Former Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is expected to attend next week’s Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain, marking his first appearance at the Etihad Stadium since departing last summer.

His visit coincides with a turbulent period for the club, which were found guilty of multiple Premier League financial rule breaches following a long-running investigation – a decision City have appealed. The club deny all the charges against them.

Guardiola, who steered the club to six Premier League titles and a Champions League during a decorated decade in charge, publicly backed City’s board and supporters after the ruling, stating he remains entirely behind the team.

He is expected to be in attendance on October 14 when Enzo Maresca’s side takes on Paris Saint-Germain, shortly after City resume their domestic campaign away at Liverpool, live on Sky Sports.

Lineker urges Manchester City to ‘own it’ and accept punishment

Gary Lineker called on Manchester City to “own” and “accept whatever punishment” they are given for the “good of the game”.

City have been accused of breaking financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18. An independent commission concluded that more than £830m of owner funding was used to inflate revenues and enable the club to comply with Premier League and UEFA regulations through a series of “sham” arrangements. The club have protested their innocence and appealed.

“Obviously, it looks really bad for Manchester City, and bad for the game, too,” former England captain Lineker said.

Sunday 11th October 4:00pm


Kick off 4:30pm

“When they talk about the ‘Premier League conspiracy theories’, you just think to yourself, ‘well, this is actually the last thing in the world that the Premier League would want’.

“So, I’d love to see Man City now just own it and just say, ‘okay, we got it wrong but for the good of the game, we’ll accept it and we’ll accept whatever punishment comes our way and we’ll carry on’.

“That would be a blessing and save their face a little bit at the moment, although it doesn’t look likely.”

Pressed as to whether City should be stripped of the three league titles they won during that period, 65-year-old Lineker, who was speaking at a Leaders Week conference at Stamford Bridge, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes down that route. But who suffers from that? The players and the fans.”

Meanwhile, Kyle Walker, who spent eight years at Manchester City – winning the Champions League as well as 12 major domestic honours – before his departure in 2025, said the players will always have the memories of their achievements “whatever happens”.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Burnley right-back Walker said: “Obviously it doesn’t look great. I know it’s in an appeal stage so, for me to start commenting on the legal action and everything like that, probably it’s not going to do myself justice or anyone involved in it.

“But, at a personal level, I can say the lads, we spent many and many a great year celebrating many trophies and that’s something that, whatever happens, they can’t take away from us because we’ve experienced them nights.”

Walker admitted it is not an easy subject for former City players to discuss.

The 36-year-old added: “It’s something that we probably don’t want to talk about because we want to be looked upon as winning them trophies and winning them the right way.

“It’s very difficult because we’ve worked very hard for them, and not just us, I look at the fans that have travelled up and down the country, travelled abroad to Istanbul when we won the treble, and they deserve that night as well.”

A City statement released last Friday read: “The club’s firm position is that, on multiple grounds, the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.

“The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions relating to this case.”

South Africa fast bowler Kagiso Rabada misses out on ‌the first Test of the three-match series against Australia in Durban as he continues to recover from a hamstring injury suffered in June.

Naming their side for the series opener, which starts on Friday – live on Sky Sports Cricket from 7.30am (play starts 8.30am) – South Africa have instead opted for two spinners, Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj, while Anrich Nortje is a surprise selection.

Rabada trained with the team at Kingsmead on Thursday, and it’s hopeful he’ll still have a part to play in the second and third Tests, the first of which in Gqeberha starts on October 18.

“It ‌wasn’t an easy decision,” South Africa captain Temba Bavuma said on Thursday. “I think we did go the conservative route, to give him a couple ​of extra days to get closer to where he can be at 100 per cent fitness.

“Obviously for us, as ⁠soon as he gets the green ⁠light from the medical team, we expect him to be in the starting lineup.”

As for the recall of 32-year-old pacer Nortje, more than three years since he last played first-class cricket, Bavuma said: “It’s hard to ignore his X factor.

“There aren’t many guys around who are bowling 150 (kph) plus. And I think as a batter that’s not something that I ⁠would look forward to.”

Bavuma added on the selection of both Harmer and Maharaj: “Those ​spin twins, if I can call them that, have added another ​dimension to our bowling attack.

“As much as we’ve always been about ⁠fast bowling, when conditions have allowed for spinners to come into the game they’ve been able to play an effective role.

“If the conditions play that way, the whole team ⁠is confident in that they can put the ​opposition under pressure. I think there’s a healthy competition between them ​so that always helps.”

Australia toy with controversial selection of Maddinson

Australia, still yet to name their team for the first Test, are toying with their own bold selection and the potential recall of batter Nic Maddinson.

Maddinson played three Test matches for Australia in late 2016, averaging 6.75, with his career since stalled by injury, mental health issues, and then a testicular cancer diagnosis that sidelined him for most of last year.

As a result, the 34-year-old hasn’t played a first-class match since March 2025, but it was he who got the nod last week as a late addition to the touring squad due to injuries to Cameron Green and Josh Inglis.

Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden was critical of the call up, saying on the All Over Bar The Cricket podcast: “We are promoting the greatest pile of mediocrity that we’ve seen in a generation of cricket.

“And if we continue to lay that out and expect a bloke averaging 35 is going to average 55 in Test match cricket, then [selectors] George Bailey and Tony Dodemaide, you are dreaming.

“I will just put it that simply. You are frigging dreaming. You are piling up this dog s*** explanation and, in my opinion, disrespecting first-class cricket.

“You should be picking guys averaging 45 or more, and you can’t, because they don’t want to play. They don’t want to play this version of the game.

“Mitch Marsh is a good example. He is making millions of dollars playing cricket all over the world for franchises. This is the fundamental problem we have.”

Watch the first Test between South Africa and Australia live on Sky Sports Cricket from Friday (7.30am on air, 8.30am first ball). Get the latest Sky Sports deals or stream with no contract.

Lewis Hamilton has revealed Ferrari held a “huge discussion” to reflect on a strategic error at the Bahrain Grand Prix that he says “wasn’t good enough”.

Ferrari fitted both Hamilton and his team-mate Charles Leclerc with slick dry tyres at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which was being hosted in Malaysia and started on a wet track that the Italian squad anticipated would quickly dry out once the race began.

The decision was proven wrong as Hamilton fell from his starting position of second to almost the back of the field in the opening stages, with the 14 of 22 drivers that started on the intermediate tyre gaining a huge advantage.

Hamilton ultimately produced a stunning fightback to finish on the podium in third, but having fallen 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, reiterated his desire to see improvement from his team ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.

“It wasn’t good enough and we’ve had a huge discussion about it,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

“And we’re going to try and work on how we can come to a better conclusion more consistently in the future.”

Before revealing those talks, Hamilton had defended Ferrari from what he feels is disproportionate criticism the team receive compared to their F1 rivals.

McLaren also started the race in Sepang on dry tyres and suffered the same fate as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri slid towards the back of the pack.

“We do for some reason as a team get far more flack than anybody else,” the seven-time world champion said. “McLaren made the same decision and no one even said anything about it.

“You know, they made some excuse of some sort. McLaren made the same mistake and the same call.”

‘The call didn’t come from the strategist’

Hamilton also offered a specific defence of Ferrari’s strategists, insisting they alone were not responsible for the starting tyre choice.

He added: “It was ultimately a mistake but it’s not the strategists. I think, unfortunately, my strategy team gets the brunt of the (criticism for the) call.

“But in actual fact, the call didn’t come from the strategist. The call comes from collectively, us working together.

“(Team principal) Fred (Vasseur), (head of track engineering) Matteo (Togninalli), myself, my engineer, we make the decision together. And we discuss it and we put our input, we put all our ideas and information into the pot, whether that’s good or not…

“I went into the pit lane, I’m like, ‘it’s wet’. I go to the pit wall, I’m like, ‘it’s wet’. Come back to the garage, I’m like, ‘guys, we should be on the inters’.

“And then they all give a different perspective. And if you’ve got three people giving you a different perspective, you eventually get convinced by that. And you’re like, ‘OK, I’ll go with what you suggest.’ And that’s how you work as a team.

“And you hope three are more right than one. But in some scenarios, it’s the other way around. And you were right and your gut feeling was right. And then you’re like, ‘damn, I should have gone with my gut’. But everyone’s generally trying to do the best they can.”

‘We’re here to attack’ – Hamilton hopeful of Singapore chances

Hamilton is hopeful Ferrari’s car will be suited to the Marina Bay Street Circuit this weekend, with the track potentially providing the team with their best chance of victory over the final seven rounds of the season.

“I think with our car, it’s generally good on street circuits, particularly when there’s not particularly long straights,” Hamilton said.

“If you look at the last races, we were quick through corners, not so quick on the straight line. This is a high-drag circuit, so I’m hoping the advantage others have on those long straights kind of comes down a little bit and we can start matching them through keeping up with them on the pace, through corners.

“I think for us, it’s just making sure we’ve got a great, stable platform underneath us, particularly in the bumpy zones because it’s bumpy here.”

With Singapore hosting a Sprint weekend for the first time, meaning there is only one practice session before Sprint Qualifying on Friday, Hamilton believes quickly finding a strong setup will be crucial.

He added: “We’ve looked at Monaco, we’ve looked at Montreal, we’ve looked at Baku’s setup. We’re coming here and it is requesting something different.

“I’ve been pushing the car in a certain direction, and I think we are slowly making gains and improvements.

“We’re here to attack. Qualifying is key, and it would be really great if we could start tomorrow on the right foot and then just be attacking in qualifying, but we have to wait and see.”

Leclerc: Singapore layout seems good for us

Leclerc is also hopeful Singapore could present an opportunity for he or Hamilton to add to their sole victories this season, but is taking nothing for granted.

Ferrari failed to meet pre-weekend expectations when many considered them favourites for victory in Monaco and Budapest earlier this year, but claimed surprise victories when Hamilton won in Barcelona and Leclerc at Silverstone.

Asked whether Singapore represented Ferrari’s best chance to add another victory this season, Leclerc replied: “Maybe. It definitely is one of those tracks where the layout seems to be pretty good for us.

“Whether this will pay off or not… Budapest and Monaco were strong layouts for us on paper and it didn’t go well. Silverstone was a bad layout on paper and it went really well.

“I don’t know if it tells the full story but we’ll give our best. Historically we’ve been quite strong here but we cannot really rely on the past.

“We’ve got to do everything we can to be in the best possible situation. It’s also true that the tendency lately has been that we’ve been losing a bit of performance compared to the guys in front, so to win will be very difficult.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Singapore GP Sprint weekend schedule

Friday October 9
9am: Singapore GP Practice (session starts at 9.30am)*
11.30am: Team Bosses’ Press Conference
1pm: Singapore GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 1.30pm)*

Saturday October 10
9am: Singapore GP Sprint build-up*
10am: Singapore GP SPRINT*
1pm: Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying build-up
2pm: SINGAPORE GP QUALIFYING*
4pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday October 11
11.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Singapore GP build-up
1pm: THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX
3pm: Chequered Flag: Singapore GP reaction
4pm: Ted’s Notebook

*also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 is in Singapore for the last Sprint weekend of the season with track action starting this Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime