Chelsea advanced into the FA Cup quarter-finals as Liverpool suffered their second successive defeat of this stellar season in a highly-competitive encounter at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea won 2-0. Liverpool made seven changes to the side that lost surprisingly at Watford on Saturday – the first reverse of their league campaign after a run of 18 successive victories left them on the brink of a first title for 30 years.
The ongoing crisis in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) took a new step on Monday as Secretary General Mouad Hajji resigned from his post. The Moroccan had been in power for less than a year, having taken charge in April 2019. His resignation comes at a time when CAF is under close scrutiny from football’s world governing body FIFA, who recently commissioned an audit that proved to be damning for African football’s ruling body.
Former Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge says he is “devastated” after being banned from football for four months for breaching betting rules. He was originally given a six-week ban last summer, four of them suspended, but the FA appealed against the findings of an independent commission. An appeal board also doubled the 30-year-old’s fine to £150,000. Sturridge’s contract with Turkish side Trabzonspor had been terminated by mutual agreement earlier on Monday.
British world champion Anthony Joshua will fight Kubrat Pulev at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday, 20 June. Bulgarian Pulev, 38, is the mandatory IBF challenger to take on Joshua, who holds the WBA, IBF and WBO titles. Joshua won back the belts with a unanimous points victory over Andy Ruiz Jr in December. “I am happy to have the opportunity to show the world how strong I really am,” said Pulev. It will be Joshua’s first fight in the UK since beating Alexander Povetkin at Wembley in September 2018.
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