Leicester City midfielder Bilal El Khannouss is currently on loan at German club VFB Stuttgart, and he has done well for them.
El Khannouss has reached the required number of appearances needed to make the move permanent, and the sporting Director of the German club, Fabian Wohlgemuth, has confirmed that all conditions have been met regarding a potential move.
“All the conditions have now been met. We’re delighted that we’ve been able to tie Bilal permanently to VfB,” confirmed Stuttgart sporting director Fabian Wohlgemuth in an interview via BuliNews.
The 21-year-old will not return to the English club, and the deal will cost around €20 million, including the loan fee. The player has now signed a long-term contract with the Bundesliga club until 2030. He has been a very useful player for them, and he will look to continue his development with regular football in Germany. He will not want to compete in the second division of English football anytime soon, and it was always likely that the move would be made permanent in the summer.
El Khannouss has been linked with multiple clubs in recent months, and Stuttgart will be delighted to have secured his signature. They had an obligation to make the move permanent, which would be triggered if the 21-year-old reached a certain number of appearances with them.
There is no doubt that he is a quality player, and he is still quite young. He will only improve with coaching and experience. He could develop into a top-class player for the German outfit in the coming season. It will be interesting to see if Leicester City can use the funds to improve their squad in the summer.
Politics has wormed its way back into football, and Reform UK are thrilled – or furious, depending on who you ask.
In a busy week for the far-right political party, leader Nigel Farage has stoked controversy with his visit to Ipswich Town FC. Despite previous claims that we should “keep politics out of football”, Farage seems very keen to plaster shots of himself in an Ipswich shirt all over social media.
At the same time, Reform MP Suella Braverman is embroiled in a dispute with the Football Association (FA) over their plans to create more coaching opportunities for people from Black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic backgrounds – plans the former-Conservative described as “woke nonsense”.
So, which is it, Reform? Is the beautiful game a political football, or is it, well, just football?
The club at the centre of the storm is desperate to prove that it is apolitical. Ipswich Town FC has stated that it “does not support or endorse any individual or party” and has “hosted representatives from a range of political parties” over the years.
Still, in a bid to stem the wave of criticism from fans, the club reiterated that it “is proud to be an inclusive, diverse and welcoming organisation that supports all members of the local and wider community. This commitment remains unchanged”. Does that count as “woke nonsense”, as well? Reform UK have yet to clarify.
Politicians have always dressed up as football fans. What’s different now?
If you’re looking at Farage smugly holding up his new shirt and thinking, ‘don’t they all do this?’, you’re not wrong. Politicians love to prove that they’re just like us – and, in the UK at least, that means loudly voicing support for a football team any chance they get. Current and former Labour Party leaders Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn are both die-hard Arsenal fans; Corbyn once went so far as to back a parliamentary motion to have the Gunners officially declared the “best football team in the world”.
Of course, there have also been a fair few politicians whose football-fan credentials are…more questionable. Former Prime Minister David Cameron notoriously forgot which team he supported, urging people to back West Ham, despite having previously sold himself as an Aston Villa fan. When asked about the blunder, the then-Tory MP said it was “just one of those things”.
Likewise, Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wound up the crowd at a Manchester hustings event by saying that he hoped Southampton, his local club growing up, would beat Manchester United that weekend – even though the Saints were actually scheduled to play Leicester City. Not to be out-done by the big two parties, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey made sure to get a – painfully staged – photo of him celebrating the Lionesses’ win in the 2023 World Cup.
So far, so cringe. But, business as usual, right? Why the outcry over Farage?
Well, because the fans aren’t asking Ipswich Town to be apolitical; they’re asking the club they love not to endorse a particular flavour of politics. One Ipswich fan summarised it as a “horrendous look for our so called [sic] family club to allow the leader of a party that champions division, hatred and bigotry to parage around our gaff like he’s lord of the manor”. Similarly, the Ipswich’s LGBTQ+ fan group, Rainbow Tractors, said they feel “let down” by the club.
Fans are making it clear; their response isn’t apolitical, but deeply political.
Football fandom has always been political
To follow a team – really follow it, not like Rishi Sunak – you need to be dedicated, and fiercely loyal; you sit through disappointing matches and heart-breaking losses. That means you know how to get behind a cause.
An incredible example of how this energy and passion can turn political is Liverpool fans’ tireless campaigning for the introduction of the Hillsborough Law, and long-running boycott of the Sun newspaper, in the wake of the appalling response to the Hillsborough disaster.
Football has never existed in a bubble. It infects, and is infected by, every aspect of culture. That back-and-forth is how England anthem “Three Lions” became one of the best-selling UK singles of all time, and why we now hear Eurodance hit “Freed from Desire” chanted at so many football games. Football is in everything, and everything is in football.
That means sometimes politics is in football, whether the clubs – and the politicians – like it, or not.
Matthew Fitzpatrick's bogey-free final round gave him the win — despite some "frustrating" slow play.Getty Images
Matthew Fitzpatrick has never been a fan of slow play — nor the way the PGA Tour has handled the problem.
So it was only fitting that his latest Tour win came with an extra hurdle: His playing partner’s pace.
“That was really frustrating. It was slow today. I felt like there was a lot of stop-start,” Fitzpatrick said after his win at the Valspar Championship.
He chose his words carefully and never called out his playing partner Adrien Dumont de Chassart by name, but his words echoed sentiments he’s shared throughout his years on Tour. It’s a tricky tension to tackle — individuals playing for their livelihoods will always take the time they feel they need, while stroke penalties can feel hard to fairly dish out — Fitzpatrick has consistently called out the policing of issue, using phrases like “truly appalling,” “a disgrace,” “pathetic” and more.
Three years ago, following a big-time win at Harbour Town, Fitzpatrick took aim in a Sky Sports interview. But he also acknowledged he was taking a futile stand.
“The problem is, though, this conversation has gone on for years and years and years, and no one has ever done anything,” he said at the time. “So I feel it’s almost a waste of time talking about it every time. I have my opinions — they’re probably strong opinions, but PGA Tour, DP World Tour, no one’s going to do anything about it.”
Back to Sunday, then. While Fitzpatrick’s day was smooth — he fired three-under 68 en route to his first PGA Tour victory in nearly three years — Dumont de Chassart’s was less so. The 26-year-old Belgian’s opening tee shot flew out of bounds en route to triple-bogey 8 and he made a second 8 at the par-5 11th; his handling of the latter took such a long time that Fitzpatrick, who’d played out of turn in an attempt to keep their group on pace, took the unusual step of asking an official for help.
NBC’s on-course reporter John Wood said that Fitzpatrick was “perturbed” by Chassart’s pace, which he described as “glacial, to be kind.”
Rules official Orlando Pope confirmed on the broadcast that Fitzpatrick had spoken with an official and that the Tour had begun unofficially timing him; that eventually led to an official warning.
“Yeah, just, you know, just not ready,” Fitzpatrick said, referencing his playing partner, if not by name. He was drawing a distinction between making a high score — which happens and can inevitably slow up play — and playing slowly while doing so.
“When you’re not ready to play a golf shot it gets frustrating after awhile. Particularly when you playing well yourself or you’re in contention or whatever it is. It definitely knocks you out of your rhythm. Because you hit, you walk to it, you kind of think about it, you hit again, and you go.
“There in particular that hole, then you’re around a stretch there that can get a little bit quirky with different shots and stuff, so you have to be on it,” Fitzpatrick continued. “It definitely knocked me out of rhythm I felt like for the next two, three holes. I was kind of chasing my tail, because I’m trying to speed up and trying to keep us or get back in position, and at the same time you’re obviously trying to win a golf tournament.”
Fitzpatrick did ultimately win that golf tournament.
Chassart tumbled to T26 after a 74. Still, he avoided any slow-play penalty and improved from No. 97 to 91 in the season-long FedEx Cup standings.
It has been nearly nine years since the last time the Tour last issued a stroke penalty. The Tour announced several potential fixes early last season. Safe to say Fitzpatrick thinks those remain a work in progress.
But if given the chance, we doubt he’d change anything about Sunday’s winning round.
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