Gossip: Liverpool line up final Wirtz offer
Liverpool are set to make a final offer worth £118m, inclusive of add-ons, for Germany attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz, 22, after Bayer Leverkusen rejected a £113m bid. (Daily Mail, external) Want more transfer stories? Read Monday's full gossip columnFollow the gossip column on BBC Sport
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The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
James Cook was universally adored in boxing – his pursuit of the impossible dream will endure
James Cook was known and respected as one of the nicest men in the boxing business on both sides of the ropes. His death last Saturday was greeted with a rare and sincere outpouring of heartfelt messages, genuine love and sorrow. In the modern business of boxing, it is impossible to find anybody with a bad word to say about Cook – he was universally adored. Cook belonged to a different boxing world, a world where good fighters knew they would seldom get a chance and never get a break. Cook struggled for recognition as a boxer and chased a living away from his Hackney home in fights as the designated loser in Germany, Italy, France, Holland and Finland. He was robbed of money, robbed of decisions, but still he kept fighting against all odds. The motto in boxing is simple and brutal: Have gloves, will travel. Cook was the king of the travelling fighters for a few years in the eighties. There were signs that he could beat the best prospects and compete with the best fighters, but the truth is that James Cook's face never fit. 'I'm too good looking for this business,' he joked. Cook's win in 1986 over the prospect, Michael Watson, who was unbeaten in seven, is a prime example; Watson was still the star after the loss, Cook still an annoyance. The fight before Watson, Cook had lost in Amsterdam and in the fight after, he lost in France. It was the reality for a lot of invisible boxers. 'It was a tough business back then,' said Cook. 'It was hard to get a break and that is why I had to go overseas. I had to earn a living.' Cook had been a professional for seven years, fought 19 times, losing seven when he got his chance at the British middleweight title. On that night in 1988 in Sheffield, he was stopped by the great Herol Graham. The best middleweights in Britain then, Watson and Nigel Benn, had no interest in fighting Graham; Cook dared to be great. At that time, it was obvious just how decent Cook was. He was never bitter about missing out on the carnival of fights involving Benn, Watson and Chris Eubank. He never had an invite – he was not the type of man you invited to that type of jamboree. Cook was back on the road, but this time the small-hall circuit in Britain, after the Graham loss, back earning a living without a single complaint. In 1990 he was given another shot at the British title, but he had to travel to Belfast to fight local idol, Sam Storey. It looked like a typical night on the road and against the odds for Cook; he stopped Storey in ten rounds, won the British super-middleweight title and then travelled to France to add the European version with a 12th round stoppage. James Cook was anonymous no more. Well, that was the sensible thinking. In late April, a few days before the Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr fight, I spoke to Cook during that week of events. He was drained, weary, shrunken, but still the smiling and optimistic. He arrived one day, fresh from chemotherapy – I knew the signs, but James was not playing the cancer game. There was no searching for pity in his eyes. He had business on the night; he would be in the corner with Anthony Yarde. Let me tell you this now: James Cook did not play games. I stood with Cook and Yarde and remembered a classic but lost night in British boxing. It was 1991 at York Hall and for some ridiculous reason, Cook was defending his European super-middleweight title at the tiny venue against Mark Kaylor, who had been one of the stars of the business and remains the last great East End boxing idol. In the modern game, that fight would be in front of 20,000 at the O2. 'It was just the way it was,' remembered Cook. Yarde listened and was stunned. On the night, Cook silenced Kaylor's faithful with a punch-perfect stoppage in the sixth round. Kaylor retired after the fight, Cook defended his European title at a leisure centre in Wandsworth in his next fight. A glance at Cook's record is a glance back at an anonymous time in British boxing for many men, who simply never had a break and had to struggle for every single tiny bit of recognition. Cook struggled, but he never moaned or complained. In 1992 he took the money, went to France and lost the European title, then he regained his British super-middleweight title at a wave-pool centre at the Elephant and Castle in south London. At the same time, Benn and Eubank were making millions at the same weight. James Cook fought for the last time at York Hall in 1994 when he lost his British title. And then the real work started on the safe side of the ropes at the Pedro Club, an old-fashioned youth club, on Hackney's Murder Mile. On his commendation for his MBE in 2007, it said he had performed miracles on the streets of Hackney. And he had. 'The boxing gym gives them hope and they don't have a lot of hope,' he told me in 2019. 'They can see what boxing can do for a man – boxers have a good name in here.' Cook loved the Pedro, and it seems that every day was a brutal struggle for funding to keep the doors open and to keep his dreams alive. He was the man for the struggle - James Cook never turned away from any fight. He was still part of that impossible dream circuit when he died last Saturday.
BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
When does the first summer transfer window close?
The first summer transfer window of 2025 will close on Tuesday, 10 June at 19:00 summer has been split into two windows this year, with the first having opened on Sunday, 1 early window allowed teams participating in the Club World Cup the chance to sign players before the tournament begins on 15 second window will open on Monday, 16 June, before closing on Monday, 1 September at 19:00 BST for Premier League, EFL and Scottish Premiership rules state a transfer window cannot last more than 16 weeks in a calendar year, hence the split this City and Chelsea are the two Premier League clubs competing at the Club World Cup, but any team can participate in the early Madrid made use of the window to sign Trent Alexander-Arnold from Liverpool before they compete at the Club World article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team. What is Ask Me Anything? Ask Me Anything is a service dedicated to answering your want to reward your time by telling you things you do not know and reminding you of things you team will find out everything you need to know and be able to call upon a network of contacts including our experts and will be answering your questions from the heart of the BBC Sport newsroom, and going behind the scenes at some of the world's biggest sporting coverage will span the BBC Sport website, app, social media and YouTube accounts, plus BBC TV and radio. More questions answered... Summer transfer window - your questions answeredWhen are the 2025-26 Premier League fixtures released?Why are 1bn euro release clauses becoming more common?
The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Nato chief warns of Russian threat and calls for ‘quantum leap' in collective defence
Russia will remain an imminent threat to Nato even if there is peace in Ukraine and the western alliance has to dramatically increase its air defences and tank and weapon numbers as a result, the head of the organisation will say on Monday. Mark Rutte, who is visiting the UK and meeting the prime minister, Keir Starmer, is expected to outline why it is necessary for allies to agree a dramatic increase in military spending to 5% of GDP at a summit in The Hague later this month. At a speech at the Chatham House thinktank in London on Monday afternoon, the Nato secretary general will argue the alliance needs 'a quantum leap in our collective defence' and 'more forces and capabilities to implement our defence plans in full'. Critically, Rutte is expected to say 'the fact is, danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends', reflecting a belief that the Kremlin will not demilitarise even it agrees to a ceasefire and eventually a peace with Kyiv. Military planners believe that Russia will seek to retain an active and experienced army in excess of 600,000-strong and maintain elevated levels of defence spending of about 6.5% of the country's GDP, so threatening Nato's eastern flank. Rutte will first visit Sheffield Forgemasters, a nationalised steelmaker owned by the Ministry of Defence which makes complex components for nuclear submarines, before meeting Starmer and then giving his speech. The secretary general, a former Dutch prime minister, has been pushing a proposal for Nato members to agree to lift core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by about 2035, with a further 1.5% on cyber and other related military infrastructure. Britain is expected to sign up to the plan, to be formally confirmed at the summit, as part of an effort to maintain the support of the US president, Donald Trump, who pressed for the new 5% target once he was elected president for the second time. Justifying the need for extra spending, Rutte is expected to say that Nato needs 'a 400% increase in air and missile defence' as part of a wider rearmament to maintain credible deterrence and defence. 'We see in Ukraine how Russia delivers terror from above, so we will strengthen the shield that protects our skies,' Rutte is expected to say, according to remarks trailed by Nato ahead of the speech, due to begin at 3.45pm London time (1645 GMT). There will also have to be wider restocking of weapons, run down initially during the long period of post-old ar peace and second, because so much has been donated to Ukraine to help it fend off the full-scale Russian invasion over the past three years. 'Our militaries also need thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we must double our enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation, and medical support,' Rutte will add. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Britain has promised to increase defence spending from the current 2.33% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027 and to 3% in the early 2030s. But a week ago, Starmer acknowledged that discussions about Nato's future military needs were also taking place. 'There are discussions about what the contribution should be going into the Nato conference in two or three weeks' time,' the prime minister said as he unveiled the UK's strategic defence review, as part of a wider conversation about 'what sort of Nato will be capable of being as effective in the future'. Rutte is expected to welcome the UK's strategic defence review which he will say will 'enhance Nato's collective defence'. The document said Britain faced 'a new era of threat' and that in order to deter Russia the UK had to become, in the words of Starmer, 'battle-ready'. Last week, one of the three members of the defence review team, the foreign policy expert Fiona Hill, said the UK needed to recognise that Russia considered itself at war with Britain and that the US under Trump was no longer a reliable ally. 'We're in pretty big trouble,' Hill said in an interview with the Guardian.
