Stephen Brannigan

🚨✍🏿 Kobbie Mainoo has just signed his new contract at Manchester United, valid until June 2031. The announcement will be this week. Exclusive story from yesterday, confirmed.

🚨🎙️ Paul Scholes on Jack Grealish being spotted passed out at a bar: 🗣️ “People are quick to laugh at things like this, but they don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. Jack moved to Manchester City for a huge fee, massive expectations, and things didn’t really go the way many thought they would. Then you’re sold to Everton, and suddenly the narrative around your career changes. That’s not easy for any player to deal with, especially when you’ve been under the spotlight for years. We all see the football side, but players have personal battles too. It might not even be football-related — pressure, criticism, expectations, life changes… it all adds up. Instead of mocking him, maybe people should understand that sometimes players are human first. Not everything you see like this is just about attitude — sometimes it’s someone going through a difficult period.”

🚨 𝗡𝗘𝗪: Jack Grealish was spotted completely asleep at a table in a rooftop bar in Manchester, surrounded by glasses and bottles of cocktails after an afternoon of drinks with his friends. — @TheSun

FULL VIDEO: HE’S ABSOLUTELY DECKED HIM😭😭😭😭😭😭

Angry violent Republican Cliftonville thugs attacking Protestant homes in the Village last night. Shame on the Parades Commission and the PSNI for allowing this to happen. Clifftonville must put out a statement condemning this sectarian attack. This was a cert to happen!

Coaching U16–U18 football right now? League approaching. Championship still a bit away. This 6–8 week window is one of the most important development periods for young players. Here are 5 things I’d focus on with a U16–U18 team right now 👇 @CoachCaff #GAACoaching #GAA

Should youth GAA players be grouped by ability? Many clubs use “streaming” — dividing players into A, B or C teams. A recent study explored how players, parents and coaches experience streaming in youth Gaelic games. Here are some of the key findings 🧵

Cunha is a bastard but he’s our bastard 🇧🇷😂 #MUFC x.com/EJflwyH3bU2315…

Excl: Michael Carrick has won the January Premier League Manager of the Month award following two huge wins against #MCFC and #AFC. All media duties have already been completed, with an official announcement expected tomorrow afternoon. @centredevils centredevils.co.uk/news/exclusive…

I wanna go on the piss with Dorgie Best

Tupac would have been alive if Dalot was the shooter…

@SimplyUtd @UtdVideo Dalot playing put utd at a disadvantage

🚨🗣 Diogo Dalot: "We've had plenty of chances to win the match. The red card put us at a disadvantage, as we were dominating Brighton in the final moments. We're very disappointed. I think we deserved to win.

#CasementPark latest from Ulster GAA ‘Engagement with the Planning Service continued… and the principle of a phased delivery of the stadium is accepted.’ ‘As we move into 2026, it appears that we will finally be entering the delivery phase of the Casement Park Project’

Reading between the lines on the Amorim interview….. "To start with that, I noticed that you received selective information about everything” The hierachy are leaking information to the media, potentially to protect themselves. "I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach of Manchester United. That is clear.” Forget the role terminology here, that’s not Amorims point. Yes his title is Head Coach but Amorim does not expect or agree to tactical and selection issues being made by anyone in the hierarchy. "I know that my name is not [Thomas] Tuchel, it's not [Antonio] Conte, it's not [Jose] Mourinho, but I'm the manager of Manchester United. And it's going to be like this for 18 months or when the board decides to change.” Someone (or multiple people) from above have asked Amorim to change his methods. His point here being that there is no way they would have asked the mentioned managers to change their ways. And he not change or agree to the hierarchy making football decisions while he remains in charge. “I'm not going to quit. I will do my job until another guy is coming here to replace me." You will basically have to sack me as I am not compromising the decisions in this role for the next 18 months “In every department - the scouting department, the sporting director – [they] need to do their job. I will do mine for 18 months and then we move on.” The club knew how Amorim wanted to work. Now go out and do your jobs to find players who will work in his system. This suggests he will not be backed in this transfer window and he has been told that. "I just want to say that I'm going to be the manager of this team, not just the coach. I was really clear on that. That is going to finish in 18 months and then everyone is going to move on. That was the deal. That is my job. Not to be a coach." Reiterates the point that his role, when joining, was one of a manager and not a Head Coach (forget titles). ‘That was the deal’. He mentions 18 months again as a clear threat, he is not resigning and they will have to sack him should they want change. "If people cannot handle the Gary Nevilles and the criticisms of everything, we need to change the club." Strange one. It must have been mentioned to Amorim from members of the hierarchy that pundits are questioning his tactics. Amorim is questioning anyone above him whose opinion is being swayed by the media.

@KyleCherry21 You ok bro?

Madness

🧵 THREAD: Manchester City, the charges, the evidence, & how justice was delayed. Manchester City weren’t charged because rivals complained or because they 'spent big'. They were charged because evidence shows a decade-long system designed to hide owner funding, inflate revenue & deceive & obstruct investigations. The Premier League’s case didn’t appear overnight. It began in late 2018, triggered by Football Leaks documents - internal emails, invoices, contracts - that contradicted what City had been telling UEFA & the Premier League for years. Those emails are the backbone of everything that followed. At the centre of the case is a simple allegation: Manchester City repeatedly disguised owner funding as commercial revenue. FFP rules require sponsorship income to be real, independent, and market value. What the emails suggest is that City’s biggest 'sponsors' weren’t paying what City claimed - Abu Dhabi was. Take Etihad as an example. Leaked emails show City executives discussing Etihad paying only a fraction of headline sponsorship deals, with the shortfall quietly topped up by Abu Dhabi government-linked entities. One email explicitly references ensuring funds 'come through the correct channels' so they are not detected as separate sources of funding. That is the definition of disguised equity. This wasn’t a one-off. Emails show Etihad deals where shirt sponsorship, stadium, training kit & campus naming rights were all inflated wildly out of line with the market at the time - later confirmed in the actual contracts, not just drafts. The numbers in the leaks weren’t hypothetical. They were real. UEFA auditors suspected this as early as 2013–14. They found £47m of 'intellectual property' sales boosting income, a £5m 'win bonus' paid for an FA Cup final City lost & sponsorships from Aabar and Etisalat above market value. City were fined & restricted - but crucially, UEFA never saw the full records. Why? Because City refused to provide them. This becomes a pattern. When UEFA charged City again in 2020, they imposed a two-year Champions League ban. City appealed to CAS & had it overturned. City fans shout 'INNOCENT', shared out of context screenshots. They're wrong. CAS did not rule that City were innocent. CAS ruled that UEFA could not meet the burden of proof - largely because City did not co-operate. City were fined €10m specifically for obstructing the investigation. Even City's own expert witness was denied access to key information that could have disproved disguised funding. 'No evidence' doesn’t mean nothing happened. It means the evidence was withheld. CAS explicitly stated that disguised equity funding could not be excluded - only that neither side could conclusively prove their case. That vagueness was entirely engineered. After CAS, new emails emerged suggesting Simon Pearce, a senior City executive & Sheikh Mansour adviser, had given misleading testimony under oath. City declined to comment. Again. While all this was happening, the Premier League had already been investigating City for years. City’s response? Delay. Delay. Delay. Obstruct. Litigate. Court filings later revealed City challenged the legality of the investigation itself, filed repeated procedural applications, refused to hand over documents, forced arbitration, then challenged arbitration & tried to keep the entire process secret. A High Court judge called it out in 2021. “It is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made.” That’s legal spiel for stonewalling. This obstruction accounts for 35 of the 115 charges alone & that’s before we get to the secret payments. City declared Roberto Mancini's salary as £1.45m per year. On the same day he signed with City, he also signed a “consultancy” deal with Al Jazira - a club owned by the same man who owns City - worth £1.75m per year. That deal was explicitly marked confidential. Emails show City executives arranging the payments. Same signatures. Same people. Same day. The allegation is obvious: City paid Mancini off the books. Leaked documents allege undeclared payments for Yaya Touré, including via third parties. These aren’t rumours. They’re contracts, emails, invoices. This is why there are 14 charges relating to manager and player remuneration. Then there’s image rights. City told UEFA they sold player image rights for a £24.5m lump sum to comply with FFP. Later, they quietly resumed earning millions from image rights again. The buyer? A company whose directors included City’s own senior legal officer. Independent journalists couldn’t even establish its genuine commercial purpose. All of this feeds into the core allegation across 54 charges: City failed to provide accurate financial information in good faith. Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly, over nearly a decade. Now add politics. UK government departments discussed City’s charges with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. Those communications are sealed - because releasing them could 'damage relations with the UAE'. City insist they are not state-backed. Then why is the state involved? Yet still, the delays continue. A 12-week closed-door hearing. Half a million documents. Years of silence. City remain 'innocent' - not because the evidence disappeared, but because the verdict hasn’t landed. This is why the case matters. If City walk away with a fine, it tells every club to cheat cleverly, obstruct endlessly, spend on lawyers, not compliance.. & the rules collapse. This isn’t about jealousy. It isn’t about success. It’s about whether financial regulation in English football is real - or optional for the richest club in the league. The evidence exists. The emails exist. The delays are documented. Now only one question remains, do the rules apply to City or not?

"I'm not bothered, really not bothered. You guys pay for tickets that pay for my prize money so thank you. Thank you for my money, thanks for booing me!" Luke Littler's post-match reaction!

🗣️ Ruben Amorim to Sky. “Back-four, clean sheet, Kobbie Mainoo is injured. I don’t need a press conference, we covered all the subjects, so can all go away and enjoy Boxing Day.”

@Sonkotz5 @playbook bet 365