Harambee Stars goalkeeper Farouk Shikhalo is currently in the hunt for a new club after being released by Tanzanian top-flight side Kindondoni Municipal Council FC (KMC) after his contract at the team came to an end.

Back in August 2021, the Kenyan international had joined KMC from Tanzanian heavyweights Yanga SC on a one-year contract but after the expiry of the short-term deal, the club has opted to release the former Bandari goalkeeper.

“Asante Farouk Shikhalo. Tunakutakia kila la kheri katika majukumu yako maya. (Thank you, Farouk Shikhalo. We wish you all the best in your new endeavors,” the club posted on 3 August 2022.

The custodian also confirmed his exit from the club as he bid farewell to the Mainland outfit with reports heavily linking him with a return to the Kenyan top-flight league where reigning champions Tusker are said to be interested in his services once again.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank the entire KMC family, which has been part of my life in Tanzania for the last one year. It was a great pleasure working together for the said period and I want to wish you well for the future,” he posted on his official Instagram page.

Shikalo started his career with former Kenyan Premier League side Muhoroni Youth. He featured for Muhoroni for one season before he moved to sign for Ushuru FC, formerly Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

His stint at Ushuru did not last a season, as FC Talanta snapped him up in 2013 and after one season, he signed a three-year contract to join Tusker. He later rejoined Muhoroni and then moved to Posta Rangers in 2017.

His next stint was at Coastal side Bandari, whom he signed for in 2018 and played for one season before current Tanzania’s Mainland Premier League champions Yanga SC acquired his services in 2019 where he played for one season before transferring to KMC after his contract expired in June.

Shikalo was part of the Kenya team that participated in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt where Harambee Stars failed to go past the group stage. He was included in the Harambee Stars squad that took part in qualifiers for the postponed 2021 AFCON tournament that took place in Cameroon.

The Kenyan international will be hoping to replicate his Golden Boot feat in his second full season at the club.

Lethal Harambee Stars forward Michael Olunga is set to kickstart his second full season in Qatar on Wednesday evening when his Al Duhail side welcome Al Wakra FC at the Education City Stadium for their first match of the 2022/2023 Qatar Stars League (QSL) campaign.

The Kenyan international, who finished his first full season (2021/2022) in the top-flight Qatari league as the top scorer with 24 goals, nine clear of his closest challenger, will be hoping to steer his team back to title winning ways after second placed finishes in the last two seasons.

In the new campaign, Al Duhail will also be under the stewardship of former Argentina legend Hernan Crespo who took over from Luis Castro who left the club immediately after leading them to cup glory in the 2022 Emir Cup.

Olunga will particularly be keen to work under the revered Argentinian forward who scored over 200 goals during his hey days representing River Plate, Parma, Lazio, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Chelsea and Genoa.

“I am happy to be part of this league and to be present in the State of Qatar. We have worked very hard during the last period, whether in the training we conducted here in Doha or in our external camp in Austria and we are ready as we want to make a positive start to this season in our first match.”

“I do not promise to win titles, but I promise you that we will be competitors for all championships, and the players are working hard every day because everyone respects Al Duhail’s identity and wants the team to continue to provide the technical level it was known for,” Crespo said ahead of the Al Wakra game.

Although the team will be without a majority of its players who have been called up to the national team, Olunga, Crespo and Duhail will be hoping to get their campaign off to the perfect start.

Twitter has shown that Manchester United legends Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire are the most abused players.

Both the Manchester United players received tons of abusive tweets over their performances.

On the basis of data collected by Ofcom shows that 2.3 million messages directed at Premier League players over the first five months of the 2021-22 season.

Ronaldo has got 12,520 abusive messages as per the data displayed by Ofcom.

On the other hand, Maguire has 8,954 tweets against him. The 60,000 tweets were dissected from the period of Aug 2021 stretching to Jan 2022.

The data found 60,000 posts deemed abusive, with 68% of players in the top flight receiving at least one message in that period.

Nearly three quarters of Premier League footballers received abusive messages with some of them receiving daily abuse.

This summer has seen Ronaldo search for a new club to play Champions League football in.

His agent Jorge Mendes has spent most of this time trying to sell his client to Champions League teams from all corners of Europe, while simultaneously imploring United to let him leave.

But at 37, Ronaldo’s powers have waned to some extent and teams are starting to understand that his signing would be a liability rather than a prized opportunity.

Despite scoring over 20 goals last season, Ronaldo’s arrival meant that United, who had come second in the league the season prior after scoring 122 goals across all competitions, dropped their overall goal total by a staggering 52 goals.

Enough to not win a single trophy, crash out of the Champions League (a major reason why Ronaldo was brought back) and eventually not even making the Champions League for this season.

Napoli will no longer sign African players over fears of losing them to the African Cup of Nations, the club’s owner and president has said.

Aurelio De Laurentiis declared Napoli would no longer sign players from Africa unless they agree not to play for their nation during Afcon.

During a streamed event, the 73-year-old said: “I told them lads, don’t talk to me about Africans anymore!

“I love them, but either they sign something confirming they’ll back out of playing the Africa Cup of Nations, or otherwise between that tournament, the World Cup qualifiers in South America, these players are never available!

“We are the idiots who pay salaries only to send them all over the world playing for others.”

The declaration comes after Chelsea signed former Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly.

Koulibaly, 31, signed a deal with The Blues until 2026 in a transfer worth £34million last month.

The Senegal star, who will wear John Terry’s iconic No26 shirt, captained Senegal as they won Afcon for the first time ever.

This meant Napoli lost his services for the entire month of January and the beginning of February earlier this year.

Prior to De Laurentiis’ declaration, Napoli agreed a permanent deal to sign former Fulham midfielder Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa who represented Cameroon during Afcon.

The club also employ Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen, but the 23-year did not go to the tournament last season after the club announced he had come down with a bout of Covid.

In the Premier League Liverpool lost the likes of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane to Afcon, while other clubs such as Arsenal lost players such as Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny.

Dean Henderson has accused Manchester United of rowing back on a promise that he would be the club’s No 1 goalkeeper last season in an explosive interview. Henderson has joined Nottingham Forest on loan for the campaign and has claimed being forced to sit in reserve at Old Trafford last season was ‘criminal’. 

Henderson had emerged as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first-choice goalkeeper in 2020-21 but an injury meant that David de Gea started the season. The 25-year-old failed to make a single Premier League appearance last term. 

De Gea played in the majority of the Red Devils’ matches across all competitions, with Henderson featuring just three times in the cups. He has now candidly explained that he wasted a campaign after rejecting several loan moves in the summer of 2021, insisting he had been promised he would start. 

“I turned so many good loans down last summer for that reason (being told he would be No 1), and they wouldn’t let me go. It was frustrating. To sit there and waste 12 months is criminal really, at my age. I was fuming,” the former Sheffield United loanee, now on loan at Nottingham Forest, told talkSPORT.

Chelsea have made a bid in the region of £50 million for Brighton & Hove Albion defender Marc Cucurella, according to Fabrizio Romano.

The Blues have already agreed personal terms with the 24-year-old as they look to bolster their defensive rank this summer.

The Spanish defender has been a star performer in the Premier League since joining from La Liga outfit Getafe in a £15m deal last summer.

Cucurella’s string of impressive performances attracted heavy interest from league champions Manchester City, who saw their £30m bid rebuffed by the Seagulls.

He reportedly handed in a transfer request amidst interest from City but they are unwilling to meet the £50m asking price.

Keen on bolstering their squad ahead of the forthcoming campaign, Chelsea have swooped in and are now in advanced talks with the ex-Barcelona man.

The Blues have now tabled a staggering £50m bid to the Seagulls after agreeing personal terms with the marauding full-back, who picked up Brighton’s Player of the Year award last season.

The Spanish defender is reportedly keen on a move to Stamford Bridge, where he will face healthy competition from first-choice left-back Ben Chilwell, who joined from Leicester City for £50m two years ago.

However, the England international was out for most of last season after suffering a severe knee injury in November against Juventus in the Champions League.

With Marcos Alonso touted to join Barcelona this summer and Chilwell yet to hit his stride, Cucurella fits the bill for the London outfit, who are looking to close the gap on Liverpool and Man City.

His versatility underpins his overall brilliance as he can also comfortably play the left wing-back role in Tuchel’s preferred three-man defence.

Cucurella made 38 appearances for Potter’s men last season, providing two assists and grabbing his only goal for the club in May’s 4-0 victory over Manchester United.

Jacob Kiplimo used a devastating late kick to win the Commonwealth Games men’s 10,000 metres gold on Tuesday, stepping up in the absence of world champion Joshua Cheptegei to maintain Uganda’s domination of the event.

Opening night at Alexander Stadium was meant to be highlighted by Cheptegei defending his Commonwealth crown but the Ugandan world record holder opted out to better prepare for the remaining Diamond League races.

That left Kiplimo, the Olympic and world bronze medallist, alone to face the three man Kenyan threat of Kibiwott Kandie, Daniel Ebenyo and Edward Zakayo Pingua.

The Kenyans controlled the pace through much of the race until Kiplimo and Ebenyo broke free of the pack to reduce the battle for gold to a two-man fight with two laps to run.

Shoulder-to-shoulder entering the final bend, Kiplimo found another gear rocketing away down the last 100 metres, hands raised with enough energy to dance in delight as he crossed the line in a Games record time of 27 minutes, 9.19 seconds.

“I think for me winning this Commonwealth Games title was everything, the most important thing for me this season,” Kiplimo said.

“But I still have a lot of things to do in the future at the Olympics and world championships.”

Kenyans occupied the other two spots on the podium with Ebenyo securing silver and Kandie bronze.

With Kiplimo’s superb victory Uganda have now won the men’s 10,000m at every Commonwealth Games since 2006.