Paris, France |FIFA is hoping to renegotiate contracts already signed for the next women's World Cup in 2023 as it looks to increase the amount of money going to players, sources have told AFP.
"FIFA plan to renegotiate contracts for the women's World Cup in order to offer much greater bonuses to players," a source said ahead of a FIFA Council meeting in Shanghai on Thursday.
Women's football will feature heavily on the agenda at the meeting as world football's governing body plans to increase the number of competing teams at the World Cup to 32, up from 24 at this year's tournament in France.
Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, has already promised to double the prize fund for the next tournament having initially raised overall contributions from $15 million to $50 million in time for this year's competition.
On Thursday, FIFA are also expected to rubberstamp plans already announced by Infantino to double funding for the women's game to $1 billion over the next four years.
The money will come from the organisation's vast cash reserves of more than $2.7 billion. "We don't need all this money in the Swiss banks, they have enough money," said Infantino in July.
In addition, FIFA are also exploring the possibility of creating a women's World League -- along the lines of UEFA's Nations League -- as well as a Club World Cup for women.
A decision on the creation of these tournaments will be made in March next year.
Thursday's meeting will also see FIFA appoint a host for the 2021 men's Club World Cup, which will feature 24 teams for the first time.
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Bangkok, Thailand | Tributes have poured in to the unstoppable Marc Marquez with the Spaniard hailed as "incredible" and "unbelievable" after he clinched his sixth MotoGP crown and eighth world title overall on Sunday.
MotoGP rivals, Marquez's own brother and Formula One greats joined a chorus of congratulations for the daring 26-year-old who dived under Fabio Quartararo on the final bend to win the Thailand MotoGP and seal the title in a pulsating last-lap duel.
The win gave him an insurmountable lead over closest rival Andrea Dovizioso, who was gracious despite another season in Marquez's shadow.
"We can speak and analyse all the things but at the end if you check his score it's something unbelievable," the Ducati rider told MotoGP.com.
Marquez has dominated the sport. Since 2013 he has only failed to win the world championship once -- in 2015.
The 2019 title is his fourth straight and Marquez described this year as his "best" season ever. No one is disputing his assessment.
British rider Cal Crutchlow pointed out that Marquez has finished first or second in every race apart from one -- the Grand Prix of The Americas when a mechanical problem caused him to crash when leading on the ninth lap in Austin.
"He's an incredible talent," said Crutchlow, who is ninth in the standings. "I think he should just retire and give everyone else a chance," he joked.
Marquez is from a racing family and his younger brother Alex finished fifth in the Moto2 race in Buriram and is leading the class standings.
If there is a sibling rivalry it was hard to see in Alex's endearing tweet about his brother's achievement.
"Once again you leave us all speechless!" he said on his official account which showed a photo of the two brothers smiling after the win.
"In spite of your eight championships, you'll still be the 'little twerp' brother that you are."
With six premier-class titles, Marquez surpasses Australian legend Mick Doohan.
He trails only Italian great Valentino Rossi, who won the last of his seven championships in 2009, and Giacomo Agostini, whose record eighth came in 1975.
Rossi predicted he will break both.
"I don't think he'll struggle to reach nine," he told GPOne.com.
Spanish Formula One double world champion Fernando Alonso tweeted his congratulations, calling Marquez a "phenomenon."
Formula One driver Pierre Gasly, who attended the race before heading to Suzuka for next weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, tweeted: "What a race, what a battle in the last lap."
French rookie Quartararo, 20, led most of the way but was left in awe of Marquez.
"It's just incredible what he achieved, what he does with the bike," Quartararo told MotoGP.com.
"He will be there for a long time."
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Lisbon, Portugal |
Bernardo Silva, Goncalo Guedes and Joao Felix might be worth a combined 300 million euros in today's transfer market but they mean more than money to Benfica, the club that discovered them.
For Benfica they are a source of pride and vindication of a youth policy that as seen the club surpass bitter rivals Sporting Lisbon, cradle of Ronaldo, as the chief talent factory of Portugal.
Benfica, who host Lyon on Wednesday in the group stage of the Champions League, are reaping the rewards from the club's academy base opened in 2006 in Seixal, a working class suburb on the south coast of the Tagus estuary.
"Youngsters can make the difference for us, they have become fundamental," Benfica coach Bruno Lage said in an interview with AFP.
The 43-year-old has coached at all levels of the club and says the "decisive moment" in their success was the emergence of a generation led by Silva and Joao Cancelo, both of whom now play at Manchester City under Pep Guardiola.
"The 1994 crop has won trophies at the highest level of the game and by analysing the success of that group, we have been able to replicate it," said Lage, who initially returned to the club in 2018 to coach the B team, after six years spent abroad.
During his absence, the president of Benfica, Luis Filipe Vieira, hired Rui Vitoria, who signed up to the mantra of trusting and giving opportunities to youngsters but was sacked in January following a run of poor results.
Before Vitoria, the strategy under his predecessor Jorge Jesus had been to unearth rough diamonds in South America, with the intention of nurturing them through the process of adaptation to European football.
It was a path well-trodden by Porto and the model bore fruit as David Luiz and Angel di Maria were both bought and sold on for considerable profit, joining Chelsea and Real Madrid respectively for a combined 50 million euros.
"When I came back, I found a solid training project, where the coach of the professional team regularly drew on players from the academy," says Lage, who last season gambled on Felix, the 19-year-old forward who was sold to Atletico Madrid in the summer for 126 million euros, a fee that smashed records in Portuguese football.
This season, his squad includes eight players from the school of Seixal, including Portuguese internationals Ruben Dias and Gedson Fernandes, as well as up-and-comers like Florentino Luis, Ferro and Jota.
- Young gems -
And while the Portuguese team that won Euro 2016 was largely made up of players from Sporting's youth system, today it is the youngsters brought through by Benfica that dominate the national set-up.
After an initial investment of 15 million euros and with an annual budget of five million euros, the club spent an additional 11 million euros to expand and upgrade its facilities in 2017.
It means a 42-hectare site purchased this year will triple the size of the training centre, which is also to include its own school.
Financially, the sales of players "made in Seixal" have already cashed in nearly half a billion euros and Benfica posted profits in 2018 for a fifth consecutive year.
Among the 88 players aged 11 to 18 who live there is midfielder Pedro Pato, who is part of the under-15 team. Pato, 14, came to Seixal three years ago and says he finds the regime "much tougher" than at the club he left in Vila Franca de Xira, a town in the northern suburbs of Lisbon.
"The demands at all levels are very high to give the young players the best possible chance of reaching the professional team," says Rodrigo Magalhaes, technical coordinator of the training centre.
Yet the club's focus now is to "move up a gear," Bruno Lage says. "We must be able to hold on to our young gems to become more competitive."
Benfica are still waiting for their first Champions League win this season after two straight defeats against Leipzig and Zenit St Petersburg. There is a bright future but in the present, work to do.
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New York, United States |
Internationally known for her lavish lifestyle and glam taste, silver screen siren Elizabeth Taylor also boasted a playful side, and now some of her personal effects that bared it are hitting the auction block.
Items including a gold vermeil link belt, a sumptuous silk caftan and a studded black leather Versace biker jacket belonging to the late Hollywood legend will travel across the Atlantic on the famed Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, giving guests a first glimpse at Taylor's treasures.
Following the actress' death in 2011 at age 79, a week-long Christie's auction in New York of her vast collection of luxury dresses, jewels and fine art saw total sales topping $156 million.
But this time the items anticipated to go for a wide range of price points show the side of a larger-than-life woman -- known for starring roles in classics like "Cleopatra" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" -- her closest friends and family knew.
"The icon on screen isn't the grandmother that I would hang out with around the house," said her grandson Quinn Tivey, a 33-year-old artist who is an ambassador for The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
"I don't really know Elizabeth Taylor the celebrity," Tivey told AFP aboard the enormous ocean liner his grandmother frequented, on which he will make the week-long journey with the preview of her items.
"To me she was just grandma."
Martin Nolan -- the executive director of Julien's Auctions, which is hosting the sale -- says some items like Taylor's scarves or costume jewelry carry pre-sale estimates of $200 to $400, meaning not only institutions and members of the upper crust will have a chance at taking something home.
"I think people will be surprised that they will be able to actually acquire and afford to have something from the amazing Elizabeth Taylor," he told AFP.
After their voyage across the Atlantic and to the Newbridge Silverware's Museum of Style Icons in Ireland, Taylor's effects will be taken to California, with bidding December 6-8 online and in person at a Beverly Hills exhibition.
The gold coin-chain belt from Cartier was a gift Taylor gave to her mother to match one of her own, which she engraved with the message: "To My 'Hippy' Mom All my love Elizabeth."
The house estimates the belt could go for between $1,000 and $2,000, while the aforementioned leather jacket -- which Taylor wore in 1992 on Johnny Carson's iconic talk show -- carries an estimated price tag of $4,000 to $6,000.
Tivey remembers growing up watching movies with his grandmother, her frequent advice on his love life -- and even swiping the jacket from Taylor's closet on occasion to give it a try.
He hopes that whoever buys it will "actually wear it" and share her style with the public.
Fascination with Taylor's rich legacy persists because "she was true to herself," Tivey said.
"She was never one to let fear be the deciding factor," he said. "She always followed her heart."
"She always had the courage to do what she thought was right.
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Paris, France |
Leonardo da Vinci is the star in a blockbuster retrospective opening at the Louvre museum in Paris to mark 500 years since the death of the Renaissance master.
Some 240,000 people have already reserved their place in line for the exhibition, the biggest ever organised to showcase the Tuscan polymath's indelible contributions to humanity -- with an emphasis on his painting.
A decade in the planning, the show simply titled "Leonardo da Vinci" groups 162 works, including 24 drawings loaned by Queen Elizabeth II of Britain from the Royal Collection.
The British Museum, the Hermitage of Saint Petersburg and the Vatican have also contributed, as well as, of course, Italy -- after a sometimes acrimonious tug-of-war between Rome and Paris over the loans.
The exhibition in the Hall Napoleon, which runs until February 24, features 10 of the fewer than 20 paintings definitively attributed to the Renaissance master, as well as drawings, manuscripts, sculptures and other objets d'art.
The show walks the visitor through the timeline of the master's peripatetic career under the tutelage of dukes, princes and kings, from Florence to Milan, Venice and Rome, and finally France, where he spent the last three years of his life.
He died in the historic town of Amboise in the Loire Valley on May 2, 1519.
- Two no-shows -
Two standout works are missing from the show, starting with the Mona Lisa.
Organisers decided the world's most famous painting should remain in the Louvre's Salle des Etats -- its normal home -- to help avoid overcrowding.
As it is, the masterpiece attracts nearly 30,000 people a day.
The Mona Lisa's ineffable smile will however beguile visitors in a virtual reality experience at the end of the show.
The other notable no-show is the Salvator Mundi, the work that became the most expensive painting ever sold when it fetched $450 million (400 million euros) at a Christie’s auction in 2017.
Mystery now surrounds the painting -- whose authenticity is disputed by some experts -- as it has not been seen in public ever since the record-shattering sale.
The Louvre has said the museum's request to borrow the work is still pending, but a last-minute appearance would be a stunning surprise.
- The Vitruvian Man -
The final act in the row between Paris and Rome over Italy's contributions to the show came with a legal effort to halt the loan of the iconic Vitruvian Man drawing.
The Vitruvian Man -- which Italian media say is insured for at least one billion euros -- joined the Louvre show with just days to spare before the opening. It will stay only eight weeks rather than the full four months.
The exhibition curated by the Louvre's Vincent Delieuvin and Louis Frank, the heads of the museum's painting and graphic arts departments, includes infrared reflectographs that offer an insight into the master painter's techniques.
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Bet Shemesh, Israel | The remains of a sixth-century Byzantine church dedicated to an unnamed "glorious martyr" with elaborate mosaics, a rare crypt and a large collection of lamps were unveiled in central Israel on Wednesday.
The complex, which spans over a third of an acre, was found during salvage excavations ahead of the construction of a new neighbourhood for the city Bet Shemesh, west of Jerusalem.
The mosaics in the church depict themes from nature, such as leaves, birds and fruit, as well as geometrical elements, with imported capitals topping pillars, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavation.
Most of the construction of the church began during the reign of Emperor Justinian, who ruled between 527-565, with a chapel added later under Emperor Tiberius II Constantine, with rare financial support from him, the IAA said in a statement.
An underground burial chamber with two separate staircases leading to and from it was found, making it one of the few churches with fully intact crypts to be found in Israel's limits, said Benjamin Storchan, who directed the excavation for the IAA.
The church was dedicated to a "glorious martyr," whose identity has eluded the researchers working on the find for the past three years, but the "exceptional opulence of the structure and its inscriptions indicate that this person was an important figure," said Storchan.
Diggers also found what they believe to be "the most complete collection of Byzantine glass windows and lamps ever found at a single site in Israel."
The Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, which is hosting a display on some of the finds, said that lighting in churches, often perceived as "the representation of the divine," enhanced the "dramatic environment for a powerful religious experiment."
With its location near Jerusalem, the Church of the Glorious Martyr was most likely a significant pilgrimage site for Christians en route to the Holy City, the museum said.
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Chon Buri, Thailand |
Sloshing across a muddy field with men sprinting behind them, prized water buffaloes blow past cheering spectators in eastern Thailand on Sunday in a rare display of bovine speed.
Tractors have largely replaced the big beasts in daily work but farmers in Chonburi have preserved the more than 100-year-old racing custom to mark annual rice plantings.
"Before, we used buffaloes to plough rice fields. When our work was done, we held the buffalo race as relaxation," said owner Thanin Sae-tiew, 52.
"It has since become our tradition."
Pairs of horned buffaloes thunder to the finish line while a racer grasping a red plough tries to hold on until the end or face disqualification -- and excited laughter from the crowd.
It's less about winning the 3,000 baht ($100) prize than pride in victory, though the best buffaloes can fetch higher prices when sold.
And they are treated to fancier food than most livestock.
Racer Noppadol Pornpaipan, 22, says his animals are fed boiled rice, eggs and chicken extract in the evening.
But come race day they get a special meal of rice mixed with a little shark fin soup that supposedly boosts buffalo energy.
The normally slow-moving buffaloes can still be seen dotting the rural landscape but the rise of mechanised farming has made them less essential.
Some worry that younger generations will lose touch with older ways of life but the race provides a way of keeping the history alive.
"I feel good that I'm preserving the Thai buffaloes so they will not disappear," Noppadol said.
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