful players and coaches need. Frank Ponissi will remain on the Blues staff as team performance manager through 2027 to support King, though King will need to hire a new assistant coach to replace him, working alongside existing assistants Boyd Cordner and Brett White.

For nearly a decade at the helm of global football’s governing body, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has cultivated an image of unassailability – brushing off repeated criticism, securing backing for expanded editions of the Club World Cup and men’s World Cup, and solidifying his hold on power. But the sudden collapse of his signature private investment initiative has left the 56-year-old facing the most significant threat to his leadership since he took office in 2016.

Just two weeks before the plan unravelled, Infantino was riding a wave of momentum following the 48-team 2025 World Cup, hosted across three North American countries. Widely regarded as a successful logistical feat despite numerous off-field controversies, the tournament cemented Infantino’s reputation as a leader who delivers: he has consistently funneled more revenue into the accounts of FIFA’s 211 member associations, the electorate that retains power over his future.

Walking onto the final match pitch alongside close ally and former U.S. President Donald Trump, Infantino’s public standing appeared at an all-time high. The son of Italian immigrants, who has opened up about childhood bullying in his native Switzerland over his red hair and freckles, that personal anecdote was previously deployed to deflect criticism of 2022 Qatari World Cup host’s human rights record. “I am not an Arab, I am not African, I am not gay, I am not disabled,” Infantino said at the time. “But I feel like it, because I know what it means to be discriminated against as a foreigner in a foreign country. As a child I was bullied — because I had red hair and freckles.”

Unlike his polarizing predecessor Sepp Blatter, Infantino has largely kept a low profile with the media, and won three consecutive presidential elections unopposed in 2016, 2019 and 2023. Still, critics have long accused him of turning FIFA into an autocratic body, claims that have gained new traction after the fiasco of the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan. The initiative, billed as Infantino’s personal project, proposed bringing outside private investment into FIFA’s flagship competitions, including both the men’s and women’s World Cup. Announced publicly last Tuesday, the plan was completely scrapped by Saturday following a massive backlash from member federations and football stakeholders worldwide.

One of Infantino’s most prominent critics is former UEFA president Michel Platini, who gave Infantino his start in senior football administration as UEFA’s secretary-general in 2009. “Unfortunately Infantino has become more of an autocrat since the (Covid) pandemic,” Platini told *The Guardian* in January. “I think he lost the game. There is less democracy than in Blatter’s time.” The 71-year-old, who was banned from football in 2015 over a 2011 FIFA payment but later exonerated by a Swiss court, has argued Infantino is better suited to a secondary leadership role. “He was a good No. 2, but is not a good No. 1,” Platini said. “He worked very well at UEFA but he has one problem: he likes the rich and powerful people, the ones with money. It’s his character.”

That tendency has drawn intense scrutiny in recent weeks, particularly over Infantino’s ties to Trump. He faced widespread ridicule last year after awarding Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, and controversy erupted during the 2025 World Cup when U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s one-match suspension was overturned immediately following a phone call from Trump, allowing the player to compete in the round of 16 against Belgium.

The revelation that the FFE plan partnered with a firm owned by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, only reinforced critics’ claims that Infantino prioritizes connections to powerful figures over institutional integrity. “Josh Kushner’s firm has a legitimate track record,” Terrence Burns, a veteran brand marketing strategist who worked on two successful World Cup host bids, told AFP. “But the association was always going to be read politically, in a year when Infantino’s proximity to the White House was already the subject of formal ethics complaints, and after a red card review a good many federations regarded as a red line.”

Burns added that the due diligence process for the partnership failed a key test: “We’ve understood in sponsorship for 40 years that a partner brings their whole context with them, and the diligence question isn’t ‘Is this money clean?’ but ‘What will this money be understood to mean?’ That test was either not run, not believed, or not cared about.”

In the wake of the FFE plan’s collapse, Infantino has moved to calm tensions, saying he will prioritize repairing relationships with member federations. “Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together… in the spirit of shared interest in our game,” he said. “And with the objective to continue growing football everywhere.”

The coming months will decide the future of Infantino’s tenure. FIFA will hold its next presidential election in Rabat next March, with nominations for candidates closing on November 18. For the first time in nearly a decade, Infantino’s hold on the sport’s top office is far from certain.

Australian rugby league star Josh Addo-Carr has opened up about his deep worry for long-time teammate and close friend Latrell Mitchell, as the injured center continues his prolonged battle to return to competitive play. Addo-Carr also revealed he holds out strong hope that the pair can rekindle their devastating on-field partnership at the upcoming Rugby League World Cup this October.

Mitchell, who plies his trade with South Sydney, has not featured in a match since Round 11 of the current NRL season, sidelined by persistent back and calf injuries that ultimately forced him to miss the entire 2024 State of Origin series. Two weeks ago, South Sydney confirmed Mitchell had consulted a specialist neurologist to address complex nerve damage, a frustrating injury that has kept him off the pitch for months. He is also set to miss this weekend’s Indigenous Round clash against Parramatta, leaving the rugby league community and his closest loved ones waiting anxiously for his recovery.

In a candid interview, Addo-Carr shared that he stays in regular contact with Mitchell to check on his progress. “I speak to him all the time,” the veteran winger said. “I rang him the other day and said ‘love you, brother’. You don’t wish injuries upon any player – everyone wants to play every week and train every day. But this is just how things are right now. I always make sure to check in, I know he’s doing everything he can to get back out there. He’s my brother, and I hope he returns very, very soon.”

The Australian national Kangaroos squad is also pinning its hopes on Mitchell regaining full fitness in time for the World Cup, which kicks off on October 15. The pair delivered a historic performance for Australia at the 2021 (held 2022) tournament, where Mitchell scored two tries in the final victory and Addo-Carr crossed for 12 tries across the opening four games on Australia’s way to lifting the world title. Their left-edge combination was widely regarded as unstoppable throughout that campaign.

For Addo-Carr, a spot in the 2024 World Cup squad remains within reach. The winger has notched six tries so far this NRL season – his lowest seasonal tally since his debut year – but remains in contention after a strong showing on last year’s Ashes tour. With key contenders Xavier Coates sidelined by an Achilles injury and Mark Nawaqanitawase switching codes to rugby, Addo-Carr has held multiple conversations with Kangaroos head coach Kevin Walters about his selection prospects.

“That would be mad if I got picked,” Addo-Carr said. “I’ve had a few phone calls with Kevvy, we check in all the time, we’ve got a really close connection. I’ve told him I definitely won’t let him down, so hopefully I get that call up. I’d love nothing more than to pull on that Kangaroos jersey again. When someone backs you, you don’t want to disappoint. He gave me an opportunity last year, and I won’t let him down this time.”

Reflecting on the 2022 World Cup camp, Addo-Carr called it the best representative camp of his career. “We played the hardest teams in the world, and we came out on top,” he said. “That Aussie camp, with the coaches and all the players, it’s such a fun environment. We work hard together during the week, and getting to play footy together is the best part. I absolutely love being there and representing the best country in the world.”

While Australia enters the tournament as defending champions and pre-tournament favorites, much of the pre-tournament hype has centered on a formidable New Zealand forward pack that many tip to challenge the Kangaroos’ crown. When asked about growing external hype around the Kiwis and doubt cast on Australia’s chances, Addo-Carr brushed off the chatter. “They can talk all they want,” he said. “We just stay humble, go about our business, that’s what Australians do. Hopefully I get the call up, and I won’t let Kevvy down, I won’t let our country down, and I won’t let my teammates down.”

Richmond Tigers have finally broken through an 11-match losing drought, securing their first win in nearly three months against West Coast Eagles on Sunday. But the moment of celebration has been overshadowed by a costly lapse in judgment from young defender Luke Trainor, who received a one-game suspension from the AFL’s Match Review Officer for a deliberate stomach punch on Eagles utility Jack Williams.

The 20-year-old Richmond prospect’s moment of frustration boiled over in the second quarter of the upset win, after he and Williams had been trading minor, playful on-field jabs for several minutes. Trainor lashed out with a closed-fist strike to Williams’ midsection, leaving the Eagles player crumpled on the ground clutching his abdomen. Williams was able to regain his feet shortly after the incident and leave the field for the team bench.

Following the match, the Match Review Officer classified the off-the-ball incident as intentional strike with medium impact, resulting in an automatic one-game ban. Trainor will now be forced to miss Richmond’s upcoming away clash against Adelaide this coming weekend, stripping the club of a young developing player just as they are working to build momentum after their long losing run.

Richmond senior head coach Adem Yze opened up to media after the match, addressing the incident before the official suspension was handed down. Yze noted that he had not reviewed the incident immediately after the final siren, but confirmed the club would hold the player accountable if the strike was proven to be against league rules. The coach did praise Trainor’s overall on-field performance during the win, noting that the young defender had continued to show growth and played a key role in the club’s first victory in months.

Even so, Yze made clear that avoidable disciplinary suspensions are unacceptable for his side, particularly as the club already deals with a growing list of injured players sidelined for matches. “When we’ve got lack of availability through injury, we don’t want to be losing players through stupidity,” Yze told reporters. The coach added that the club has already held multiple conversations with the entire playing squad about avoiding unnecessary disciplinary incidents, noting that all players have been educated on what counts as acceptable and unacceptable on-field conduct.

The suspension comes as a disappointing gut punch for Richmond, who were hoping to build on their long-awaited win with a strong performance in Adelaide to continue climbing the AFL ladder.

The Sydney Roosters have delivered one of the most devastating displays in modern National Rugby League (NRL) history, and the powerhouse side is already making it clear that their best football is still ahead of them. Fresh off a record-breaking 82-12 rout of the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville, the reigning contenders have issued a stark four-word-adjacent warning to every other team in the competition: they have not hit their peak yet.

This lopsided victory marked the Roosters’ sixth consecutive win, and it etched the club’s name into NRL record books: the 82-point haul stands as the highest score posted by any top-flight side since 1935, and the third-highest total in the 110-plus year history of Australian rugby league premiership. Stand-off Sam Walker delivered a career-best masterclass, racking up a personal total of 36 points to guide his side to the dominant win.

The performance was so strong that analysts have already suggested even reigning premiers Penrith Panthers would face a massive test against the Roosters if the side repeats this form on grand final day. But despite the glowing praise and jaw-dropping result, Roosters utility Connor Watson says the squad still has room to grow as they prepare for this Friday’s high-stakes clash against the in-form Canterbury Bulldogs. Speaking to reporters from the team’s pre-match mini-camp in Gosford, Watson outlined the side’s quiet confidence heading into the second half of the season.

“We feel like we’ve got more levels to our footy that we can still ascend to,” Watson said. “The weekend was a good start. Up to this game, we haven’t clicked into our best attacking rhythm yet. Our success so far this year has come from our defence, from the way we pressure opponents and grind out wins by scoring just enough to get across the line. That’s been a huge shift for us — in previous seasons, we dropped a lot of those tight matches, but this year we’ve taken the majority of them. To be in title contention come September, we need to keep winning those close games. But we know we can play better as a group, especially with ball in hand, and the Cowboys game was a really great first step toward that.”

Young fullback Cody Ramsey, who turned in an electrifying second-half performance after coming on as a substitute for captain James Tedesco, echoed Watson’s sentiment. Ramsey said that even a blowout win like the 70-point victory leaves plenty of room for improvement across all areas of the pitch.

“We can still definitely refine our craft in attack, and we also had a few defensive lapses that let the Cowboys through for line breaks,” Ramsey explained. “No matter how good a game looks on the surface, you can always pick out areas to work on. That could be our kicking game, our defensive line speed, our contact work. There’s still so much we can learn, and if we keep refining those small details, we’ll be able to execute even better by the end of the season.”

One key talking point from the weekend was Tedesco’s early exit from the match, with the star fullback coming off the pitch as a precaution after sustaining a minor ankle issue. But the club has moved quickly to ease concerns about his availability for Friday’s game, confirming Tedesco is on track to start against the Bulldogs. Watson said the captain’s resilience has long been a defining feature of his career, and he expects the skipper to be fully fit for the upcoming clash.

“You’d probably have to check with the medical staff for the full update, but he bounced back pretty well from the issue,” Watson said. “He played almost the entire first half with the niggle, and he still played like a beast, just like he always does. That’s one thing that’s been a testament to his career, especially after the early injury scares he’s had — his ability to just be resilient and bounce back quickly from these small injuries is incredible. I think he’ll be sweet to go on Friday.”