Sports round-up
FOOTBALL – When the transfer window closed last Friday, 203 footballers had found new clubs after 58 deals were completed on the final day.
Around £230m (€271m) ‘changed banks’ during January – the second lowest total since 1992 when the Premiership was formed.
Bournemouth’s defender Jefferson Lerma, sent-off against Aston Villa last Saturday, has now received a record 23 yellow cards in 53 Premiership appearances.
Unbeaten Liverpool, after their latest 4-0 win over Southampton, are now 22 points clear at the top of the PL – the biggest margin between the top two teams in League history. The Reds, in fact, are 38 points better off than Manchester United, 40 ahead of Merseyside rivals Everton and have 42 more than Arsenal!
RUGBY UNION - The opening matches of this year’s Six Nations tournament saw Wales hammer hapless Italy 42-0, Ireland defeat sloppy Scotland 19-12 and France beat out-of-sorts England 24-17.
And it’s official - Saracens will be relegated from the Premiership at the end of the season after a fourth salary-cap breach. The 2019 champions, who were fined £5m and docked 35 points for exceeding the cap in the previous three seasons, have accepted they would not come within the £7m cap at the end of the current campaign but have said they’ve already gone over their £2m limit for this term.
Should the club forfeit all tournament victories and return those it has won since 2014 and what happens to their star players? We’ll see.
TENNIS - In the first Grand Slam of 2020, Novak Djokovic beat Dominic Thiem to win the Australian Open for the eighth time. American Sofia Kennin beat Spain’s Garbine Muguruza in the women’s singles final, Britain’s Joe Salisbury with Rajeev Ram won the men’s doubles final but unfortunately Scot Jamie Murray and Bethanie Mattek-Sands lost their mixed doubles final.
SUPER BOWL – An American TV audience of almost 100 million tuned in to watch last Sunday’s Super Bowl 54 final in Miami where the Kansas City Chiefs beat San Francisco 49ers 31-20 to lift the trophy for the first time in 50 years.