Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The coronavirus has forced every sports league in the world to adjust its schedule in one way or another and has led to some very unique circumstances. The NBA sending 22 teams to a “bubble” in Orlando, for example. The NHL choosing 24 teams for the Stanley Cup playoffs in two hub cities. Major League Baseball staging its shortest season in more than a century. NASCAR having races on back-to-back days at the same track.

The PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic was scheduled to tee off this week from Silvis, Illinois, which is right on the border with Iowa. That tournament is annually known as being played the week before the British Open with the winner earning the final spot in that major tournament. John Deere Classic officials also charter a plane for any players who compete in their tournament and then have to head overseas. They do that not just out of the goodness of their heart but to try and lure a better field.

The John Deere is also arguably the “folksiest” event on Tour. Some PGA Tour courses have incredible amenities as they cater to the super-rich. Not TPC Deere Run, as it’s true Middle America. Finally, the John Deere Classic only makes a profit with fans in attendance. It’s the biggest event of the year in that area of the country by far.

The Gold Coast Titans have made the richest contract offer in the history of the competition to boom Brisbane Broncos young gun David Fifita. The Broncos forward has struggled with the decision, changing his mind several times as the Titans offered a massive $873,562 USD per season to switch to the Broncos local rivals.

The Gold Coast Titans, have been desperate for a franchise player and see Fifita as the fish they have been chasing. The Broncos forward is a franchise player and viewed as one of the best young players in the game.

Fifita is expected to sacrifice at least $350,000 USD per season to remain in Brisbane.

Under siege, Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Seibold is uncomfortable with the contract drama over his young star being played out in the media. “I don’t think it is fair to talk about whatever is bubbling away behind the scenes with regards to money, most clubs have a committee. In the old days, the coach ran it and had someone looking after the numbers. Some clubs might go rogue and make crazy offers to young players but you don’t know what every club is working towards or what they have in their cap,” Seibold said.

How is your marriage doing? Are things going well? Not fighting on the weekends, and no strange texts coming in at all hours of the day? Have you ever wondered if you might have found the happiness you were looking for, or were people placing bets on how long you’d last as soon as your partner said “I do?”

If they were serious about those bets, the book makers at MyBookie.ag are ready to offer them competitive lines for their action. Using their Divorce Bet tool, any anxious individual can answer 30 questions and get odds for if they are in a solid relationship, or one call away from divorce court. And then for comparison, they’ll let you know how your doing compared to some famous celebrity couples.

The questions asked are both personal and timely. Does your partner more frequently say ‘I Love You,’ or ‘I Hate You?’ Have they gained any weight lately? Do you have children? What are the ways coronavirus has affected your life and relationship? Have you tried anything kinky in bed lately, or taken advantage of PornHub’s free Premium offers?

While they don’t tell you exactly how each answer affects your odds (and I’d really love to know if my preference for handcuffs in bed made a positive difference in my love life), they do provide a final break down of a percentage chance that you’ll need a divorce and betting lines.

It was a weekend of football action across Europe that saw Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski all playing their hearts out to inspire their teams to further heights. Who would look back on the results across Saturday and Sunday with pride, and who would do so with regret? We’ve got your European travelogue of football highlights.

Serie A Title Within Old Lady’s Grasp

It’s almost impossible to see Juventus letting their lead slip now. After a weekend in which their challengers fell away, the ‘Old Lady’ of the Italian Serie A were almost flawless in moving clear of their rivals.

Lazio, Juventus’ main rivals for the title, were thrashed 3-0 at home to an A.C. Milan side inspired by Swedish footballing superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovich, while it was almost even worse for Inter Milan, who led 10-man Bologna until a late reverse saw Anotnoio conte’s side beaten 2-1 late in the game.

Things have gone from bad to worse for the AFL, with star Collingwood midfielder Jordan De Goey charged with indecent assault from an incident in 2015. Collingwood released a statement over the weekend in support of De Goey.

“At Collingwood’s insistence, and with full-co-operation from De Goey, the matter was investigated by the AFL Integrity Unit and Victoria Police in 2018. No charges were laid,” Collingwood said in the statement. De Goey will remain in the Collingwood football program while the legal process takes its course. Neither Collingwood nor De Goey is in a position to make further comment.”

DeGoey will still be able to train and be selected for Collingwood and is expected to re-join his side after passing two COVID-19 tests.

Victorian police spoke briefly on the incident to the media:

It was a highly entertaining weekend of fixtures in the English Premier League as Manchester United and Bournemouth shared seven goals, there were two vital wins for London’s most successful football teams and neither of this season’s challengers in the title race had it all their own way.

Manchester United 5-2 Bournemouth

A crazy game at Old Trafford ended in a seven-goal thriller that could have seen way more strikes hit the back of both nets than it actually did. From the kick-off, United were as exciting going forward as they were ramshackle at the back. It was The Cherries who drew first blood, scoring at the far post through Junior Stanislas as Victor Lindelof, captain Harry Maguire and David De Gea all had chances to block the speculative near-post effort at various stages of the ball squirming through United’s leaky backline.

In recent weeks, United have been as solid at the back as they have been reliable at the top of the pitch. They needed to up the attacking pressure on Bournemouth to an even greater degree than usual, but while in previous seasons, that may have been a task that posed more problems than were surmountable, this time around United were home and dry by half-time.

All Blacks superstar Beauden Barrett is set to miss the 2021 Super Rugby season after inking a deal with Japanese side Suntory Sungoliath. Barrett will still be eligible to represent the All Blacks in 2021 when returns to New Zealand for the international season.

The flexibility in Barrett’s contract with the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZR), allow him to skip Super Rugby in 2021. He will then remain in New Zealand until the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

The overseas playing rule remains a bone of contention for the purist at the NZR. Overseas players are ineligible to represent the national side. Current World Cup holders, South Africa, have been one of the few nations to relax this law in recent years. It worked to perfection in Japan in 2019, when they lifted the Rugby World Cup.

Barrett only switched from the Hurricanes to the Auckland Blues in 2020. Coach Leon McDonald was aware that Barrett, was looking to exercise the sabbatical clause in his contract with NZR. The Blues coach confirmed with NZ media that they were aware of Barrett’s plan before he signed with the Blues.

Covid has proven that sports organisations are like a house of cards: one wrong move and it can all come crashing down in a matter of days. Sadly, it’s the fans that suffer in the end when any sporting organisation goes bust. Wigan joined a long list of soccer clubs that have gone into administration. The club have been unable to cope with the financial impact of the Covid-19 and have been forced to put the club into administration, in a bid to guarantee their long-term survival.

Dean Watson, Gerald Krasner and Paul Stanley from Begbies Taylor have been appointed as joint administrators of Wigan. The administrators are determined to find a way to save the club.

What can you say to fans of Wigan Athletic? Only I suppose that football in the EFL operates on such thin safety margins that admin could happen to almost anyone. Another pointer to regulation if the game can’t save itself. Sorry, as ever, for supporters.

— Alan Biggs (@AlanBiggs1) July 1, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

After a dramatic set of midweek results, the race for the Champions League places in the English Premier League is tighter than ever, with the relegation battle no clearer to being resolved either.

This weekend’s fixtures will see massive clashes at the top and bottom of the Premier League, with clubs such as Wolves, Spurs and Leicester all facing tricky home ties. Let’s take a look at three pivotal fixtures, with our sportsbetting tips for each game following a full schedule below.

Wolves vs. Arsenal (Saturday, 5.30pm GMT kick-off)

One of the most mouthwatering games of the whole remaining Premier League will take place on Saturday evening at Molineux. Wolves welcome Arsenal, with the Midlands team six points ahead of their adversaries from North London. Arsenal were in sparkling form against Norwich in midweek at the Emirates Stadium:

The National Football League’s Washington Redskins are feeling the corporate heat over their controversial name, while Barstool Sports doubles down on its woke trolling efforts.

On Wednesday, Adweek reported that Redskins corporate sponsors FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo had received letters signed by 87 investment firms and shareholders with a combined worth of $620b asking the sponsors to pressure the team to change its name, which Native American groups (and anyone else with a conscience) have long derided as a racist anachronism.

On Thursday, FedEx blinked, announcing that it had “communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name.” Quite apart from the fact that FedEx couldn’t even bring itself to say the team’s name, FedEx pays $8m per year for naming rights to the team’s home stadium and FedEx chairman/CEO Fred Smith holds an ownership stake in the team.

The other corporations targeted in the letter have yet to publicly comment on their own intentions, but public pressure will undoubtedly mount as word of FedEx’s statement circulates.

Lionel Messi has enjoyed a remarkable career. The one club man has scored 700 career goals for Barcelona and Argentina, and brought that total up last night as he scored the Catalan club’s second in a 2-2 draw against Atletico Madrid.

While that result may actually cost Barcelona the La Liga title as they sit a point behind their great rivals Real Madrid while having played a game more, what it does mean is that the unique mercurial talents of Messi are in the news all over again. But can you recall his 100th, 200th, 300th and every other centenary goal during his incredible career? No need, we’ve done so for you.

When Messi chipped in his first goal for the club aged just 17, perhaps no-one could have guessed the extent to which Barcelona, clad in blue and red, would come to rely on him. Messi, put clean through by Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho with an incredible chipped assist, fakes to smash the ball then simply follows one lobbed pass with an even better lobbed shot.

Ronaldinho, who would come to regard Messi as a little brother during his later years at the club, had passed on the baton.

An Australian born cricketer who believed he was “God’s gift to women” has lost his appeal to overturn his rape conviction. Alex Hepburn was convicted of rape and was jailed for five years last April. The Worcestershire allrounder was engaged in a stat game with a fellow teammate on a WhatsApp chat, with the goal of sleeping with as many people as possible. Hepburn was jailed for an attack on a young woman in his flat.

The judge at sentencing last year told the Australian, “You thought you were God’s gift to women. You did see her at that moment as a piece of meat, not a woman entitled to respect.”

The Australian born cricketer challenged the conviction in the Court of Appeal. In a blow to Hepburn, the judgement handed down by three senior judges confirmed the findings from the original trial. Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett finding “the conviction is not unsafe.”

The defence for Hepburn argued in the appeals process that the WhatsApp messages about the sex game should not have been mentioned during the original rape trial. David Emanuel, the lawyer for Hepburn told the judges that chat messages should not have been allowed.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

As the NBA and NHL attempt to restart their seasons, and Major League Baseball and the NFL plan to start theirs, the coronavirus sent a harsh reminder on the PGA Tour last week how tough it’s going to be for those leagues to operate during a pandemic. And it’s fairly easy to practice social distancing in golf.

Six players withdrew before last week’s Travelers Championship outside Hartford. The two who did so because they personally tested positive for the coronavirus were Cameron Champ and Denny McCarthy, while the two biggest-name players who withdrew, former world No. 1 Brooks Koepka and recent RBC Heritage winner Webb Simpson, did so out of caution because someone close to them tested positive. They have tested negative for COVID-19 (on Sunday night, Dylan Frittelli also tested positive).

In the wake of those withdrawals, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has instituted more stringent health and safety protocols ahead of this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. For example, there will be additional testing, and player instructors now will be subject to the same testing protocols as players and caddies. Once again, no fans will be in attendance this week.

There’s never a quiet week in tennis, but this is especially the case when two huge personalities clash over a hot topic. After the madness of the Adria Cup in Serbia, Australian bad boy of the game Nick Kyrgios attacked players such as Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev for organising or attending the events.

In the aftermath of that event, Kyrgios was proved horrifyingly prescient as Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov and other contracted Coronavirus and were forced into self-isolation with COVID-19.

It would seem that six-time Grand Slam winner and three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker wasn’t particularly pleased with Kyrgios’ interest in the story.

Asking whether Kyrgios had himself followed the guidelines around Coronavirus in Oz when everything points to the Australian having done so – including his condemnation of the forthcoming U.S. Open – seems odd in the first place, but goading Kyrgios about his own lack of Grand Slam success was inflammatory in the extreme.