• Hollywood actor buys stake in club owners 49ers Enterprises
• Ferrell set to join Russell Crowe and Jordan Spieth

The Hollywood actor Will Ferrell has enhanced Leeds United’s newfound status as something of a celebrity magnet by becoming the latest household name to invest in the West Yorkshire football club.

Leeds are struggling to escape English football’s second tier, the Championship, but that has not deterred Ferrell, the star of Elf and Anchorman among other films, from joining his fellow actor Russell Crowe, the leading golfers Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps in signing up as a minority investor at Elland Road.

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© Photograph: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

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© Photograph: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

The Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame grew by five on Friday night at its 27th annual induction dinner at the Quality Inn and Conference Centre. Read More

• Kim makes crucial birdie at last in CJ Cup Byron Nelson
• English teenager is son of former LGPA player Ji-Hyuh Suh

English teenager Kris Kim became the youngest player to make the cut on the PGA Tour in 11 years after a birdie at the last saw him get through to the weekend of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Texas with a shot to spare.

Amateur Kim, the son of former LPGA player Ji-Hyun Suh, made a second-round four-under-par 67, which included a run of five birdies and one bogey over his front nine.

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© Photograph: LM Otero/AP

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© Photograph: LM Otero/AP

A 90,000 sell-out is expected for third visit to Florida and organisers believe the US fanbase is here to stay

As Formula One prepares for its first meeting of the year in the United States it is Miami, the party town, that will host the latest in what has been a series of season-opening celebrations by Max Verstappen. Yet the Dutchman’s dominance does not faze race organisers in Florida, who are convinced of the continued growth of the popularity of F1 in the United States.

F1 is here for the third time and is one of the meetings F1’s owners, Liberty Media, wanted to promote when they took over the sport. An “event” race in a destination city; a racing Super Bowl, an extravaganza where the show, the spectacle and the experience was considered as vital as the cars on the track. Inevitably, the very idea put the hackles up of diehards in Europe but F1 has room for a spot of showbiz alongside the stately classics.

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© Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The semi-finals kicked off with standout performances from a trio of Premier League loanees and two old hands rolling back the clock

Goalkeeper: Gregor Kobel, Borussia Dortmund

From a small pool of goalkeepers, only Dortmund’s Kobel kept a clean sheet. And if he could thank the post and bar for that on a couple of occasions – a Kylian Mbappé special rattled the woodwork at one point – he gave a solid performance in the Westfalenstadion. PSG rained 14 shots on Kobel’s goal, but none squeezed past. Kobel is the first Swiss keeper to play at this stage of the competition, and also showed off his skills with the ball at his feet. His reputation as one of the continent’s best is growing.

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© Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images

• Basketball star was detained on drug charges in 2022
• Griner details ordeal during interview with ABC

Brittney Griner, the US basketball star who was imprisoned in Russia for 10 months in 2022, has given her first interviews since her release as part of a prisoner exchange, revealing that she had contemplated suicide while in jail.

Speaking to the New York Times, Griner described her arrest, the shocking and unsanitary conditions that she endured during her detention, and her difficult readjustment to ordinary life after she was exchanged for the convicted weapons smuggler Viktor Bout in December 2022. “I’ve never been so dirty in my life,” she said.

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© Photograph: Michael Le Brecht II/AP

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© Photograph: Michael Le Brecht II/AP

At 19, Malinin is the only person in history to land a quadruple axel – a four-and-a-half-revolution jump – in competition, and he thinks he can go further. Will his incredible athleticism revive a tarnished sport?

“I always try to be a gamechanger or innovator,” says Ilia Malinin, the American prodigy who has cut a swathe through the world of figure skating. In March in Montreal, the 19-year-old roared to his first world championship with a star-making long programme set to music from the TV show Succession. It was immediately hailed as the greatest athletic display in the sport’s history.

Malinin became the second person ever to land six quadruple jumps in a single programme, and the first to do it with a quadruple axel, the heart-stopping four-and-a-half-revolution jump that had never been landed in competition until he came along. Skating with verve and pace to the lumbering strings, dissonant piano chords and swaggering 808s of Nicholas Britell’s crowd-pleasing score, he won the sport’s biggest competition outside the Olympics with a record-shattering free-skate score more than 24 points clear of his closest rival.

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© Photograph: Shuran Huang/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Shuran Huang/The Guardian

• Swimmers were cleared of doping after positive tests
• Usada says Wada guilty of ‘failing all clean athletes’

The US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) on Wednesday for “doubling down on half-truths” after the global body published a document outlining its handling of a case involving Chinese swimmers.

Wada has been under fire since the New York Times reported last month that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine before the Tokyo Games in 2021 but were allowed to compete after being cleared by a Chinese inquiry.

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© Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Queen’s Gaels linebacker Olivier Muembi was selected by the Edmonton Elks in the third round of the 2024 Canadian Football League Draft on Tuesday night. Read More

League commissioner Jessica Berman talks ballooning franchise values, the merits of expansion and reducing injuries

No soccer league in the world is experiencing a boom comparative to the NWSL in 2024. Last month, the world’s first purpose-built stadium for a women’s sports franchise opened in Kansas City, marking the new home of the Current. San Diego Wave broke its NWSL home opener attendance record with over 32,000 fans, while the NWSL was listed at No 5 on the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024.

“At the NWSL we are working to drive innovation, growth and increased investment in women’s soccer,” Jessica Berman, the NWSL’s commissioner, tells the Guardian. “I’m excited about the 2024 season and to see what else we can accomplish in the women’s soccer space.”

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© Photograph: Ira L Black/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Ira L Black/Getty Images

• Nuggets eliminate Lakers from postseason once again
• James will discuss future with friends and family
• Oklahoma City sweep New Orleans to advance

The futures of LeBron James and Darvin Ham with the Los Angeles Lakers are murky after their first-round playoff exit to the Denver Nuggets was confirmed on Monday night.

For James, the decision on whether he wants to wear purple and gold again in his 22nd NBA season is up to him. For Ham, it’s about whether the team brings him back for a third season as coach after back-to-back series losses to Denver.

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© Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

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© Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

• Hollywood stars join Club Necaxa ownership group
• Mexican top flight second most-watched league in US

Actors and Wrexham AFC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have bought a minority stake in the Liga MX side Club Necaxa, Variety and Sportico reported on Monday.

The pair join celebrity minority owners actor Eva Longoria, Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander, model Kate Upton and NFL wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

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© Photograph: Patrick McElhenney/AP

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© Photograph: Patrick McElhenney/AP

An end-of-season wobble has ended any hopes of a dream send off. But it’s characteristic of Klopp’s managerial career

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And so there will be no glorious farewell for Jürgen Klopp. Saturday’s 2-2 draw with West Ham, coupled with victories for Manchester City and Arsenal, means any realistic hope of a second Premier League title is effectively over. Klopp is exhausted, his team is exhausted and the manic emotional energy that gripped the side during the League Cup final and immediately after has dissipated.

There will be questions about the wisdom of revealing when he did that he would be leaving. This has been a truism if English soccer since Alex Ferguson announced in 2001 that he planned to quit Manchester United. Do that, even if you’re as fearsome a figure as Ferguson, and the danger is that authority wanes. Something similar seems to have happened with Emma Hayes, who will leave Chelsea Women in the summer after a hugely successful 12-year stint to take charge of the USWNT. Would Saturday’s touchline spat with Mohamed Salah have happened had the Egyptian thought that Klopp would still be his manager next season? (It now seems likely that Salah, who has only a year left on his contract, will also leave in the summer).

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© Composite: Guardian Picture Desk

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© Composite: Guardian Picture Desk

Time will tell who got the best haul of players in Detroit, there were promising signs from the Bears, Vikings and Steelers

Chicago Bears. Anyone with an internet connection could have drafted Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams with the first pick. But Williams’ arrival is a victory unto itself for the Bears, who have been in the QB wilderness for decades. Chicago fans will expect Williams to be the team’s best quarterback ever, and it won’t even be so unreasonable of them given his sublime talent and the team’s barren history at the position. General manager Ryan Poles has also done well to surround Williams with one of the best groups of receivers in football. Poles traded for Los Angeles Chargers star Keenan Allen earlier this year, and he then used the ninth pick to add Washington’s Rome Odunze to a fold that already included the talented and productive DJ Moore. Maybe the Bears won’t win big in 2024, but they should be more fun to watch than they have been. And for the first time in ages, there’s a foundation in place upon which the club could build a Super Bowl team.

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© Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

World No 2 basically auditioning for acceptance to return to policy board is faintly ludicrous in increasingly fractured sport

The most unpalatable and unlikely scenario could be a necessary one. Rory McIlroy to LIV has been rumoured, slapped down, rumoured and slapped down. Yet as the PGA Tour procrastinates over completion of a deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, and even the formal involvement of McIlroy himself, one wonders if it may take something nuclear to allow golf to wake up to the haplessness of its present, fractured state. Should McIlroy sign for golf’s rebel tour the establishment would be sent into a level of frenzy so serious that collaboration between the PGA Tour, LIV and the PIF would surely transpire in a heartbeat.

There is no suggestion this will happen. Still, Greg Norman knew precisely what he was doing in recent days. “If Rory was willing to sit down and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him?” Norman said. “100%.” McIlroy is not actually the PGA Tour’s main concern. The live prospect of LIV continuing a talent drain on established tours into 2025 should be the prime cause for fear. While not McIlroy, it could be Viktor Hovland. If not Hovland, it could be Tommy Fleetwood. The PGA Tour and its marquee events are being materially harmed by golf’s lack of compatibility. This will continue to be the case while the PGA Tour wanders aimlessly on one path and LIV confidently on another.

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© Photograph: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Doping case with Chinese swimmers has brought years of pent-up feeling into public domain – and shows no sign of stopping

At its glitzy 25th anniversary gala in Lausanne last month, the World Anti-Doping Agency screened a slick montage highlighting how it had changed sport for the better. There were images of Muhammad Ali defying Parkinson’s to light the Olympic flame and Pelé lifting the World Cup, before a history lesson – and a promise. “Today Wada is a more representative, accountable and transparent organisation,” explained its director general, Olivier Niggli, “that truly has athletes at the heart of everything we do.”

Not everyone in the room was buying it – one source felt it was too PR-focused, while another raised their eyebrows when Thomas Bach – the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – and the former Wada president Sir Craig Reedie picked up awards. However, frustrations with Wada were largely limited to corridor conversations. It turned out to be the relative calm before the thermonuclear storm.

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© Composite: AP/Getty/Shutterstock

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© Composite: AP/Getty/Shutterstock

I well remember when I was a little guy and I had to change public schools. Read More

Kingston’s Kayla Taylor is kicking ass and taking names. Read More