I went looking for seven stories this week and kept finding the same one. Every sport had an institution deciding something, and somebody else paying for it.
Pro Ref took two officials off the Premier League for one goal
At Old Trafford on 13 September, Erling Haaland put Manchester City ahead in the 60th minute from Josko Gvardiol’s low cross. The assistant referee flagged offside. The video review overturned that, correctly, because Haaland himself was onside. Enzo Fernandez was not, and he had gone for the ball in front of him before it arrived.
The question was never whether Haaland was onside. It was whether Fernandez, standing offside and going for the ball in front of him, interfered with anybody by doing it. That is the sort of judgement a referee is meant to make himself, at the monitor, with the crowd watching him make it.
Pro Ref’s statement: “Contact has been made with Manchester United to acknowledge what we deem is an error of judgement. A review of the incident will take place.” It added that the video referee did not recognise the likely impact of Fernandez’s position and should have recommended an on-field review. So Matt Donohue, the lead video assistant referee, and his assistant Blake Antrobus are off Premier League duty until after the international break, and out of the midweek Carabao Cup round. Howard Webb, Pro Ref’s chief refereeing officer, took the decision with his executive team (Khaled Mahmoud, Goal, carried by LiveScore; Uzma Fatima, Sunday Guardian Live, 14 September).
The goal stood. Manchester City keep the three points and the table does not move, so the only people who lose anything are two officials missing three weekends of work. Refereeing accountability has always been retrospective and personal: a name goes on the sheet and the result stands. The alternative is replaying a fixture because a review went wrong, and no league on earth wants that door opened.
The review Pro Ref promised has no published date.
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Kelsey Mitchell has 1,034 points, and the WNBA record was 1,021
In Toronto on Friday, Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell passed the WNBA single-season scoring record of 1,021 that A’ja Wilson set in 2024. Mitchell took 33 points off the Toronto Tempo in a 103-85 win and sits on 1,034 with three games left (CBS Sports and Yahoo Sports, 18 September).
Mitchell needed 41 games; Wilson set the old mark in 38, and is averaging 26.1 points a game this season against Mitchell’s 25.2. The scoring title is decided on average, so the record and the title are about to belong to two different players, in the same week, in the same league.
The United States Tennis Association fined Aryna Sabalenka $7,500 for a racket and a sentence
Elena Rybakina beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in the US Open final. Sabalenka had already been warned for ball abuse during the match, and after the final point she hammered her racket into the ground at her bench. The United States Tennis Association cited her for ball abuse, racket abuse and an audible obscenity, three categories in one match, and took the fine out of her runner-up prize money (Sports Illustrated, Zach Humphrey, 16 September; Just Women’s Sports, Jessica Toomer, 17 September).
One reading: a code that bends for the player the crowd paid to watch is not a code, and a camera operator at work should not be sworn at by anybody. The other got its own column inside a day, Last Word on Sports running “Tennis Fines Are a Joke and Aryna Sabalenka’s US Open One Proves It” on 17 September. The fine came to $7,500 out of a $2.8m runner-up cheque.
Right call or wrong call? Reply with one word.
Around the grounds
Football. Manchester United are at Craven Cottage today, 13th after four Premier League games and Fulham 18th, with seven scored and seven conceded apiece (Sky Sports table and ESPN’s results page read this morning; Goal and Al Jazeera on the fixture). On Wednesday they led Brighton and Hove Albion 2-0 at Old Trafford inside ten minutes and lost 3-2, a second straight early League Cup exit. Michael Carrick on Friday, asked about the goals going in: “it’s not just a backline or certainly a goalkeeper, it’s a collective thing.”
NFL. $17,911. That is what the league took off Chris Johnson for a hip-drop tackle, the largest of three fines issued this week that now count toward a suspension. Sam Franklin was fined $9,425 for a blindside block, Evan Williams $7,087 for hitting a defenceless player (Fox Sports, 19 September; Pro Football Talk, Josh Alper, 19 September). Three offences in one of five named categories in a season brings a one-game ban, under the rule the league agreed with the NFL Players Association (CBS Sports; NFL.com).
Formula 1. Why is the Bahrain Grand Prix being held in Malaysia? Because it was cancelled alongside Saudi Arabia’s, and rather than run a 22-race season, Formula 1, the FIA and the governments of both countries agreed to move it to Sepang on 2 to 4 October. Bahrain keeps the name and the title sponsorship of a race held in Malaysia (Formula1.com, 26 July; PlanetF1, Michelle Foster, 26 July). Sepang last hosted a grand prix in 2017.
Tennis. Canada are in the Davis Cup Final 8. Félix Auger-Aliassime beat Arthur Rinderknech 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City on Saturday to settle the tie 3-1, having beaten Quentin Halys on Friday after Liam Draxl opened the weekend with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Rinderknech (ATP Tour and The Canadian Press, Jordan Stoopler, 19 September; Sunday Guardian, 20 September). Bologna hosts the Final 8 in November.
Golf. Twelve against twelve at Medinah from Thursday. The Presidents Cup runs 24 to 27 September on Course No. 3 at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, Brandt Snedeker captaining the United States and Geoff Ogilvy the International side, which has won the thing once, at Royal Melbourne in 1998. Thursday is fourballs, Sunday is twelve singles (presidentscup.com; Patrick McDonald, CBS Sports, 1 September; Todays Golfer; Golf Monthly).
NBA. What does a $30m fine buy? Toronto. The NBA’s ruling on the Los Angeles Clippers’ side payments to Kawhi Leonard cost the club five first-round picks and the largest fine in league history, suspended the owner Steve Ballmer, and fined Leonard $700,000 without voiding his contract. That last clause let the Clippers and the Raptors finally complete their June trade this week, Leonard to Toronto for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and a package of draft picks (ESPN; CBS Sports).
WNBA. A second Canadian WNBA team is being worked on. A Vancouver committee led by Bill Bakk, with the former Olympian Jodi Evans and Kevin Hanson, 25 years the University of British Columbia men’s coach, went public in mid-September on a bid it wants to file inside two to three years, for a 2031 launch at Rogers Arena. Bakk puts the money needed at $500m. Hanson’s evidence is the Toronto Tempo drawing 12,000 to a Friday night in Vancouver (CBC News; Daily Hive).
The argument: best player, or best season?
Lamine Yamal, asked by Universo Valdano who he would give the Ballon d’Or to, said the best player in the world, then named the shortlist as himself and Kylian Mbappé. beIN Sports has him saying: “I think I deserve it this year because of what I’ve won. Everyone who watches the games knows it.” The interview aired on Movistar+ on 18 September (Goal; beIN Sports, 14 September).
Behind the boast sits a split France Football has never resolved: whether the award honours the best footballer alive or the best twelve months anybody had. The two questions pick different winners most years, and Yamal’s case is built on what he won, the second definition used to argue for the first.
Best player, or best season? Pick one and say why in a line.
One from the archive
Wednesday’s collapse was the first time in fifty years Manchester United have led a home game by two goals and lost it. The last was a 3-2 home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in 1976 (ESPN’s match report for the fifty-year framing, Goal citing Opta, both 16 September). Neither names the scorers or the date, and a search summary is not a source, so we are leaving both out.
Right call or wrong call on the Sabalenka fine. Best player or best season on the Ballon d’Or. One word for the first, a line for the second, and we print the best of them next Sunday.
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