Friday, 17 April 2026
NFL REPORTER BRUTALLY FIRED OVER DIANNA ROSSINI RESIGNATION COMMENTS
USA Today Sports parted ways with NFL writer Crissy Froyd on Thursday after she criticized Dianna Russini, following the recent media storm as she was pictured with Mike Vrabel
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| Crissy Froyd has been let go from her USA Today Sports role after criticizing Dianna Russini(Image: Mark Alberti/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) |
Dianna Russini resigned from her role with The Athletic in the aftermath of the Mike Vrabel saga, and now NFL writer Crissy Froyd has lost her job for commenting on the situation
NFL writer Crissy Froyd has doubled down on her criticism of fellow reporter Dianna Russini after being fired from her role with USA Today Sports for comments on social media. Russini announced her resignation from The Athletic after photos of her alongside New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel went viral.
The pair were pictured at an Arizona getaway, and after initially being supported by The Athletic, an investigation then followed before she resigned. The story has gone viral within the sports and media industry, and Froyd celebrated her resignation by calling her a "detriment to women in sports."
Froyd has since been let go by her outlet for the comments, but has no regrets over calling Russini out. After Russini announced her resignation from The Athletic, Froyd wrote on X: "I’m sure you were told to submit this or that you’d get fired instead." Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
"We know who you really are and what you’ve been up to for years. It does so much detriment to women in sports who have done things the right way."
Froyd then issued a statement to the Daily Cellar, claiming that allegations made toward Russini and Vrabel were "certainly true," also claiming that it's well-known within the industry. "All of us do know what she’s been up to," she said.
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| Froyd claimed that Russini was detrimental to women in sports(Image: Mark Alberti/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) |
"From fights with other reporters in Chili’s parking lots about hooking up with married NFL coaches to everything else, it is almost certainly all true. It was the worst-kept secret in the NFL reporting world for a while."
Froyd also admitted that she was given an opportunity to be guided by Russini, but refused. "Because I knew what she was about and her track record," she claimed.
The comments against Froyd prompted USA Today Sports to issue a statement confirming that it had cut ties with the NFL writer. "Her recent statements do not reflect our commitment to professionalism or uphold our principles of ethical conduct," USA Today spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said.
Froyd posted her own statement on X, but made it clear that she stood by her comments and encouraged others to speak out when necessary. "I would like to acknowledge the statements put out about me recently and that I am also no longer with USA TODAY SMG," she wrote.
"I regret zero of what I said and stand beside it. If you want to talk, my messages are open. My email is operative, too.
"I feel I've been very transparent and did nothing wrong. I also find it so interesting that a Nancy Armour column was able to be published about Dianna Russini setting women back on USAT, but that my comments as a freelancer on my own social media about her were not fine.
"Be bold and speak out. Will it make a martyr out of you? Maybe. But some things are worth it and some are not. This was."
- Joseph McBride
Thursday, 16 April 2026
EX-ARSENAL KEEPER MANNINGER DIES AFTER CAR HIT BY TRAIN
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| Alex Manninger made his debut for Austria in 1999 |
Former Arsenal goalkeeper Alex Manninger has died at the age of 48 after his car was struck by a train.
Police the incident happened at about 08:20 local time (07:20 BST) at a level crossing near Salzburg.
Manninger made 64 appearances for Arsenal between 1997 and 2002, winning the Premier League and FA Cup.
He won 33 caps for Austria and was part of the squad that featured at Euro 2008 in his home country.
"Alexander Manninger was an outstanding ambassador for Austrian football, both on and off the pitch," said Austrian Football Association sporting director Peter Schottel.
"His professionalism, composure and reliability made him an integral part of his teams and the national team.
"His achievements deserve the utmost respect and will be unforgettable."
Salzburg police said first responders used a defibrillator on Manninger, who was alone in the car, after he was freed from the vehicle, which was dragged along by the train, but could not resuscitate him.
Police also said that the train driver was unharmed.
Manninger began his career with hometown club Red Bull Salzburg and spent time with 14 teams across Europe, including Sienna, Juventus, Udinese and Augsburg.
He signed a short-term deal with Liverpool as a 39-year-old in 2016 but did not play.
During his time at Arsenal, Manninger largely played second fiddle to David Seaman, but deputised for the injured England keeper late in the 1997-98 season.
That season, Manninger helped Arsenal beat West Ham on penalties in the FA Cup sixth round and impressed in a memorable win against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Manninger was named Premier League player of the month for March 1998.
'A man of rare values'
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| Alex Manninger played for clubs in Austria, Italy, England, Spain and Germany |
Arsenal awarded Manninger a league winner's medal following the 1997-98 season despite him not having played the required number of games ordinarily required.
"Everyone at Arsenal is shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic passing of former goalkeeper, Alex Manninger," Arsenal posted on X.
"All our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this incredibly sad time."
Red Bull Salzburg said they "mourn" their former goalkeeper, while Liverpool said they were "deeply saddened" by the news.
Manninger made 42 appearances for Juventus, filling in for injured first-choice stopper Gianluigi Buffon.
"Today is a terribly sad day," Juventus posted on X.
"He has left us not only as a great athlete, but as a man of rare values: humility, dedication, and an extraordinary professional seriousness.
"Juventus expresses its condolences for the passing of Alex Manninger and stands with the family in this moment of grief."
- ByBobbie Jackson
BREAKING: HUGO EKITIKE HAS SUFFERED A RAPTURED ACHILLES TENDON
Hugo Ekitike has suffered a long-term injury and will miss the rest of Liverpool FC's season and this summer's World Cup
We wish Hugo all the best in his recovery
WHEN KYRIE IRVING FINALLY STEPPED IN FOR KEHLANI DURING CHEATING RUMORS: "I HAVE TO SPEAK ON THIS BECAUSE I OWE IT TO YOU"
Kyrie made a statement to address this issue.
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| © Erik Williams, Ron Elkman-Imagn Images |
Back in 2018, Kyrie Irving decided he had seen enough of the bashing that his ex-girlfriend Kehlani had been receiving from the public. Even though he was no longer romantically in a relationship with the R&B singer, Irving still cared for Kehlani’s peace of mind.
The NBA superstar took to social media to shatter a long-standing narrative and defend Kehlani against trolls. Kyrie firmly denied the rumors claiming Kehlani cheated on him during their brief high-profile romance back in 2016.
The allegations stemmed from a controversial photo posted by Kehlani’s ex-boyfriend and rapper PARTYNEXTDOOR on social media in which he was in bed with her.
Irving already addressed the issue and stated that he and Kehlani wasn’t together when that picture came out.
“I have to speak on this simply because I owe it to you and you deserve the world to see you for you and how beautiful you are inside and out and not for the attachment to an emotional moment in time where we both had to grow up and learn about our hearts and our souls in a world that judges and adds on fictitious pressure,” Irving shared to Instagram alongside a photo of himself and Kehlani.
The constant bashing eventually affected Kehlani mentally. She even attempted suicide which made Irving even more concerned about her welfare. This gave the All-Star point guard all the more reasons to urge people to leave Kehlani alone.
“I do not want anymore negative energy towards her in any way. She did not cheat or intentionally hurt me, she actually did something extremely noble & respectful, but the fact that it’s still a lingering narrative is really outdated at this point.”
“When it starts affecting real-life progress, the shit has to stop,” he continued.
Kyrie used his influence to save Kehlani
Irving and Kehlani were a couple for only roughly two months. Yet, a lot of people seemed not to be over with them, especially with Kehlani.
Even though he wasn’t on the receiving end of those hurtful things people had said, Irving took the initiative to use his platform to encourage his supporters and fellow men to respect Kehlani regardless of what they heard.
“I’m hearing about what people are doing to try and intentionally hurt her on my behalf is bullshit,” Kyrie continued. “The lack of understanding of what we went through has bred a lot of unwarranted things happening and I want my supporters to really let her be the great soul I know she is whole heartedly.”
“I am responsible as a leader to guide the young males who follow me in a positive way,” he pointed out.
Moved by his ex-boyfriend’s gesture, Kehlani responded to Irving’s message with genuine admiration.
“The dopest part about this was the acknowledgment of his responsibility of leading young men that love him & go hard for him, that he has a responsibility to put his foot down where he see fit,” she said at the time.
Kyrie and Kehlani have moved on
As it stands, both Kyrie and Kehlani have completely moved on from their past. More importantly, they seem to be happy with their respective present partners.
Kehlani is currently in a relationship with UK-based R&B artist KWN. They officially made their relationship public in October 2025, shortly after they collaborated on the song “Worst Behavior.”
On the other hand, Irving is already married to social media influencer and entrepreneur Marlene Wilkerson. They started to be linked to each other in 2018 and reportedly got engaged in 2019. They now have two children.
- John Jefferson Tan
WHY ASTON MARTIN'S CAR IS AS BAD AS HONDA'S ENGINE
Honda's engine has been a lightning rod for criticism in a woeful start to its new Formula 1 partnership with Aston Martin.
But Aston Martin's car is at least as bad and while the prospect of short-term progress is at least greater on the chassis side, the team admits it must be "honest" about its part in the terrible deficit the AMR26 has at the start of 2026.
Honda's engine problems are well established, as it is down on power and suffers from poor reliability, but they do not explain everything that has gone wrong so far to leave Aston Martin around 3.5 seconds slower than the fastest pace in qualifying.
As Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack said in Japan: "We are not great in high-speed corners. We are not on the weight limit."
This is a chronically troubled package that gets to corners slower, goes through them slower, and accelerates off them slower. Minimum speeds being down by as much as 20km/h (12mph) to the fastest cars in qualifying at the last round at Suzuka showed that even when the drivers were approaching corners much slower than rivals, they still had to be conservative.
The downforce just seems to be surprisingly lacking for a car team boss and technical chief Adrian Newey reckoned pre-season was probably already a chassis that could run in the top 10 if engines were not a factor.
"I look at our package and I don't feel as if we've particularly missed anything," he said at the Australian Grand Prix season opener.
"So therefore I believe that the car has huge tremendous development potential in it.
"It will take of course a few races for us to fully realise that potential. We've got quite an aggressive development plan under way.
"It's fair to say that here in Melbourne we are a bit behind the leaders. Probably I would say maybe we're the fifth-best team, so sort of potential Q3 qualifiers, on the chassis side.
"Obviously not where we want to be, but with the potential to be up front at some point in the season."
There is no obvious caveat here that Newey meant 'in time we will be potential Q3 qualifiers with this chassis' once that development plan kicks in. He was talking as though that was the AMR26's immediate place in the pecking order, and it could become a frontrunner in time, but was being dragged down by the engine.
As the season has unfolded, that position has seemed less and less valid.
Aston Martin is 2-2.5s adrift of the lead midfield teams which includes Alpine, using a Mercedes engine. For Newey's claim that Aston Martin's chassis could qualify in the top 10 to be true, Honda's engine would need to be 2.5s a lap worse than the benchmark.
Nobody seems to believe this is the case, even though it is impossible to put an exact figure on what the split in responsibility really is. An equal responsibility for the deficit would put it at around 1.5-1.7s each for car and engine, but some even think the car might be a bigger problem right now.
Newey's position may have shifted since the season started, of course. Certainly there has been no attempt from Krack to side-step Aston Martin's role in the troubles.
He said in Japan: "We have some major steps to take, not small steps that we have now done with reliability." And when he said there is a "big mountain to climb", he did not just mean for Honda. Do not forget that Aston Martin is producing its own in-house gearbox for the first time since 2008, too, and this has been speculated to be overweight as well.
Separating what is car and what is engine has never been harder in F1 given how symbiotic the two parts are in the new energy-limited 2026 formula. The whole purpose of a works partnership is to have everything working together beautifully in tandem. But trying to incorporate each other's desires can also be fraught with peril.
Honda has previously said a desire from Aston Martin to make the overall engine length shorter and more compact, for example, prompted revisions to most of the engine's peripheral equipment and how it is integrated into the car.
Although the design of the engine itself did not have to be changed, these kinds of demands could be part of how Aston Martin is potentially responsible for some mechanical engine weaknesses. Another example is the chassis itself.
When Honda's engine started the year shaking itself to pieces with excessive vibrations, which in turn also caused reasonably significant driver discomfort, the finger was effectively pointed at the engine manufacturer.
As time has passed, though, the possibility of this being at least partly a chassis problem has not been discounted.
That could be the construction of the chassis itself somehow being more prone to transmitting the vibrations or, perhaps more likely, the way the engine has to be integrated with it - especially as the MGU-K and battery are mounted to the chassis.
This could be why Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe said at Suzuka: "In the test on the dyno the vibration is an acceptable level, but once we integrate in the actual chassis, that vibration is getting much more than the test on the dyno.
"So, of course [we] cannot solve the problem [with] only the power unit, so we are really closely together with Aston Martin to solve the problem, not only the power unit but also together with the chassis."
So, while Honda has underdelivered so far, it is obviously fair to conclude that Aston Martin falling so far below its own expectations is not solely the responsibility of its engine partner.
And lead driver Fernando Alonso has dropped several hints that a car overhaul could be required.
Alonso told DAZN Spain that the car is going to stay the same way "for the next 10" races, although it seems unlikely Aston Martin won't have any car upgrades at all. What Alonso probably meant is that nothing meaningful is going to change and it's the final part of 2026, at the earliest, where there could be a big overhaul, as he said Aston Martin will not change too much on this car if it knows "it will change completely in a few months' time".
As Newey claimed the car itself has a strong foundation, it will be interesting to see if Aston Martin's development will be based on that or mean having to go in a different direction. Either way, Alonso's not expecting a drastic change in fortune until after the summer break.
If there is a load of hidden goodness in the AMR26, then more track time and extensive development work could unleash it. It's fair to say this remains F1's most underexploited 2026 package because the car simply hasn't done enough laps to optimise.
And Alonso is still fully on message that there is "very, very huge potential on the car and on the engine as well". He's referenced McLaren going from being at the back at the start of 2023 to scoring podiums that year, then emerging as a race and title-winning force.
And while he admitted that is an optimistic reference for Aston Martin as its circumstances are so different, it is certainly true that a rubbish start to the year doesn't have to mean the whole season's a write-off.
April is also a very useful gap to make some progress. It will allow a load of work already ongoing to hopefully come to fruition, with some weight to be taken off the car by Miami and maybe car upgrades to start addressing the high-speed load and balance problems.
Krack said "you cannot produce miracles" in five weeks, though, so whatever progress can be made is likely to be minor compared to what Aston Martin will hope is possible over the rest of the year.
- SCOTT MITCHELL-MALM
VINCENT KOMOANY ON PEOPLE APPRECIATING HIM
🚨 Vincent Kompany on people appreciating him: “Don't believe the hype, don't believe the drama”.
“When I arrived here at Bayern, I'd been promoted with 101 points, then relegated with 20, then won the league here – two years ago I was the worst manager, and today I’m the very best”.
“If you let yourself be influenced by all that noise, you’ll end up getting worse. It’s nicer this way, but I can live with criticism. It really doesn't matter to me”.
LAMELO BALL FINED BY NBA FOR RECKLESS CONDUCT
LaMelo Ball has been fined $35,000 and assessed a Flagrant Foul 2 for "unnecessary and reckless contact" against Bam Adebayo, the league announced.
Ball was fined an additional $25,000 for using profane language during a live TV interview.
- ESPN
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
LIVERPOOL'S EKITIKE RULED OUT OF WORLD CUP WITH FRANCE
Didier Deschamps has confirmed the news after the 23-year-old suffered a serious injury against PSG.
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| PSG and Liverpool players comfort Hugo Ekitike after his injury in their Champions League clash. Alamy Stock Photo |
LIVERPOOL AND FRANCE forward Hugo Ekitike will miss the 2026 World Cup after suffering a serious injury in his club’s Champions League loss to Paris Saint-Germain, his national team coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday.
The 23-year-old crumpled in a heap holding his lower right leg with a suspected ruptured Achilles tendon during the first half of Liverpool’s 2-0 quarter-final second-leg defeat to European champions PSG on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, the severity of (Ekitike’s) injury will prevent him from finishing the season with Liverpool and taking part in the World Cup,” Deschamps said in a statement released by the French football federation.
“This injury is a huge blow for him, of course, but also for the French national team.
“I wanted to express my full support for him, as well as that of the entire coaching staff.”
Ekitike has scored 17 goals in 45 matches in all competitions for Liverpool since arriving at Anfield for a fee of £79 million ($105.5 million) last summer.
Since winning his first France cap in a World Cup qualifier in September last year, Ekitike has been a regular in Les Bleus’ set-up, scoring two goals and providing one assist in his eight caps.
– AFP
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