Tributes have poured in for Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling following his final Soccer Saturday show.
The 68-year-old marked his departure with an emotional farewell – which included the revelation that he had received a surprise phone call from Elton John.
Stelling said he was left “starstruck” when the legendary singer – once the owner of Watford football club – rang him at home to wish him well ahead of his final Soccer Saturday appearance.
“Elton John rang me this week,” Stelling said.
“Someone asked me the other day if I have ever been starstruck, and yeah… I was starstruck when Elton John rang me at home to say ‘thank you very much for all you have done’.
“He (Elton) said to me: ‘Every week I watch the show and every week you tell me Watford are losing, and every week you tell me Hartlepool (the team Stelling supports) are losing – so I feel like we are kindred spirits’.”
Following a celebratory montage and round of applause at the end of Sunday’s Soccer Special programme, Stelling joked: “Thanks for the applause. I mean this is tricky because I’ve changed my mind.”
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Stelling paid tribute to all those who work on the show, including the call centre staff, runners, production crew and commentators.
He said: “It’s a team game.”
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Stelling said his time at Sky had been “absolutely wonderful”.
He added: “It’s been the best job that anybody could possibly wish for.
“My wife Lizzie takes great pleasure in saying ‘you’re the luckiest man ever to take a breath’. And you know what, I don’t tell her this often but she’s right.”
Stelling ended the show by paying tribute to the viewers for their incredible support.
He said it was the “right time” to move on and give Sky Sports viewers a break from his “relentless rants, bad gags and over-the-top celebrations of Hartlepool United goals”.
Well-wishers took to social media to pay tribute.
Son Robbie posted: “Well done dad, so proud of you.
“You’ve put your heart and soul into the show and have no doubt left a mark on more than just the world of football.
“As a father and broadcaster, you have taught me so much about football and life.
“You are the best there has ever been.”
Piers Morgan tweeted: “Very few people get to leave a long-running job in TV whilst still at the absolute peak of their powers – but Jeff Stelling just did it.
“Thanks for all the fun, excitement, entertainment and incredible professionalism, Jeff – you’ll be greatly missed.”
Former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes tweeted: “Jeff Stelling… Do something you love and you will never work a day in your life. You have never worked. You are The Goat. Respect. Enjoy the next chapter.”
LBC presenter Iain Dale thanked Stelling for “hours and hours of tremendous sports broadcasting”.
He added: “Few people should ever be described as ‘total legends’ but Jeff really is one. Every football fan’s best friend.”
FootballJOE posted: “Twenty-five years of some of the best laughs on telly. Thanks for being the voice and face of football on a Saturday.”
Hartlepool United wished fan Stelling “all the best”, adding: “Our local hero.”
FC Halifax Town joked: “All the best in your retirement. You’re always welcome to Halifax vs Hartlepool next season, we will try not to call it off twice this time.”
NFL UK said “congrats on an incredible stint”, declaring: “You’ll be missed from our screens.”
On Friday, Prostate Cancer UK thanked Stelling for wearing the charity’s badge for the past eight seasons.
A spokesperson added: “You have shared our message to millions of football fans, many of whom have been at risk of prostate cancer.”
Stelling’s charity football march for Prostate Cancer UK will take place this September.
TV presenter Chris Kamara also posted an early tribute, describing Stelling as the “best broadcaster” he has ever met.
In the post on Thursday, he said: “I am getting my tribute in early because Jeff has been a massive part of my life and I love him to bits.
“One of the things I do miss is working with the maestro. There will never be another. You are ‘Unbelievable Jeff’ – and always will be.”
Stelling joined Sky in 1992. He was also the main host for the broadcaster’s live Champions League coverage between 2011 and 2015.
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Stelling announcing his decision to step down
Gary Hughes, Sky Sports’ director of football, previously said: “Jeff has been synonymous with Saturday afternoon football for decades, exciting and enthusing football fans everywhere.
“His unique broadcasting ability and passion for the game has made Soccer Saturday an unmissable fixture for fans and has won him a multitude of awards.
“Ms Gutierrez-Reed is requesting this court vacate her conviction and order new trial,” lawyers Jason Bowles and Monnica Barreras said, in an emergency motion.
“She is further requesting this court to release her pending further proceedings whether it be in this court or on appeal or writ.”
The court documents appear to have been filed on the same day that Alec Baldwin‘s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against the actor over the shooting.
In it, the actor’s lawyers accused prosecutors of “violating nearly every rule in the book” in acquiring the indictment.
Among the claims, it is alleged state prosecutors gave the grand jury instruction on involuntary manslaughter that “unfairly stacked the deck against Baldwin”, who was re-charged with involuntary manslaughter in January and will go on trial in July.
The Hollywood actor faces two counts of manslaughter, one for negligent use of a firearm and another for failure to exercise due caution – and faces a maximum of 18 months in prison if found guilty.
The 30 Rock actor has denied responsibility for Hutchins’ death, saying the gun went off without him pulling the trigger.
Hutchins died when a Colt. 45 revolver Baldwin was rehearsing with fired a live round that also wounded director Joel Souza during filming of the Western movie Rust.
Gutierrez-Reed will be sentenced on 15 April for the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison and a $5,000 (£3,900) fine.
Former glamour model Katie Price has been declared bankrupt for a second time over an unpaid tax bill of more than £750,000.
Ms Price, who was previously declared bankrupt in 2019, owes £761,994.05 to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), a court was told on Monday.
At a short hearing at London’s Rolls Building, Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Sebastian Prentis said Ms Price had not responded to HMRC over the debt, and declared her bankrupt.
“There has been no response from the debtor. The papers are in order,” he said.
“There is a substantial debt due from Ms Price to HMRC, and therefore I will make a bankruptcy order.”
The judge said the bill “derives from self-assessments from the year 2020-21 and from the year 2021-22” and includes income tax, VAT, surcharges and interest.
Ms Price did not attend the hearing, which came days after she was fined £880 for driving without a licence or insurance in Northamptonshire in August last year.
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In February, she was also ordered by a different judge to pay 40% of her income from adult entertainment website OnlyFans to trustees for the next three years in a separate dispute over unpaid debts, with the hearing told she was due to face questions about her finances in April.
She said in October last year she was “fed up” with being threatened with legal action and would go to prison to be “done with it all”.
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Speaking to TV personality Michelle Visage on her podcast, Ms Price discussed her bankruptcy and said she had recently been to court “more times than I’ve had hot dinners” and would “genuinely” not care if she was jailed.
In March 2023, she told Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show that people should not be “ashamed” of being declared bankrupt and she had been struggling with her mental health in recent years.
She also apologised to the court during an October 2020 hearing, saying: “I just haven’t been able to deal with these issues or in the right mental state to understand everything that has been going on.”
It followed years of accusations throughout his career.
He was served an additional year in prison on charges relating to indecent images of children and child enticement in Chicago last year.
Kelly – who was not present at the appeal – alleges that prosecutors failed to prove their racketeering claim or that he violated several women.
He also says he was denied a fair trial because several jurors prejudged his guilt, his lawyer provided ineffective counsel, and the jury was “swamped” by excessive evidence of other alleged bad acts.
Kelly was defended in the appeal hearing by lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, who began by disputing the definition of a RICO enterprise (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) and whether there has to be anything inherently illegal about such an organisation.
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Speaking about Kelly’s team of staff, and whether they were aware of “what happened behind closed doors,” she said that while “there were rules and things, [the staff] did these anodyne tasks that were perhaps a little unusual, but not that put them on notice that what was happening behind closed doors was illegal”.
When asked about staff’s specific knowledge of the age of girls recruited to come and see Kelly backstage, Ms Bonjean said: “I do not believe there was any evidence that the employee would book travel for someone who was in fact under the age of consent.”
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Kelly’s brief marriage to pop star Aaliyah
Representing the United States, assistant US attorney Kayla Bensing said Kelly “had a system in place that lured young people into his orbit, and then he took over their lives”.
She went on to describe women aged 16 or 17 invited by members of Kelly’s staff to come backstage, including one who she said was invited by Kelly’s bouncers to come backstage at a concert in Miami.
She said that was “three days after Kelly’s marriage to Aaliyah, in which he bribed a county official in order to hide or alleviate the consequences of illegal sexual activity”.
She also spoke about a former runner to Kelly, who described his girlfriends as “looking very young, specifically middle-aged teenagers”.
Ms Bensing also said there was evidence Kelly’s team knew he had been infected with herpes while having unprotected sex with his victims.
Claims of forced labour
She finally bought the claim of forced labour into the case, describing Kelly as “obtaining labour and services, here sex acts, through threats of serious harm or physical restraint against the victims”.
In her three-minute rebuttal of the argument, Ms Bonjean said the forced labour counts “were premised on a single act,” adding, “so unless the court is prepared to say that a single act of oral sex, even if it’s forced, frankly constitutes forced labour, that is just making federal law co-extensive with state law”.
She also said the government was taking the position that “a RICO enterprise cannot not be rooted in criminality,” which she described as “unique” and “not supported” by previous cases.
The judges will now consider the appeal, and will issue a written decision at a later date.
Under his current convictions, Kelly, who is 57, will not be eligible for release until he is 80 years old.
Kelly rose from poverty to become one of the world’s biggest R&B stars. He became known for chart-topping hits including I Believe I Can Fly, Bump ‘N’ Grind and Ignition.
Although abuse allegations began circulating in the 1990s, widespread outrage followed the #MeToo reckoning and the 2019 series Surviving R Kelly.