Real Madrid winger Vinicius Junior will miss the upcoming Clasico in La Liga against Barcelona after being issued a four-match suspension on Wednesday following his red card for hair-pulling against Villarreal last week.

The Spanish football federation’s disciplinary committee confirmed the Brazilian will be banned for several matches including the visit to face league leaders Barca on October 25 for both the red card and his subsequent protests.

The committee said Vinicius had been suspended for two games for “behaving violently… (while) not being in a position to challenge for the ball” and a further two matches for “protests” to the officials.

As well as the Clasico, Vinicius will be unavailable to face Sevilla (October 18), Racing Santander (November 1) and Valencia (November 7) in La Liga.

Despite Vinicius’s red card against Villarreal, Jose Mourinho’s fourth-place Madrid earned a 1-0 win to stay six points behind Barcelona.

The 26-year-old winger reacted angrily to the decision, made after a VAR review, which also chalked off a goal he had scored in the aftermath of his pull on Nathan Saliba’s hair.

Vinicius had to be held back by his team-mates as he remonstrated with referee Isidro Diaz de Mera.

Mourinho, also upset by the officiating, refused to participate in his post-match press conference.

Vinicius apologised to his teammates and Madrid supporters after the match. “I am sorry to the team and the fans,” he wrote on social media.

The attacker has endured a difficult start to the campaign, scoring just once in nine appearances, and was dropped to the bench against Villarreal, with his red card occurring around 20 minutes after he was introduced as a substitute.

Madrid’s visit to Camp Nou will be Mourinho’s first Clasico since returning as coach of Los Blancos this summer.

Thus far Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, back-to-back Spanish champions, boast a perfect record of 10 wins from 10 matches this season across all competitions.

British-Nigerian Anthony Joshua says he will not repeat the mistake Deontay Wilder made against Tyson Fury, insisting he will stay calm and avoid emotional decisions when they meet on December 11.

The former two-time world heavyweight champion believes composure will be crucial in the fight at the sold-out Principality Stadium in Cardiff, which will be shown live worldwide on Netflix.

Fury twice defeated Wilder and drew once with the American in their three-fight rivalry.

Joshua told The Ring’s Mike Coppinger that Wilder’s eagerness to finish Fury after hurting him often left him exhausted and gave the Briton the chance to recover.

“Wilder took those fights very personally, and that could be quite exhausting, especially when you hurt someone and try to finish them,” Joshua said.

“You lose a lot of energy, and then Tyson comes back. Wilder could have gotten the job done if he was a bit more calm, cool and collected. He could have learned from that. Wilder tried to take him out of there, while Fury just managed to weather the storm and come back.”

Joshua said frustration or the urge for an early finish would not dictate his approach.

“I do not believe that would be me. I am going to keep a calm head,” he added.

Joshua also has a historic prize to chase. Fury’s promoter, Frank Warren, has said the World Boxing Association super heavyweight belt will be at stake in Cardiff.

A win would make Joshua a three-time world heavyweight champion, a feat achieved by Muhammad Ali, Michael Moorer, Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko, while Evander Holyfield won the title four times.

The belt became available after Oleksandr Usyk vacated it. Murat Gassiev was the association’s number one contender and had been expected to move up, but the pull of Fury against Joshua appears to have taken priority. Both men previously lost their world titles to Usyk.

Warren, who is also staging the rematch between Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley for the World Boxing Organisation title this weekend, said the winners could meet in unification fights in 2027.

“We have got three of the four heavyweight champions on our roster, and we are going to make unification fights next year,” he said.

Joshua enters the fight with a professional record of 30 wins, four defeats and 27 knockouts. Fury has 36 wins, two losses and one draw, with 25 knockouts.

The chair of English football’s Independent Regulator has said he expects Manchester City’s appeal, after being found guilty of more than 100 breaches of Premier League financial rules, to be heard in January 2026.

City, who have repeatedly maintained they are innocent of the charges, are currently top of the Premier League table with six wins out of six following their 3-0 defeat of Liverpool last weekend.

No sanction has yet been announced, but City could face a heavy points deduction leading to relegation, and there is even speculation they could be stripped of the three Premier League titles they won between 2009 and 2018.

“The Premier League have said that they want to get this resolved within the season, and actually, of course, it’s not the Premier League; it’s an independent commission that’s actually going to hear this, made of three retired either judges or lawyers,” Independent Football Regulator (IFR) chair David Kogan told Times Radio on Wednesday.

“My understanding is that there is a prescribed process, which is 12 weeks, and so people are assuming this will actually be heard by the middle or the end of January.

“But as I say, it’s not our process, it’s that of the Premier League’s independent commission. What I don’t think we can do is take any judgment until we’re quite clear.”

Kogan said Tuesday he would resign if there was political interference in any future IFR investigations of City.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham was criticised for his comments saying he would be “really concerned” if City’s Abu Dhabi owners left the club following the verdict.

Downing Street subsequently had to backtrack, insisting no one was “above the rules”.

Burnham, who was mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to June 2026, has since published all of his dealings with the City hierarchy.

“We’ve had absolutely no interference from anybody since we created the regulator a year ago,” Kogan said.

“We cannot, when regulating football, be subject to political interference on decisions we make about owners, directors or anything else.”

He added: “And I won’t actually be prepared to run an organisation which is subject to that degree of interference.”

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca said last week he “completely trusts” the club and believes it will win its appeal.







AFP