In Monte Carlo – where wealth is flaunted on Saudi scales – the powerbrokers of European football gathered to party and to plan the season ahead.
Publicly, many were dismissing any threat to the global supremacy of their competitions from the rising force.
But power is undeniably shifting.
The footballing landscape is being reshaped by Saudi Arabia, while some seem in denial about the heft of football’s new disruptors.
A turbo-charged spending splurge has enticed £700m of male talent from European clubs this summer alone to add a sheen to their state-funded clubs.
And there is still another week of the transfer window in the Gulf nation to go.
Another week to perhaps persuade Liverpoolto part with Mohamed Salah if a fee of £150m proves too hard to resist – having already sold captain Jordan Henderson.
Perhaps only a Premier League could sacrifice such a windfall – even for the man relied on for goals.
Only England’s top division has outspent Saudi clubs in this transfer window, with their transfers’ totaliser ticking over £2bn for the first time.
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Few have done more transfer trades at more Premier League clubs than Damien Comolli – one of the game’s most experienced club executives.
Encountering the former Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham executive on the sidelines of the UEFA gatherings, he was in no doubt about the resolve in Riyadh to make a success of it.
Is that a threat to the Premier League?
Mr Comolli told Sky News: “I definitely do. I think people who deny it are either lying to themselves or they are a bit blind.
“But they’re here to stay and I think they’re going to invest more and more money, be more and more competitive, and be more and more aggressive.”
He does think players still relish the chance to play in the Premier League or at the giants of the continent in Spain and Germany.
But then Saudi Arabia could prove irresistible.
Mr Comolli, currently president of French club Toulouse, said: “All the big clubs in Europe have got a challenge on their hands with the financial power of the Saudi clubs… which could have an impact on the Premier League.”
Those who have witnessed the growth of the Premier League are more cautious about readily ceding the standing as the world’s No 1 domestic competition.
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber told Sky News: “You never know what’s going to happen in the future.
“But I think at the moment, the Premier League’s brand, the quality of the clubs we have, the names of those clubs, just the respect that English football has around the world, I think the Premier League will continue to be the flagbearer for many years to come.”
And Brighton are now preparing for their first ever foray into a European competition.
Speaking after Friday’s Europa League draw, Mr Barber said: “We’d all like to be more sustainable and even more profitable.
“But that’s tough when we’re competing in the world market for the best players. But hopefully this summer transfer window will show again that the Premier League will be even stronger.”
A Deloitte tally – provided to Sky News on Friday early evening – had the Premier League spending on £2.2bn. Italy’s Serie A was on £720m, France’s Ligue 1 on £678m, Germany’s Bundesliga on £630m and Spain’s La Liga on £352m.
These are leagues that will benefit from the Saudi bailout as cash is unloaded on clubs to part with their prized assets.
The Saudis are seen to some as the destabilising clubs in Europe as sport is used to distract from the kingdom’s human rights violations and reshape the country’s image.
This has been a summer transfer window – but it is one still dominated by the wealth of English clubs.
But for how much longer with the Saudis determined chip into the dominance of Europe funded by their oil wealth?
“I think you’ve got to take any competition for your players and your talent seriously,” Mr Barber said.
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You can’t drive into Paiporta, a suburb about 4 miles to the southwest of Valencia, so we cover the final mile by foot. For most of the walk, we pass past fruit groves. The sun is getting warmer.
It could be a normal day. Except then you arrive in the town, and normality has gone.
We turn a corner and find a road that has been wholly blocked by a wall of cars, thrown together.
To the side, a family is wading through their garage, which is under three feet of water.
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All around is a bizarre medley of debris. Most of it is coated in thick, sticky mud that clings to everything – the road, your clothes and all these chunks of everyday life that have been swept away and mixed together.
So there is a child’s shoe, a beer chiller, a jumper, a corkscrew and a lump of an engine block. All of them muddled, muddy and sad.
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“We have to clean,” says the woman, staring at the endless water in her garage. Her son is wading in, pulling out possessions.
There were three motorbikes in here, two of them new. All of them are ruined. Everything in sight is ruined. But they know they are lucky.
Down the road, on the other side of the wall of cars, they knew a couple who were in their car when the flood water came, with shocking speed.
They both died – two of forty people who are known to have died in this town so far.
The damage is utterly random. A car lies, absurdly, on top of a children’s slide. Paving stones lie in a pile while front doors flap open, offering a view of homes that have been engulfed by water and mud.
Outside, there are people trying to push the water away, using brooms and shovels.
Down the road, we visit Catarroja, normally a pretty town that welcomes plenty of tourists.
Now the main high street is covered in pebbles and as we drive in, we have to gingerly avoid holes in the road, industrial dustbins that have rolled into the street, and a long line of crumpled vehicles.
Everywhere we go, in fact, it is the cars that are the symbol of these floods – tossed around carelessly, thrown into gardens, into a playground, into rivers and streams, on top of each other and into houses.
They are smashed, upturned, filthy, and broken, and the cars have, in turn, broken so much else. When the water rushed through these towns, it picked them up and used them as weapons.
A woman walks past, pleading with me to tell the world that they have no water and no food. Everything has been cut off and the shops are shut.
Half an hour later, I see her and a friend walking along the street with a shopping trolley loaded with food, arguing with other people. They have, quite clearly, helped themselves to what they needed.
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Across the road, half-wedged in a tree, is a boat. We are a decent way from the sea, and nobody seems to know whose boat it is, or where it came from.
But there it is, a symbol of how this flood created such instant discordant chaos.
We meet Veronica, walking along with her two children. She is taking them to a grandparent, whose house is out of town.
She tells me that they had precious little warning before the flood hit – merely a request earlier in the day to take children home from school because there was a storm on the way.
“One minute there was just rain and then there was two metres of water,” she says.
“It was very scary. People have been hurt and some people have died. Now we have to help each other to repair this town.”
She looks around. “It will take a long time.”
There are happier stories, tales of survival and courage. Three young girls come to talk to us in the street, showing us a video of their father rescuing a man from the water at the very moment their road had turned into a churning river (VIDEO AT TOP).
The man, a local called Luis, is being swept along, desperate to survive.
Their father, leaning out of the window of the family’s apartment, has thrown down a rope and is clinging on.
As we watch, you can hear the screams of the man and the encouraging shouts of the onlookers.
Slowly, slowly, he is pulled out of the water and clambers over a balcony to safety.
The girls burst with pride; their father, clearly, saved this man’s life. In the midst of this horror, there are shards of valour and joy.
A teenager who broke into the home of a British mother in Australia – where another teen stabbed her to death – has been cleared of murder.
Emma Lovell, 41, was killed in North Lakes, Queensland, on Boxing Day in 2022 while fending off two intruders.
In May this year, the teenage attacker who pleaded guilty to her murder, was jailed for 14 years.
The second teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, did not stab anyone but was also charged.
Following a three-day judge-only trial at Brisbane’s Supreme Court, Justice Copley found the second teen not guilty of murder and the lesser offence of manslaughter of Ms Lovell and not guilty of malicious acts with intent in relation to her husband Lee, who survived the attack.
He was found guilty of burglary and assault.
Ms Lovell, a mother-of-two who had emigrated to Australia from Ipswich in 2011, died of a single stab wound to the heart.
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The case against the second teen centred on whether he was aware his co-defendant was carrying a knife at the time of the break in.
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CCTV footage reportedly shown to Justice Copley saw the pair approaching the Lovell family home. The second teenager is believed to have turned around to look at his co-defendant who was holding the weapon, according to Australian broadcaster ABC News.
But the judge ruled that the evidence does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the second teenager knew about or had seen the knife when they entered the property.
Mr Lovell said outside court that he was disappointed with the outcome of the trial, and according to ABC, he told reporters: “We’re the ones left with a life sentence now, and everyone carries on what they’re doing.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers have won baseball’s World Series for the second time in five years but the celebrations were marred by looting and violence.
The Dodgers took the title by beating the New York Yankees 4-1 in the best-of-seven final in New York on Wednesday night, US time.
But soon after the match ended and jubilant Dodgers fans spilled on to the streets to celebrate, there were reports of a bus being set on fire, shops being looted and fireworks thrown at police in scenes of “absolute chaos” in downtown LA.
At around 10.45pm, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said it received reports of “looting at several stores in the area of 8th and Broadway”.
Ordering people to “leave the area immediately” on X, the force reposted a video of looters raiding a Nike store where a door had been removed so thieves could get in.
Several dispersal orders were issued for different locations in the city, including in streets close to the Dodger Stadium in the Elysian Park area.
A bus was set on fire as part of the disorder.
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Eyewitness and LA resident Taylor Rosa, 27, told Sky’s US partner network NBC News it was “absolute chaos”, as people “got out of control and started looting and jumping on top of a bus”.
Among the comments on Instagram were “damn embarrassment” and “they act like the Dodgers lost”.
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As Betts leapt at the wall and caught the ball, one fan grabbed his glove with both hands and wrenched the ball out, as another grabbed Betts’s other hand.
They were thrown out of the game and banned from the next one.
The last time the Dodgers won the title, in 2020, the season was shortened by the COVID pandemic, which prevented them from staging a victory parade.