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How does Daniel Levy run Tottenham – and would he ever leave?

A popular chant among match-going Tottenham fans at the moment is: "I don't care about Levy, he doesn't care about me, all I care about is Kulusevski."

Prominent banners at the home defeat by Leicester last month read: "Our game is about glory, Levy's game is about greed" and "24 years, 16 managers, 1 trophy – time for change".

A crisis of about 30 separate injuries and poor form has left manager Ange Postecoglou exposed, irritable, and under pressure, with his side 14th in the Premier League and out of both domestic cups.

The debate about who or what is to blame for Spurs' struggles is going round in circles. Alongside Manchester United's failings and Manchester City's decline, it has been one of the narratives of this season.

Fan anger has again been aimed at chairman Daniel Levy – vocalised in persistent 'Levy out' calls from supporters both home and away.

Club sources told BBC Sport the protests are "hurting" Levy, who attends almost every game and sits stoically through the criticism.

Tottenham were one of the busiest clubs in the January transfer window, but that has not satisfied some fans who criticise a recruitment policy mainly focused on under-21 players with potential resale value, and who regularly accuse Levy of acting too slowly in the market and putting profits above success on the pitch.

A 'sit-down' protest – led by a smaller supporter group called Change for Tottenham (CFT) – is planned against Levy before Sunday's Premier League match against Manchester United.

Last week, the main fan group – the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust (THST) – released five core principles they want to hold Levy to account on.

Among those principles were demands to "commit to winning" with investment; "attract and retain talent" with competitive wages; "develop elite youth talent"; "lead with integrity" to be "financially sustainable" while "keeping tickets affordable"; and engage with fans.

BBC Sport has spoken to several people on and off the record to try to understand the fuller picture of Levy's Tottenham regime.

Some of the key points made were:

Levy will step aside when he feels it is right for Spurs and "every option is open" for different future ownership structures

He is "hurt" by protests, "hurt" by results, and has opted to sit through the 'Levy out' chants rather than hide away

An acceptance Spurs have not always spent well in the transfer market but belief that recent managers, including Postecoglou, have been backed financially

Club leadership feel they have come closer to winning more than just the 2008 League Cup in the Enic/Levy era having reached 15 semi-finals and six finals

Sources who have worked with Levy say he does not communicate well enough and suggest the executive team are too similar, hence occasional "own goals" on policies.

A banner asking for change was displayed at full-time after Tottenham lost at home to Leicester in January

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire says any discussion of Levy's tenure must be framed by Tottenham becoming the "most profitable club in Premier League history" because of the money their new stadium generates, a historically lower wage structure and a "degree of caution" on transfer spending.

He describes Spurs as a "superb cash-making machine" who have "outperformed any other club in England".

His figures show that from 2001 to 2023, Tottenham made £171m profit. Burnley were second on £159m, with Arsenal third on £105m

In the past decade, Spurs have the sixth-highest total wage bill in the Premier League (£1.6bn vs Man City's £2.9bn as the highest); the sixth-highest transfer spend (£1.3bn vs Chelsea's £2.8bn as the most); with the fifth-highest net spend over a similar period

Tottenham fans pay among the highest season ticket prices and matchday prices in the top flight

Levy has the highest chief executive pay of Premier League clubs that declare such data. In 2023, the most recent figures available, Spurs' highest-paid director – unnamed but assumed to be Levy – earned £6.6m.

Daniel Levy has been Tottenham's chairman since 2001

Club insiders describe Levy, 63, as "shy, quiet and hard-working" – and a man who loves the club and is affected by fan criticism. Multiple sources who know him have expressed respect for Tottenham's progress under his leadership.

One source with knowledge of the inner workings of the club, who wished to remain anonymous, said Levy can be "very ruthless" but "genuinely wants the best for Spurs".

They claimed some of the "own goals" – such as using thegovernment furlough scheme during Covid in 2020and more recently phasing outsenior concession tickets- are partly because Levy does not "surround himself with the best people".

They described the executive leadership and club board, which includes operations and finance director Matthew Collecott and executive director Donna-Maria Cullen, as "people too similar to him" who will "sit with their heads in their phones", rather than "people who make up for [Levy's] weaknesses".

The source said Levy does not successfully deliver his messages about caring for the club because he is not a strong public speaker and chooses to avoid it, adding: "One interview or being visible once a year is not a lot."

While Tottenham's football structure has changed frequently, including technical directors, managing directors and heads of football operations, sources say the club rigidly sticks to "Levy's philosophy and recruitment policy – to buy young players with promise who can add value".

Another source who has worked with Levy in the Spurs hierarchy, also speaking anonymously, backed his passion for the club and said the idea the chairman does not care because he rarely shows emotion is "nonsense".

They added that Levy is unrelenting – working "crazy" hours which can be tough and tiring for colleagues – and always wants more, something which can grate with people who do not like that style of leadership.

From the archive: Inside Levy's 20 years at Tottenham (2021)

Postecoglou unsure on future – but why do many Spurs fans blame Levy?

Is Postecoglou's style causing Tottenham's injury crisis?

Sources at the club believe Levy will step aside when he feels it is right for Tottenham.

They say he would not be motivated by vanity to stay on if there was an outright takeover – and the club remains open to investment with all future ownership structures on the table.

While Levy may be the focal point of protests, it was stressed that he is a minority shareholder of the club through his own family trust – and Enic, itself mostly owned by the Lewis family trust, remains the majority owner.

That means any change or purchase would need approval from the Lewis family, and there are other minority shareholders with a say.

During the current protests, the THST has expressed frustration but has not called for Levy to leave, unlike CFT, which is a smaller splinter group looking to apply pressure in internal fan politics and towards the club.

Other sources agreed the only realistic way in which Levy would leave Spurs would be on his own terms. He is the Premier League's highest-paid chief executive – earning an estimated £50m-plus over his 25 years in charge.

This week a Guardian article reported potential interest in Tottenham from an unnamed Qatari consortium, although sources with knowledge of Spurs' ownership situation played it down.

In 2023, when Paris St-Germain's owners Qatari Sports Investment (QSI) were exploring the possibility of a minority stake in an English club, Tottenham were one of the teams linked. Levy maintains a close relationship with PSG and QSI chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi.

One source added that Levy – a renowned negotiator famously described by Sir Alex Ferguson as "more painful [to deal with] than a hip replacement" – will demand a high price for Spurs given their elite facilities, brand, London premium and the revenue the club now generates.

Various reports in recent years have valued Tottenham at between £3.5bn and £4bn.

Chelsea were bought in a deal worth up to £4.25bn from Roman Abramovich in 2022 by a consortium led by American investor Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital. The purchase price was £2.5bn with a commitment to spending £1.75bn over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos bought a 25% stake in Manchester United for £1.03bn in December 2023 in a process which included a rival bid from Qatar's Sheikh Jassim, reported to be nearer to £5bn for 100% of the club.

Despite those huge sums, both clubs – unlike Tottenham – need major investment in their stadiums to unlock bigger commercial earning potential.

According to the first source, the period when Tottenham were building their new £1.2bn stadium, between 2017 and 2019, meant Levy was "all-consumed" and the board "left everyone to do their jobs".

Spurs secured Champions League football under Mauricio Pochettino for four successive seasons to 2018-19 – and were beaten in the 2019 final by Liverpool.

That source suggested Levy's approach – namely "open to conversations but set in his ways" – has meant a lot of people with off-field expertise have left Spurs over the years for more influential jobs.

Paul Barber was an executive director between 2005-2010 and is now Brighton chief executive; Michael Edwards was Spurs' chief analyst from 2009-2011 before leaving for Liverpool; FA technical director John McDermott was Tottenham's head of academy and player development until 2020; while EFL chief executive Trevor Birch was – very briefly – Tottenham's director of football operations, from September 2020 to January 2021.

It could be argued that many of these highly-rated executives enjoyed good careers at Tottenham before simply moving on – but the source claims they "left the building far too easily".

Another source to have worked closely with Levy at Spurs, again speaking anonymously, pointed out he has delivered "a core infrastructure that is probably the best in the world" and suggested that would give the club "an incredible foundation for future success – probably after Daniel's time".

They said it had taken Arsenal 10 to 15 years to get back to competing for titles and regularly qualifying for Champions League football after they rebuilt their infrastructure, with Levy having inherited a dilapidated stadium, old training ground and ageing squad.

However, the source suggested Levy has not yet got the "formula right" by employing the right head coach with the right players at the same time.

One criticism some fans have consistently aimed at Levy and Tottenham's executive board is a lack of understanding of what it takes to succeed on the pitch.

Levy, Collecott and Cullen have worked together for a quarter of a century – one source described them as "the Holy Trinity to an extent" – with the chairman known to be "loyal to people loyal to him".

They are supported at the top level by director of football administration and governance Rebecca Caplehorn and non-executive director Jonathan Turner.

The source said that in their experience at Tottenham there was no block on outside or different views, but it can be hard for newcomers especially those without an affinity to Spurs.

They added that Levy, Collecott, 56, and Cullen, 61 are "probably an unbreakable group" given their longevity and close relationships, but did stress they will not be at Tottenham forever.

It was suggested to BBC Sport that personal factors such as age and the trio's own health or the health of relatives could lead them to "re-evaluate".

Sources inside the club accepted the various backgrounds of people on Tottenham's board mean they know more about business than football, but pointed out that another six-person board – which includes chief football officer Scott Munn and technical director Johan Lange – sits underneath to advise on all football decisions.

They will have a major say on any managerial appointments, while transfers are led by Lange and only finalised by Levy – with Munn running the rest of the football operation.

Tottenham insiders accept they have not always spent well, and have made transfer mistakes in the past, but believe they have backed recent managers – including Postecoglou – and are happy with deals such as those for Dominic Solanke, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall.

It is also felt that raising profits to record levels is the only way Tottenham can compete with teams like Man City and Newcastle and their ownership models.

Spurs sources feel they have been close to winning more trophies than just one trophy in the Enic/Levy era – having reached 15 semi-finals and six finals – and the five other clubs in the 'traditional top six' are either richer or bigger.

"We don't make any apologies that we are trying to increase our revenue base to invest more in our teams if that means raising money through concerts to invest in the teams then I don't apologise at all," Levy said at September's fan forum.

"We announced with our last results that we believe this club needs a bigger capital base because we've got a lot of exciting projects on the horizon and we want to make further investment in the teams. Some form of minority investment is what we're looking for."

In a further defence of Levy, one source pointed to fan discontent at Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke in 2019 and 2021, as well as Manchester United's 12 months of troubles under new co-owner Ratcliffe.

They believe a "vocal minority" of fans simply want success now, but should be careful what they wish for with calls for change.

They added: "Spurs haven't got the formula on the pitch just yet but it will come."

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'I signed Barcelona deal – then had a stroke at 24'

As England and Barcelona goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck sips her flat white in the Spanish sunshine outside her favourite coffee shop, she looks like a player who has the world at her feet.

But this is a very different picture from 12 months ago.

Last February she was told that, at the age of 24,she had suffered a strokeand was left fearing she would never play football again.

"I'm lucky because I should have lost my vision," she tells BBC Sport. "I should have lost my peripheral vision for sure. The majority of people that suffer a stroke [like mine] do that. So, I probably should have been blind, which is quite a miracle that that didn't happen."

Roebuck was part of the Lionesses squad that won the Euros in 2022 and reached the World Cup final in the summer of 2023. But the former Manchester City keeper could never have predicted that six months after that match in Sydney, her world would be turned upside down.

This is Roebuck's story – one of sport's remarkable comebacks.

I could have lost my vision – Roebuck on stroke

After returning from World Cup duty in Australia, Roebuck's season did not go to plan at Manchester City – a club she had been at since the age of 15, making her debut as a teenager in 2016.

The Sheffield-born keeper found herself frozen out of the first team and did not make an appearance in the first half of the season, but she was also struggling off the pitch.

It was around Christmas 2023 when Roebuck first started to feel like something was "not quite right", although she could not work out what it was.

She felt nauseous, dizzy, fatigued, a bit off balance and her eyesight started to be affected with black dots impairing her vision.

A ball had hit the back of her head in training, nothing unusual for a goalkeeper, so her symptoms were put down to that.

She was treated for concussion at her club but as January progressed Roebuck was certain it had to be something else.

"I knew it wasn't concussion," she said. "I've had concussion. I just knew something wasn't right. I said 'for my peace of mind I need a head scan, something is not right and I know it'."

When she got the call from the club doctor a couple of days after the scan asking her to come in immediately, she knew it was not going to be good news.

"It filled me with panic, but I never had in my mind that it was a stroke.

"He sat me down and was like, 'you've had an infarct in your left occipital lobe'. I asked 'what's that in English?' And then he said it was a type of stroke."

A stroke happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off. That can lead to paralysis and in some cases, death. The occipital lobe is the visual processing area of the brain and a stroke in this area can cause an array of visual impairments.

Roebuck adds: "My first question was 'am I going to play football again?'"

Ellie Roebuck earned her last England call-up in October 2023

At the time no-one could give her an answer, and the timing could not have been worse as the diagnosis came just two weeks after she had formalised her exit from Manchester City by signing a pre-contract with European champions Barcelona, before a move in the summer.

But she quickly realised her worries went beyond football as she was sent straight from her appointment to accident and emergency for treatment.

"I was sat in A&E with all the people on a Thursday night that'd been out drinking. They'd come in with their cuts and bruises and I was just sat there [thinking] 'what is happening?' And then I got taken to the stroke ward which was something that I'd never really want to remember.

"You're in there with people that I thought were 'normal people' to have strokes – older people. It was just a crazy experience."

Because tests showed her stroke appeared to have happened three to four weeks earlier, there was little the hospital could do and she was sent home that night.

"The nurses said you can't carry shopping for six weeks. You can't do any exercise. I thought, 'I'm a professional footballer, I can't do that'."

Roebuck was not allowed to train for 12 weeks and was left to pick up the pieces, trying to figure out what had caused the stroke and constantly fearing it would happen again.

"I wouldn't walk my dog for like six weeks. I wouldn't leave the house. I was scared to do anything on my own. And that was never me, I was always super independent. My mum and dad were doing shifts of living with me in my one-bedroom flat in Manchester."

She underwent numerous tests in order to find out the cause of what had happened and eventually a tiny hole in her heart was discovered.

"[It] sounds crazy, but I was grateful that I had a hole in my heart because I'd found my reason and I knew that it could be closed and I could move on. I was almost excited that I was going in for heart surgery."

In surgery the hole was identified however a membrane had formed and doctors believed it had closed up by itself which left Roebuck frustrated again as it meant she would never fully understand what caused her stroke.

"You've almost got to think you've been given a second chance, but I'm also so angry that it happened, because I think 'why?'"

With a dream move to European heavyweights Barcelona on the line, Roebuck initially kept the news of her condition from her City team-mates.

She admits it was a lonely time, but she found support from two sportsmen who had been through similar experiences.

One was NFL Superbowl winner Tedy Bruschi, who had two strokes during his career. The other was former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, who suffered a serious head injury during a game in 2006.

"I had a call with him for about two hours and it was amazing. Although it wasn't directly the same, it was someone I could relate to going through a similar thing.

"He touched on things that nobody else got. No matter how many times I tried to express myself, I couldn't. Nobody could relate to what I was going through.

"He is now a good friend of mine. He came to watch me train the other day in Barcelona. So, there are positives to come out of it – the new relationships I've formed."

Ellie Roebuck played alongside the likes of Jill Scott, Keira Walsh, Steph Houghton and Izzy Christiansen early in her Manchester City career

Roebuck did not play for Manchester City again after her stroke but she was able to complete her dream move to Barcelona in the summer.

Yet she says the way her final season was handled at a club where she made more than 100 appearances left her confidence "diminished".

"I just felt like maybe my relationship with the manager [Gareth Taylor] got fractured.

"I don't know whether that was me, maybe not hearing the clear communication or the fact that there just wasn't clear communication.

"I got my head down and I just tried to work every day, but I think it was a badly managed situation. I've always been professional. I just felt like the respect wasn't reciprocated in that same sense."

Roebuck says that while she was "devastated" to leave City, it made joining Barcelona, who have won three of the last four Champions League titles, a very easy decision.

However, she admits that her first training session with the club after six months out was a lot more difficult than she anticipated.

"After coming back from having a brain injury and then saying you've got to dive at someone's feet, it's not the prettiest. But I had to get through it.

"Barcelona showed trust in me and for me, that was more important than anybody saying you can have a starting role. It's the fact they showed confidence in me, and they wanted me here and they want to improve me.

"The girls are amazing. The top three Ballon d'Or nominees are all in this changing room and it was a shock how nice everybody is, it's crazy to me. I've never been a part of a team other than the England team that's like this.

"So, for me it's a perfect fit and I enjoy going in every day."

Now 25, Roebuck made herBarca debut in December in a 4-1 win over Real Betis,303 days after her diagnosis and more than 18 months since her last appearance.

"Everyone expected me to be nervous, but I felt fine the moment I stepped out there. That's the kind of the mantra I'm going for, every time I get that opportunity, I just want to enjoy it."

Ellie Roebuck is competing with Spain goalkeeper Cata Coll for the number one jersey at Barcelona

Roebuck says that while she thinks about the stroke every day and still battles symptoms like fatigue, she is very much focused on the future. And that also now includes her coffee bean roasting company.

"I feel like I value life a lot more. I was stuck in a real cycle of thinking football was everything.

"And I think for that period of time where I didn't know if I could be a footballer, it made me realise, you have to find something else. And that was hard because my whole personality was Ellie the footballer.

"I didn't know if I was going play again so it was just a great way to channel my energy and have that focus to distract myself. It's a perfect way to start and eventually hopefully one day the aim is to have a coffee shop.

"The biggest struggle is becoming a normal human again but luckily I've nearly been able to do that."

Roebuck, who has 11 England caps, says representing the Lionesses has always been the "highest privilege" in her career but that her comeback may have come too late for a recall in time for this summer's Euros.

"It's difficult because that's something that's not in my hands as such. Nothing is given. I know that's not an easy journey. And I know that I need to be playing consistently week in, week out, but for me it's more than that, it's a journey that I'm on.

"Now I'm prioritising the things that are most important, and that's being the best goalkeeper I can possibly be."

I was effectively homeless after getting sacked – Stoney

Casey Stoney was only meant to be returning to England temporarily last June for a funeral when she found herself stuck in the country, along with her family, unable to go back to their home in California.

Upon landing on British soil, the former England captain was informed by her agent that she had beensacked as head coach of NWSL club San Diego Wave.

"When I got fired, it terminated our visas with immediate effect whilst I was in the UK, pretty much rendering me and my partner homeless, with three children," she tells BBC Sport.

As she had been outside of the US when her sacking happened and her visa was dependent on her work, she had no way of returning without finding another sponsor.

That led to a turbulent few months for the 42-year-old, who was left questioning whether she even wanted to keep working in football.

Now the former Manchester United boss is taking on international management for the first time in her new role as Canada coach, and is finally back to doing what she loves – getting out on the training pitch and working with her players.

Former England defender Casey Stoney (right) joined newly formed club San Diego Wave in June 2021

Stoney, who won 130 caps for England and captained Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, had been in charge of San Diego Wave for nearly three years afterresigning as Manchester United managerin 2021.

The NWSL club were a new franchise when she became head coach and she led them to third place and then top spot during the first two seasons.

They twice reached the semi-finals of the end-of-season play-offs, which crowns the league's champions, but her third season had not continued on the same trajectory with just three wins after 14 games.

She saw the job as a long-term project. She had experienced a painful spell apart from her partner, Megan, and three children – twins Teddy and Tilly and youngest child Willow – when she first moved to the US but they had eventually resolved their visa issues, enabling them to be reunited, and set up their family home in California.

"It took 22 months to get them out there, we were 22 months apart, we weren't even out there a year [together] and I lost my job," she says.

"If I'm honest, I didn't think I deserved to lose my job either, so that made it even tougher, with the successes that we had, we just had a little dip. It wasn't even anything major.

"So to be treated in that way, after everything that had been done and sacrificed and everything that had been achieved, it was really, really hard to swallow on a personal level, but it was more what happened to my family.

"I have three young children, they were nine and six at the time, they didn't have a home. So that, for me, is inexcusable to do to a family."

The day her children were supposed to be back at school in August in San Diego following their summer break came and went, so Stoney took on home-schooling herself.

It was a period she describes as "one of the hardest times in my life".

She says: "It did make me question if I wanted to stay in the game because if the game chews you up and spits you out like that, after everything that we had sacrificed to be there, and after what I had achieved in a short space of time, and what we had achieved as a club, it did make me question the game.

"I got offers quite quickly after the announcement and I said no to all of them, whether they were right or wrong, because I wanted to take time. I needed to make sure I sorted our lives out.

"My priority was my family [and] how do we get back to San Diego."

Casey Stoney, whose former clubs include Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, walked out to a guard of honour with her three children before her final match as a player in February 2018

It took four months for the family to get new visas, based on Stoney's consultancy work, enabling them to return to the US and "our lives". They had relied on family in England to provide a roof over their heads in the interim.

"[The children] missed two and a half months of education. They missed a lot of their life during that time."

She also had a lot of time for self-reflection and took the opportunity to visit different clubs as she reassessed her priorities.

"It just helped me get to a point where I was ready to get back in [to football] and I was very keen to get back in. At first I couldn't have thought of anything less that I wanted to be involved in and it just took a bit of time to heal the wounds."

The ex-England defender was spotted at her former club Arsenal, who were looking for a replacement for Jonas Eidevall while she was out of work, while other Women's Super League clubs also had vacancies during that time.

But then along came the Canada job.

At first she was unsure whether she wanted to move into international football and leave behind what she "loves", which is working with players day to day.

Yet the initial conversations proved appealing and she found herself in a lengthy interview process lasting some three to four months.

"I really liked that it was extensive," she says. "It meant that their hiring process was thorough. I got to interview them as much as they interviewed me."

That included speaking to the manager of the men's team, former Leeds boss Jesse Marsch, who had already made the transition from club to the international game.

And she was impressed – by the organisation's leadership led by chief executive Kevin Blue, the culture of the team, and the talent of the players, plus Canada were happy for her to continue living in California if she took the role.

"When I interviewed for this job, Kevin was very clear that I didn't have to move," she said.

"That's been really, really beneficial for us as a family. I don't think people understand when you take on a head coach role, and I understand people say you're in a privileged position, but it's the impact on your family it has.

"I had young children that just didn't understand what was going on [when she was sacked] – lots of tears, lots of heartache, that I felt like I'd contributed to that, which was difficult.

"There were jobs open in the UK at the time when I didn't have a job. There were some I would have been interested in, some I wouldn't have been interested in, but as soon as I got involved in this process it became clear I was really interested in this [and] I was only committed to one thing."

Casey Stoney took charge of Canada for the first time in February, overseeing two wins and one draw in the Pinatar Cup in Spain

She is taking over a country who are ranked sixth in the world but have experienced their own turmoil.

During last summer's Paris Olympics, in which Canada reached the quarter-finals, two members of the team's coaching staffwere sent home for flying a drone over a training sessionheld by New Zealand, their opponents in a group game.

Their head coach Bev Priestman, another Englishwoman, wasgiven a year-long ban by world governing body Fifaand Canada – who had won Olympic gold at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games – were docked six points.

Priestman "did reach out and wish me luck" says Stoney, but they have had no other communication and the new Canada coach is keen to focus on the future, with the 2027 World Cup on the horizon.

She met the majority of her players for the first time over the last two weeks as Canada competed in a four-team tournament, the Pinatar Cup, in Spain, which they won following a 7-0 thrashing of Chinese Taipei, a 2-0 win over Mexico and a 1-1 draw with China.

"This team excites me," she says. "I do think they've got so much potential.

"What they were able to achieve last year in difficult circumstances shows what they're capable of, but there's so much more to come."

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Blood brothers – bonds and betrayal on a rugby pitch

Tom Williams, kneeling on one knee, runs his hand over the blades of grass. His eyes are desperately scanning as his heartbeat rises further.

It is deep in the second half of the 2009 Heineken Cup quarter-final at the Stoop. Williams' team – Harlequins – are a point down.

It is the biggest match the 25-year-old has ever played in.

Harlequins are aiming to make the last four for the first time. Trying to stop them are a star-studded Leinster team featuring the likes of Brian O'Driscoll, Jamie Heaslip, Rob Kearney and Felipe Contepomi.

The stakes are sky-high and time is tight.

But Williams has a more pressing concern.

"I had taken the blood capsule out of my sock, put it in my mouth, and then tried to chew down on it,"he remembers on Sport’s Strangest Crimes: Bloodgate, a BBC Radio 5 Live podcast that delves deeper than ever into one of rugby's most infamous scandals.

"But it fell out on to the floor. I'm red-green colour-blind. I can't see the thing on the floor so I am searching around for it.

"It's just the ridiculousness of it."

A few minutes later, everyone could see it.

LISTEN: Bloodgate – Sport's Strangest Crimes

Williams, having found the capsule and burst it between his teeth, was led off the pitch, with strangely scarlet blood streaming from his mouth, splattering on Quins' famous quartered shirt.

A blood injury meant Harlequins could bring their star fly-half Nick Evans, previously substituted, back on for a late drop-goal shot at glory.

Williams departed the pitch against Leinster accompanied by physio Steph Brennan, left, watched by the Sky Sports cameras

The convenience of Williams' injury raised eyebrows and suspicions.

"Who punched Tom Williams in the mouth, Tom Williams?" said former Bath and England fly-half Stuart Barnes as he commentated on Sky Sports.

Further along in the press box, Brian Moore was working for BBC Radio.

"What a load of rubbish. That is gamesmanship at best, downright cheating at worst," he said on air.

Down on the touchline, Leinster's staff were making a similar point, if in stronger language.

"As it was playing out [Harlequins director of rugby] Dean Richards was on the sidelines and I had a few words with him," says Ronan O'Donnell, the Irish side's operations manager.

"I'd probably have to bleep a few of them out. I just told him he was cheating and he knew he was cheating."

O'Donnell repeated his claim to one of the touchline officials.

"He showed me his fingers," remembers O'Donnell.

"He'd got some of the 'blood' on his fingers and it was like a Crayola marker had burst on his hands. It was that sort of texture and colour. He wasn't happy about it either."

Williams headed down the tunnel, surrounded by Harlequins staff. Members of the Leinster backroom followed in hot pursuit.

The truth went with them. But it didn't take long to emerge.

Bloodgate: The scandal that rocked rugby union

Richards was asked about Williams' apparent injury immediately after the match.

"He came off with a cut in his mouth and you have a right, if someone has a cut, to bring them off," he said.

"So your conscience is clear on that one?" persisted touchline reporter Graham Simmons.

"Yes, very much so," affirmed Richards.

The capsule was done, but the cover-up had begun.

Williams, by then, did have a cut in his mouth.

Locked in the home dressing room, while Leinster staff and match officials hammered on the door demanding entry and an explanation, he had pleaded with club doctor Wendy Chapman to use a scalpel to create a real injury in place of the fake one.

With the volume increasing outside, she reluctantly did so. A photo was taken as evidence to support Quins' conspiracy.

"We were trying to win and we thought nothing of it in terms of ethics," Williams tells Bloodgate.

"We thought we were just pushing the boundaries and doing what it took to try and get a result."

They had failed to do so on the pitch. A limping Evans had shanked a late drop-goal and Leinster hung on to win.

Soon, they needed to do so in a boardroom.

Three months after the match, Williams, Chapman, Richards and Harlequins physio Steph Brennan were sat in the plush offices of a central London law firm.

All faced misconduct charges. And a big screen.

The screen played television pictures which had never originally been broadcast.

They showed Brennan appearing to pass something to Williams as he went on the pitch to treat another player. Williams then appeared to fold the mystery object into the top of his sock.

And then finally, a few minutes later, the wing, kneeled, retrieved it and, after dropping it on the floor, placed it back in his mouth.

Together with the footage of him walking off the pitch, winking to a team-mate en route, it made a compelling case.

Dean Richards was a legendary player, winning 48 England caps and representing the British and Irish Lions, before moving into coaching

The club had its defence though.

Richards had co-ordinated their accounts.

Williams, they all claimed, had been retrieving his mouthguard from his sock. His mouth was already bleeding. Chapman had applied gauze to Williams' mouth, not a scalpel.

Richards called the charges against him and his club "ridiculous", claiming that fair play was "in-built" to his coaching.

Brennan, who had bought the capsule used by Williams from a fancy dress shop in Clapham, claimed never to have seen them outside of a Halloween party.

The panel presiding over the case were suspicious, but, with Quins' backroom staff sticking rigidly to their story, they couldn't unpick the full connivance.

"It was just so obviously a lie," says Williams. "I realised I was properly in trouble."

When the verdict came, it landed wholly on Williams. He was banned from rugby for a year. Richards, Chapman and Brennan were all cleared, with the club handed a 250,000 euro fine for failing to control their player.

WIlliams was, in the eyes of the adjudicating panel, a lone rogue agent.

Harlequins, united in both the crime and cover-up, were suddenly divided by a punishment that touched only one of their number.

Ugo Monye, right, spent the whole of his 13-year professional career at Harlequins

Williams, having supposedly brought disgrace on Harlequins by independently concocting the blood capsule plan, sought advice from the Rugby Players' Association.

They urged him to appeal, to blow the whistle on the whole plot.

But the club had other ideas. Williams was offered a new two-year deal, three years of guaranteed employment at the club once he had retired and a promise to help him build a career outside of rugby.

He just had to hold back on the real story. He had to be a team-mate once more. He had to protect the club that meant so much to them all.

The full extent of the plot, the complicity of the club's medical staff and coaches, couldn't come out.

"They said to me 'do you understand the impact of this decision you're about to make? If you come forward and show this, Harlequins will be kicked out of Europe, your friends' playing opportunities for their countries will be reduced, Steph and Wendy will be struck off, we'll lose sponsors we'll lose money'," Williams remembers.

"Playing rugby was all I wanted to do and all I felt that I could do.

"So I was stuck between coming forward and telling the truth and falling on my sword. And I didn't know what to do."

"I'd have taken the rap," Ugo Monye, Williams' team-mate at the time, tells Bloodgate. "With the deal that was supposedly being offered, 100%."

Harlequins were desperate to contain a toxic scandal. Banned and branded a cheat, Williams wanted to tell the truth, explain his actions and rescue his rugby dreams.

At one point, he asked for more money in exchange for his silence; £390,000 to pay off his mortgage and a four-year contract. Quins refused.

In a statement from the time Quins chairman Charles Jillings described Williams' demands as "exorbitant" and "shocking". He insisted that "under no circumstances was the financial proposal a reward for Tom's silence."

"I'd sunk to rock bottom," says Williams. "It was a catastrophic period from a personal standpoint."

And all the time, the clock was ticking.

Williams had one month to appeal against his ban, to go public and get his career back on track.

Two days before the window to appeal shut, an email landed in Williams inbox.

He wasn't the only one considering an appeal. The European Cup organisers too were unhappy that he was the only person found guilty. They knew there must be more to the case.

The chances of one young player coming up with such a scheme on his own and carrying it out in secret in the tight and tightly-controlled environment of a professional club were remote.

They wrote to tell Williams they were to appeal against Richards, Brennan and Chapman being cleared. They would call him as a witness, cross-examine him and, if he didn't comply, level a second misconduct charge at him.

"His face literally just went white," remembers Alex, Williams' girlfriend at the time, now wife.

A final summit meeting with the Harlequins hierarchy was called.

Tom and Alex drove to the Surrey home of one of the club's board. Drinks and snacks were laid out, but the conversation soon turned to business.

"We were going round and round in circles," remembers Tom.

"Harlequins were saying to me, if I fell on my sword, for want of a better term, they would guarantee me future employment, pay off some of my mortgage, pay for me to go on sabbatical and we'll guarantee my girlfriend's future employment.

"On the other hand, if I came forward and told the truth they said l would bury the club."

Frustrated, stressed and tired after three hours of back and forth, Alex excused herself for a cigarette break. As she stubbed it out and prepared to go back into the meeting, she saw Tom coming in the opposite direction.

He had given up. He would run away, leave the country, turn his back on rugby, start again – anything to get out of this situation.

Alex hadn't finished though. She wanted to ask one more question of the 13 men in the room.

"I remember the surprise on their faces when it was just me standing there," she says.

"I said 'I'm really sorry to bother you again, but do you mind if I just have you for a couple more minutes? I just want to ask you all individually one question'.

"I went round and I actually pointed to every single person and I just said, 'Is this Tom's fault?' And each of them gave a resounding no. Every single one of them."

"Alex humanised me again, because I had dehumanised myself, Harlequins had dehumanised me," says Tom.

"I was a pawn by that point, and I was ready to be moved in any way that anyone pushed me.

"She was the person from outside of this tight rugby centric-environment who could cut through that.

"She said what had gone on was not my fault – what had gone on was wrong – and made people realise that."

Then-Leinster coach Michael Chieka, far right in black coat, was keen to make his point to match officials as Tom Williams headed for the dressing room

Early the next morning, Tom got a phone call.

Richards had resigned. Harlequins said they would support Williams telling the truth and accept the fall-out.

The game was up. The cover-up would be uncovered. The truth would change lives.

At a hearing in Glasgow, Williams told the full story.

Richards admitted instructing physio Brennan to carry the blood capsules in his medical bag "just in case". He was judged to be the "directing mind" of the Bloodgate plot and banned from rugby for three years.

Brennan admitted buying the fake blood in advance and was described as Richards' "willing lieutenant". He was banned from the sport for two years and a dream job working with England, all lined up, was gone.

Harlequins' club doctor Chapman was referred to the General Medical Council. By cutting open Tom's mouth, she had contravened a central principle of medicine to "do no harm".

She said she was "ashamed" and "horrified" by what she had done, but she had an unlikely supporter.

Arthur Tanner – the Leinster doctor that day at the Stoop, one of those incensed by Tom's fake injury – spoke up for her.

"When it transpired that she had been forced and coerced into doing it I really felt very, very sorry for her because I realised there was going to be a difficult two or three years ahead of her," he said.

Tom, who had pleaded with Chapman to cut his mouth, also supported her, telling the hearing she is "as much a victim in all this as me".

"It's a huge regret of mine… putting her in a position where she felt she had no other option but to do it," says Tom.

Chapman was cleared to return to medicine.

Of the quartet though, Williams was the only one to stay at Harlequins.

At the first game of the following season, some opposition fans turned up dressed as vampires.

He was targeted on the pitch, with opposing players aiming taunts, and sometimes punches, at him.

There was no sanctuary in the home dressing room either.

"A number of my team-mates would have been loyal to Dean Richards and felt that I'd betrayed not only him, but also them as a club," remembers Williams.

"It definitely impacted them, there was definitely a level of distrust, probably dislike as well."

Williams became a quieter, sadder, slower presence. The zip was gone from his game, the smile was gone from his face.

It seemed he was just playing out his contract, an unwanted reminder of the past as Harlequins built an exciting new team under new boss Conor O'Shea during the 2011-12 season.

"I'd lost every morsel of confidence that I possibly could have had," remembers Williams.

"I wasn't in the team. I was just that person around training who had done something in the past."

But, after a starring cameo in a win over French giants Toulouse, something reignited in Williams' game.

The season ended with Harlequins winning their first Premiership crown in the Twickenham sun, with Williams scoring the first try in front of Alex and their young son.

"It's curious how sport works, how life works out," says Williams.

"You go from dead and buried to feeling the elation of being on top of the world."

Williams scored the opening try for Harlequins in the 2012 Premiership final

But you can also go in the opposite direction.

Williams played for Harlequins until 2015 when moved on to the coaching staff. In 2019, he left rugby to pursue a career in consultancy.

"About five years ago, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and I suspect that it came from this event," he says.

"I've been on medication ever since, and I struggle on a day-to-day basis.

"My initial impression is always to trust, and that got me in trouble in the first place – but it's how I operate best. I try and see the best in people.

"I try and see the best in everyone involved. And I wish them the best because there's no point holding on to it.

"Ultimately, it was a game of sport, but it did mean everything to me at the time.

"I wish I had the self-awareness and perspective I have now.

Tom Williams on the legacy of ‘Bloodgate’

"I am very, very happy now. I've got three children who are healthy and happy, and I feel like I'm building a life for myself that isn't identified by a moment in time in 2009."

Escaping the taint of what spilled from the capsule and cut that day has been hard for all involved.

Dean Richards and Mark Evans both declined to be interviewed for this podcast series. Steph Brennan did not respond to our requests, while Dr Wendy Chapman could not be reached.

The life, loss and legacy of Kevin Campbell

Kevin Campbell was the all-action, hard-grafting centre-forward who delighted football fans with great goals across a 19-year career at the top of the game.

Affectionately known as Super Kev at Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Everton, he developed a reputation as one of the hardest-to-handle forwards in the country, while his beaming smile and joyous celebrations made him one of English football's most popular characters.

"I think if you ask anyone who's ever been in the presence of him, they'll always remember him and speak about how good a person he was," says Campbell's son Tyrese, 25, who plays as a striker for Sheffield United. "He carried the whole room – you knew when he was in there because you could probably hear him.

"He was a respectful, happy, positive person. You could even say almost too good for this Earth. A proper angel sent from heaven."

In 2024 Kevin Campbell's life was tragically cut short after he suffered a serious illness, and an investigation was launched into concerns over his care.

After his inquest concluded on Monday, this is the story of Campbell's life, loss and legacy, told by those who knew him best.

The Life, Loss and Legacy of Kevin Campbell

Campbell will eventually raise his own family in the north-west, but is born in south London in 1970, the second youngest of seven children in a family with Jamaican roots.

"We were brought up by a single mother so resources were extremely tight," Campbell's younger sister Lorna says. "We used to play tennis against a back wall because we couldn't afford to hire a court. Kevin wanted to be in different football teams and it was a struggle for my mother to pay all the subs.

"We had three big brothers and he was never afraid to play football with them and their friends – he would just take them on. And this was on the mean streets of Brixton. That's when he came alive."

Kevin and his sister Lorna grew up playing sport together on the streets of Brixton

Campbell begins to feel unwell. His symptoms are generic – tiredness, loss of appetite, a decrease in weight.

Despite insisting that family and friends need not worry, in the following months he has multiple stays in hospitals in Greater Manchester. His appearance changes as he becomes visibly weaker. Doctors are unsure what is causing Campbell's symptoms.

According to an eventual inquest, he is discharged in March 2024 after "responding well to treatment".

World Football: The life, loss and legacy of Kevin Campbell

'He carried a whole room' – Family & friends pay tribute to Campbell

Campbell's natural talent means he is scouted by multiple professional clubs in London, and he chooses to sign a youth deal at Arsenal.

"When I joined Arsenal at 16, he was a young kid, about nine," says Paul Davis, a midfielder with the Gunners between 1980 and 1995. "That's when I started to hear his name – people saying 'this guy is scoring plenty of goals'.

"Then he came up to train with the first team. We see this big guy – six foot one, 17, wide, his legs are so thick and chunky. And everyone's thinking, 'Wow, no wonder he's scoring goals'. He was just knocking everybody over. We had people like Kenny Sansom, Viv Anderson – senior internationals – and when they saw Kevin coming over they would be like 'oh no' because they knew he would embarrass them in training.

"When I first came through I was the only black player at Arsenal. You've got to remember the culture of the country meant it was OK to tell off-colour jokes. So if you had somebody that was in the struggle with you, then it made it easier.

"Kevin would always challenge things in a way that didn't end up with a fight. He was able to do it and they thought, 'actually, should I be saying this, or should I be doing this?'"

Campbell was scouted by teams across London, but had supported Arsenal since his early childhood, and joined the Gunners as a teenager

Andy Cole, the fourth top goalscorer in Premier League history, begins playing alongside Campbell when both are coming through the youth ranks at Arsenal. The pair combine in a successful FA Youth Cup campaign, and become friends.

"Unbelievable strength and power," Cole says of Campbell's style. "He was quick as well. And to be fair Kevin didn't have to be aggressive, because the size of him meant people feared him anyway. I think everyone enjoyed playing with him due to the fact that he worked so hard for his team."

After making his first-team debut in 1988, Campbell wins two league titles as well as the FA Cup, League Cup, and European Cup Winners' Cup in a seven-year spell with the Gunners in which his joyous goal celebrations and gregarious character make him a fan favourite.

"Kevin had a larger than life personality," Cole says. "He could walk into a room and light it up – life and soul of the party.

"I remember one night Kevin took me out, we had a good laugh. Unfortunately for me I was in the next day and Kevin had the day off. We were doing stand runs at Highbury. Man, I couldn't raise a gallop.

"I remember [Arsenal youth-team coach] Pat Rice saw Kevin and said, 'Kevin! Did you take Coley out last night?' Kevin was like 'Pfft, nah, I don't know what you're talking about, Pat.' I was just laughing… if Pat ever knew."

Campbell's condition worsens and he begins a long stay in Manchester Royal Infirmary. He has lost over half his body weight.

Friends and family become aware that his illness is more serious than first believed.

His friend Jason Lavelle says: "When I went to see him, I met his brothers beforehand and they did prep me for the fact that he had lost a lot of weight, that he wouldn't look the same as what I remember him as. And that was the case.

"In my mind's mind I was still thinking 'this is Kevin, Super Kevin, and he is seriously ill but he is still going to pull through this."

Cole explains: "I got a phone call from someone saying 'Coles, just letting you know that Kevin's not very well'.

"I knew mentally I couldn't see him like that. I just… I couldn't bring myself to see Kev in that state after knowing him being fit, strong."

Eventually, the cause of Campbell's illness is discovered. He is suffering from infective endocarditis, an infection in the inner lining of the heart or its valves which affects one in 30,000 people in the UK.

"It's often very difficult to diagnose," says Dr Debbie Harrington, consultant aortic surgeon at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

"Often patients will present with very non-specific symptoms that have gone on for months. They won't necessarily be seen by a specialist in cardiology who is going to think of the right diagnosis."

"When we have problems where patients sadly don't make it, often it's because they get to us too late – that is usually the reason why patients don't survive.

"Overall in the general medical community I would say there is probably a lack of awareness of infective endocarditis – we know that it is actually on the increase. Definitely awareness is a big, big factor."

After leaving Arsenal to play for Nottingham Forest in 1995, striking up a lethal striker partnership with Pierre van Hooijdonk, Campbell spends a brief spell with Trabzonspor in Turkey.

But Campbell is racially abused by the club's president after signing, and seven months later moves back to the Premier League, joining Everton. There, he becomes the club's first black captain, scores crucial goals to keep the Toffees in the top flight, and mentors a young Wayne Rooney.

"He was an inspiration, really," Rooney says. "Everton were struggling for a few years and he galvanised the whole club.

Campbell's influence on a young Rooney had a marked impact

"He helped me a lot – always talking to me throughout the game. As a young player you're still learning, figuring out how to try and play the game, how to be in the right positions.

"You see him play, you see his strengths, but actually playing with him he was a lot cleverer than I thought he was. Back then it was big man, small man up front. Obviously he was the big man and I was running off him – I did a lot of running for him!"

Campbell sets up his own record label, 2 Wikid, and after playing for West Brom and Cardiff, he retires in 2007, embarking on a career in punditry and broadcasting.

Infective endocarditis can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed early. But the struggle for diagnosis in Campbell's case means the infection has worsened, leading to kidney issues, a stroke and eventually fatal multi-organ failure. He dies on 15 June.

"I was the one that got the call from the hospital to say that Kevin wasn't going to make it, that he was having difficulty breathing," Lorna says. "That was at five o'clock in the morning. Then it was my job to call the rest of the family and tell everybody the news. Those early days when Kevin passed were very, very difficult."

Kevin coached his sons Kyle (left) and Tyrese (right), before both went on to become footballers

Tyrese says: "Without saying it to each other, we knew it was coming. I'd say we prepared. We're our Dad's kids, so we've got his strength. We were relieved eventually when the day did come – he wasn't in pain any more and we were at peace with that. I knew he wouldn't have wanted to be that way and he could just rest."

Campbell's second son Kyle plays as a striker for Bootle FC.

"It's hard on the mind as well when you see someone so fit, so powerful, so loving, and you're looking at him like 'that's not him'," he says. "We never really lied to each other, never said 'he's going to come back perfect', because sometimes in life, it doesn't go your way."

News of Campbell's death is made public, shocking fans and former team-mates.

Rooney says: "It was a massive loss for everyone in football, but for me personally obviously playing with him and knowing him as a person, I was devastated."

Campbell's popularity among team-mates was strong at every club he played for

Manchester NHS Foundation Trust announces an investigation into the quality of care Campbell received in the run-up to his death. It is classed as a Level 5 patient safety incident. At the same time, an inquest is opened at Manchester Coroner's Court.

"When someone passes away you just want to be able to grieve knowing that it's happened, that it's disappointing it's happened, but it ends there," Cole says. "When you start hearing that there could possibly be this, possibly that, that just hurts even more."

For Campbell's sons, the investigation is rendered unimportant by the scale of their loss.

"It can do whatever, but it's not going to bring him back, so I don't see the point in me investing my effort and energy," Tyrese says. "For me, it wasn't really going to change anything, so there's not much point."

The class is later reduced to a Level 2 patient safety incident, and the investigation determines that Campbell's death was "possibly avoidable but not very likely".

The inquest, overseen by the coroner and including evidence given by two doctors involved in Campbell's care,finds that he died of natural causesand adds that "missed opportunities" to correctly diagnose Campbell did "not more than minimally contribute to his death on the balance of probabilities".

The scrutiny over Campbell's death and the handling of his illness comes against a backdrop of wider concern about standards of care in the NHS.

"I think because of the significant financial trouble the NHS is in we have seen a marked decline in the quality of patient care," says Dr Luke Munford, senior lecturer in health economics at the University of Manchester.

"The NHS recommends that 90% of cardiac patients are seen within an 18-week timeframe. In Manchester at the moment that is 54%."

"Manchester receives about £2.6bn per year, which sounds like a lot, but when you divide that through by the population it serves it actually isn't a great deal of money at all.

"England does suffer from a postcode lottery. People in the north, even if they have substantial personal wealth, are at the mercy of the local health and care system.

"If we look at budget cuts, austerity hit areas like Manchester much worse than areas in the south-east of England." Dr Munford adds that he is concerned there would be more examples of cases where complex illnesses go undiagnosed.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson tells the BBC: "Kevin Campbell was a huge inspiration, and our deepest sympathies are with his family and friends.

"This government is overhauling our NHS so it works for all patients, no matter where they live and our fundamental shift from sickness to prevention will be vital in tackling health inequalities, making people healthier and reducing pressure on the NHS.

"Under our Plan for Change, we are also prioritising patient safety and investing an extra £26 billion in the NHS to cut waiting lists and save lives."

A spokesperson for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust says: "We once again offer our deep condolences to the family and friends of Mr Campbell for their very great loss. It is clear from the inquest that everyone did their best to care for him, and there is no evidence that Mr Campbell's death could have been avoided.

"We are committed to constantly improving the quality of care we provide to our patients. Whilst there are aspects of Mr Campbell's care that could have been improved, the Coroner has found that these did not more than minimally contribute to his sad death. We have already taken learning from Mr Campbell's care and made improvements across the Trust, and we are committed to ongoing learning and improvement for all our patients."

Campbell undertook regular charitable work during his life, and following his death his family sets up a foundation in his name which aims to improve the lives of young people by supporting them with funding, projects and activities.

"The Kevin Campbell Foundation is an extension of Kevin," Lorna says. "It allows us to celebrate Kevin as the footballer, and the amazing achievements he managed over 20 years as a footballer, but it also allows us to discover Kevin the man."

Cole and Davis are among the Foundation's ambassadors.

"For someone who put themselves out for me so much when I was younger, it's the least of things I could have done," Cole says. "He was a selfless individual, always prepared to try and help.

Everton and Arsenal fans paid tribute to Campbell during the Premier League game between the clubs at Goodison Park on 5 April

The wisdom Campbell imparted on his sons will continue to have an impact on their careers.

"He always told us how proud he was of us and how well we're doing," says Tyrese. "When he was ill it was 'just keep going, keep doing what we're doing, and keep being you'."

"I've had players coming up to me saying 'sorry to hear about your dad', 'you're doing really well' and stuff. It's nice because he was so loved and so respected."

For Cole, the loss of Campbell has hit hard, but the memories they shared together are a great comfort.

"As we say, we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time," Cole beams. "And I can sit here and say – Kevin had a good time. He definitely had a good time."

How rejection fuelled Mourinho's second Champions League triumph

"To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet. The most beautiful defeat of my career."

Acclaimed English novelist Thomas Hardy and former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.

At first glance, not obvious kindred spirits.

But Hardy's thoughts – and Mourinho's hard-line pragmatism – actually make the origin of the above lines ambiguous: a post-match quote or a poet's postscript?

Understanding the origins and making of Mourinho is a key tenet of a new BBC Sport documentary – How to Win the Champions League: Jose Mourinho.

A huge chunk of that insight can be boiled down to a life-altering change in direction in the summer of 2008.

A sliding doors moment in the corridors of the Camp Nou that profoundly changed Mourinho.

A moment of rejection and a resulting shift to realpolitik that the famed Victorian realist Hardy would have been proud of.

How to Win the Champions League

"That's the moment where Mourinho becomes the Dark Lord," Guardian journalist Jonathan Wilson explains.

The moment to take tiki-taka to task: "If they're going to play to entertain, I will make sure nobody has any fun ever again."

The rejection in question came in the summer of 2008. Barcelona were looking for a new manager, having sacked 2006 Champions League winner Frank Rijkaard.

The choice was between Mourinho and one-time mate Pep Guardiola.

The pair had collaborated closely in the second half of the 1990s when Mourinho was working as Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal's assistant, and Guardiola was the Barca captain.

The decision was not necessarily taken on merit – given that Mourinho had a Champions League and Premier League title on his CV, while Guardiola had only just finished his first year in management with Barca's reserves.

It was a decision that was extremely unpopular with Mourinho and went on to fuel his methods – and fuel, most notably, a desire to put victory above all else.

Jose Mourinho v Pep Guardiola: How Jose became 'The Dark Lord'

The zenith of Mourinho's pragmatism, and arguably his entire managerial career, came at the Nou Camp on the way to the second of his Champions League wins, in 2010. Mourinho's Inter arrived at the home of Guardiola's reigning European champions with a 3-1 lead from the semi-final first leg.

The Barca faithful believed. "The atmosphere before the match was intense," Zanetti remembers. "When we went on to the pitch at the start there was an enormous banner with 'comeback' written in Catalan."

A 28th-minute red card for Inter's Thiago Motta strengthened that belief. But it also ushered in a 60-minute display of defiance that Mourinho believes defined himself and his entire career.

"If I could choose one of my team's most emotional performances in my career of more than 20 years, I have to choose that one," Mourinho says of that Nou Camp night.

"We go to Barcelona and we know what was waiting for us in terms of atmosphere and the amazing quality of that team.

"To play with 10 players in Barcelona becomes epic. You need heroes. You need to have the best out of everybody.

"I think I was brilliant in the way I organised the team.

"We defended with everything we had – with hearts, with souls.

"This is the most beautiful defeat of my career.

"We gave absolutely everything. We lost 1-0. But we got to the final."

How do you impress Jose Mourinho?

Having got to the final, Inter went on to win it with Mourinho once again coming out on top in a friend-turned-foe showdown – this time against a Bayern Munich side managed by his former Barca boss Van Gaal.

For the Portuguese it was a second Champions League triumph – and, for the second time, an against-the-odds win, in which Mourinho's man-management skills were front and centre.

Porto's triumph in 2004 was also an underdog tale (the only side since the turn of the century from outside Europe's big five leagues to win the Champions League) and also a story where Mourinho's man-management came to the fore.

Benni McCarthy scored four goals to help them to the final and says of Mourinho: "He was passionate, caring and a master tactician. I had never seen that.

"He was the first manager I encountered who knew almost everything about every single player – the backgrounds, where they come from. How many family members do you have? Are your mum and dad still alive?

"He wanted to know about my upbringing, my struggles, the highs and lows. I just thought that was an unbelievable touch.

"I didn't even know people in football did that until Jose. I played for a few managers prior to that. None of them knew me. With Jose, it was the complete opposite.

"I was like: 'wow, what a manager to play for'.

"And you would run through a brick wall for him."

Mourinho agrees. "The lesson went with me all over my career. When I go to European competition, I always feel that I can win.

"If you build a strong team, a team with great tactical culture, with a great resilience, with mental stability to cope with the difficult moments, especially in the knockout games. You always have a chance.

"Champions League winners are always teams. They will have players that, in a certain moment, make the difference. But only teams do it, and very complete teams."

Listen to the full Jose Mourinho interview on a Football Daily Special

Mourinho's man-management style hasn't always worked of course – his spells at Manchester United and Tottenham featured high-profile spats with high-profile players, such as Paul Pogba and Dele Alli.

But, as former Inter Milan skipper Zanetti attests, during the 2010 Champions League campaign, Mourinho was the master man-manager and creator of a team culture.

Six years after Porto the technique used to forge a team had a South American flavour, but the outcome was the same.

"Mourinho created a family," Zanetti said. "We created this group during the week, when we had our asados [Argentine barbeques], which Mourinho liked too.

"It was a moment for unity – a family moment.

"I once said I would throw myself into a fire for Jose Mourinho. Our relationship was not merely manager to player or manager to captain, it was much more. It was a very strong human bond, and it always will be.

"Those two years were very significant for me and for him… and will remain in our hearts forever. He taught us so much and he made us believe that we could make history, and we did."

Zanetti's "remain in our hearts" sentimentality is not something you'd naturally associate with Mourinho's ruthless pragmatism.

How Jose Mourinho got the best out of Inter Milan striker Sameul Eto'o

After both of his Champions League triumphs the Portuguese manager was in a new job within weeks, first time round moving to Chelsea and, in 2010, leaving for Real Madrid.

Once more, it was a realpolitik that punctuates the Portuguese's career – and would sit well with the realism of Hardy. Getting the job done, and then moving on to pastures new, when you are at the peak of your powers – both managerial and financial.

But inHow to Win the Champions League: Jose Mourinho,behind-the-scenes archive footage from the Bernabeu – in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 Champions League final – shows a different side of Mourinho.

The footage shows the Portuguese manager being driven out of the stadium, past a team bus he'd rushed off minutes earlier with barely a word. He's leaving immediately, with a move to Real Madrid in the offing.

However, when he spots one of his key generals, Marco Materazzi, he's unable to make such a cold exit. Mourinho gets out of the car and the pair share a tender, tearful embrace before Mourinho goes back to the vehicle and ultimately turns his back on Inter.

His next public sighting was when he was announced as Madrid manager nine days later.

On the face of it the speed of this turnaround suggests Inter was a mercenary means to an end rather than a seminal moment.

The tears, and Mourinho's account 15 years later, tell a different, more sentimental tale.

How to win the Champions League: Jose Mourinho

"I ran away – I went to the bus to say goodbye, and I didn't even shake one hand," Mourinho says.

"I wanted to escape. I think if I get on to the bus, if I go back with them to Milan, if I walk into a full San Siro, if I walk into the Duomo [Milan Cathedral] full of people, I think I wouldn't go to Real Madrid.

"I think the emotion would stop me to go.

"But I wanted to go. I thought it was the right moment. I had to escape.

"Marco was there. If instead of Marco it was Dejan Stankovic, or Diego Milito or Julio Cesar, it would have been the same story."

In many ways the duality of that moment defines Mourinho, and the question of how he won his two Champions League titles.

Creating a fiercely loyal relationship with his players off the pitch which ensured the side that stepped on the field would be comfortable both running through walls, and with their backs to the wall.

Fifteen years later Mourinho may have mellowed slightly. His man-management skills and star quality may have waned too.

But the ego, confidence and pride in his career-defining Champions League victories remains as strong as ever.

As Mourinho pointedly remarks, both his Porto and Inter triumphs have not been repeated.

"Why am I now here speaking with you?," he says.

"It is not because I am now at Fenerbahce, or because I won the Premier League with Chelsea.

"It is because I am a double Champions League winner. That is the reason.

"I think there are other teams and clubs that when you do it, other guys [managers] then do it.

"I do this season. You do next season. Three years later, another will come and then people will be even confused in which season you won it.

"You go to Real Madrid, to Barcelona, to Manchester United, to these big teams and maybe people don't have the same feeling.

"But you go to Porto and you go to you go to Milan and everybody knows.

"2004 Champions League winner, 2010 Champions League winner.

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The runner who went viral and sparked a campaign for change for women

Sophie Power had not even laced up her trainers for her first run when she signed up to an ultramarathon.

But what was initially a fresh challenge after being made redundant has manifested into a life-changing passion that has led to positive change for women in sport.

In 2018, a photograph of Power breastfeeding her then three-month-old son during a 106-mile race went viral.

There had been no option for her to defer her place until she was fit to compete and it highlighted what she saw as a major issue facing women and mothers.

Now, many of the world's biggest events, including the London Marathon, have implemented pregnancy deferral policies and Power's work has been central to that change.

Power signed up for her first 250km (155-mile) ultramarathon at the age of 26, shortly after having been made redundant from her job in banking.

Although she was not a runner and never had been, a friend had recently completed the challenge himself and recommended she try it, as he believed she could have the stamina needed due to her time in the air squadron at university.

"I went for my first run the next day and realised pretty quickly that I loved ultra-running. I love being outside, the breadth of phenomenal people you meet [who] you wouldn't come across in everyday life," the 42-year-old, who lives near Guildford in Surrey, told BBC Sport.

"And really kind of pushing my body to the limits in a new way."

Immediately hooked, Power devoted her time to training and travelling to compete in stage races around world.

Shortly after the birth of her second child, Cormac, she was faced with a dilemma.

Power juggles her campaigning and ultrarunning alongside bringing up her three children

Having given up her entry to the iconic Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) race while she recovered from the birth of her first child, Donnacha, three years before, she was not prepared to do so again.

Like many races, UTMB had no pregnancy deferral policy at the time.

Despite not being able to run so soon postpartum, Power entered the 106-mile event with a view to starting and maybe walking the first 10km.

Yet 43.5 hours after setting off she completed the challenge, that included 10,000m of climbing, inside the cut-off time, walking the whole way except for a short stretch after one of the highest points when she was worried she might get hypothermia. She crossed the line with then three-year-old Donnacha.

That moment is one she looks back on with immense pride, though it was a photograph of her taken with her younger son that day that would inspire what followed.

French photographer Alexis Berg was at UTMB photographing the 2018 race, as he is at many ultra events. And it was at one of the refuelling stations that he saw something he had never previously seen at one of these events.

"I knew it was unusual. At that moment it was impossible to realise the photo would have such an impact, but I just pushed one button that day and everything else that has happened is because of Sophie," he said.

What he captured was Power sitting down and breastfeeding her baby son during a break from the race.

"That photo has undoubtedly changed the course of my life. I worked out I should never have been on that start line," she said.

"I should have been given the opportunity to complete that kind of dream race when I was fit and healthy, not three months postpartum, trying to go 106 miles around a huge mountain by breastfeeding my baby. It was crazy."

Alexis Berg's photograph of Power breast-feeding her three-month-old son, Cormac, at UTMB went viral in 2018

Power wanted to ensure returning mums did not face the same choice and put their bodies through the same risk as she had done.

She founded the charity SheRaces with the core aim of breaking down barriers preventing women from entering events alongside men and safeguarding returning mothers.

After the photo went viral, many male directors contacted her almost immediately to say they had added pregnancy deferrals to their programmes and expressed embarrassment that it was something they had not thought of before.

She engaged with more than 2,000 women to find out what prevented them from getting on the start line of races alongside men.

Her research went far beyond elite level sport. Power is not a professional athlete herself and her real passion is for other women and girls who had been like her.

"Girls drop out of sport at such a high rate. There's a massive dream deficit for girls compared to boys," she said.

Power believes a big reason for this is the language used when promoting sports and sporting events.

"It's 'hardest, toughest, baddest', and for a lot of women that's quite off-putting," she said.

"How do we redesign sport in a female lens? Can we make sure that the opportunities for girls are tailored to them, and what they want and sports provided in the right places in the right way?"

The result of her research was a set of nine principles that organisers could commit to in order to make their events more inclusive for women.

These included adapting the use of language and imagery on websites to reflect and appeal to female runners, changing cut-off times, providing female toilets, period products, changing facilities and event T-shirts made specifically for female entrants, rather than unisex ones for all, and a safeguarding and harassment policy.

Criteria for elite races includes equal exposure for the female race on social media coverage and prizes for female competition.

Power has seen change in some of the world's biggest races.

UTMB's policy,externalsince 2023 for some of its marquee events entitles those who are pregnant, have a pregnant partner or are adopting or birthing via surrogacy to a full refund and priority re-entry for up to five years.

But she says there is still a long way to go.

Assefa sets women's record as Sawe wins men's race

London Marathon breaks world record for most finishers

'Finish lines not finish times' at London Marathon

The London Marathon had a world record number of finishers in 2025, surpassing the previous record of 55,646 set by the New York Marathon in November

The New York, Boston and London marathons now all have pregnancy deferrals in place, yet mothers must pay the entrance fee for a second time when they use the deferral scheme, she said.

Her organisation's criteria requests races to implement a two-year deferral to allow people enough time to recover fully from their pregnancies.

"The majority of races are commercial, it's a business. If they can get more people on their start lines then they're going to do it and the purpose of the guidelines is they're almost non-cost. It's a no-brainer," she said.

"There are a lot of brands out there who say they are pro-women, yet they're sponsoring women's races that don't have pregnancy deferrals, that don't treat women equally.

"And then there are dinosaurs, they don't value the voice of female athletes.

"Then there are races that still need to make improvements, I put London Marathon in that bracket. They have listened to us, they are phenomenally inclusive, they've got loads of initiatives that they put out for diversity on their start lines, but they still want to make women pay twice for their place when they have a baby.

"I've definitely lost faith in some race organisers because of it but so many are changing and becoming better. You always feel like you fail at the battles you don't win but we're winning so many battles and driving so much change."

TheLondon Marathon's policy,externalallows entrants to defer for up to three years after giving birth. The event's organisers did not respond when asked why users of the deferral system must pay their entrance fee again.

What is Couch to 5k and how do I start?

Power suffered from hallucinations while on a world record-breaking ultramarathon across Ireland

As the scale of her work and its influence has grown, Power's propensity for testing her physical limits has grown with it.

She is now the holder of two Guinness world records – becoming the fastest woman to run the length of Ireland, last year.

Power completed the gruelling 340-mile route in three days 12 hours and eight minutes, smashing the previous record set by Mimi Anderson by more than three hours.

The route took her through Munster, where husband John was born, and to County Cork, where many of the Power family live, running through torrential rainfall, experiencing the early stages of sun stroke and sleeping for little more than two hours, while sustaining herself on a diet of jam-filled tortilla wraps, gels, chews and ice cream.

Her tongue was burned after two days of eating nothing but fruit and sweets. She pushed herself to the brink of total exhaustion.

"I was seeing nativity and Christmas scenes everywhere in this town. And all the trees had turned into plastic. The hallucinations were phenomenal, crazy," she said.

She has since gone on to set a second world record for thelongest distance covered on a treadmill by a female in 48 hoursand will be hosting her own women-only ultra races in the Peak District in August.

So how will she know when she has achieved what she set out to do?

"My ultimate goal for SheRaces is that we don't exist because it's not needed anymore and every woman is able to get on the start line," she added.

"Part of the reason I created it was to have something that wasn't just me and was owned by all women. We can all help each other and demand fairness."

Power completed the 84-hour Ireland challenge with just short 20-minute naps on the roadside

Seven months after beating Exeter 37-34 to win their fourth Premiership title in five years, Saracens were relegated to the Championship for repeated salary cap breaches

Andrew Rogers has lots of pieces of technology to help him. A Batphone-style hotline isn't one, though.

"It is not a case of having a red phone in the corner that lights up," says Rogers, the Premiership's salary cap director.

Instead, whistle-blowers concerned a club might have breached the £6.4m cap on players' pay sound the alarm in more subtle ways.

"I've worked in rugby for nearly 20 years," says Rogers, who set up the agent registration scheme at the Rugby Football Union (RFU) earlier in his career.

"It is a social sport and it is very valuable having a trusted network of individuals and people who will talk to you.

"It can be very informal. That is one of the joys of it – how you obtain information, how you assess it and understand the value of it, whether it's credible."

The Premiership has had a salary cap since 1999, with the aim of keeping the league closely fought and sustainable.

For owners with deep pockets and a yearning for success, though, it can be an irritation.

When it emerged in 2020 that Saracens' dominance, titles and star-studded squad were underpinned by payments that breached the cap, their lawyers claimed the whole concept was unenforceable under competition law.

The challenge was dismissed, Saracens were demoted and Rogers was given new, wider powers to catch the next club that might try it.

'The most remarkable scandal in the domestic game'

"There is a saying 'never waste a crisis', and that judgement against Saracens was a big springboard to enhance the whole system," he says.

He now has an ocean of data to dive into.

Copies of players' contracts, image rights deals and other employment arrangements are sent to Rogers within 14 days of being signed.

Every year, every club makes a declaration – signed off by the chief executive, director of rugby and other top officials – confirming how they reward players.

Every player also fills in an annual return detailing what they earn, their living arrangements, any companies they are involved with and information about their bank accounts.

Rogers and his team have full access to all club accounts over the past five years to audit those claims.

The numbers are then cross-checked against words.

Rogers interviews more than 40 officials and players from across the league, digging further into their finances and ferreting out any inconsistencies.

But he knows it is still not enough. His prying eye has to extend further.

"A lot of the time the stuff that's really going on is 'off book'," he says.

"We can do all these brilliant things 'on book' and all the audits, but you know where someone is saying 'listen, I'll make sure you get this', that's more likely to be through a conversation via a WhatsApp or an email.

"That was one of the things that came out of Melbourne Storm case back in 2010 – the Australian rugby league team who had a big salary cap 'rort' as they call it there.

"There were lots offake emails,externalcreated to try and cover tracks."

When they extend their investigations, Rogers and his team will harvest data from players and officials' phones, searching for key terms that might refer to illicit, undeclared payments.

"It's really key," he says. "We will be looking at messages between agents, owners and players etc and it's a very, very helpful and insightful medium."

Sometimes Rogers doesn't need a tip-off to spark a more in-depth probe. A club can bring suspicion on themselves.

"I look at the total value of a contract and consider whether it I would deem it market rate for that player," says Rogers.

"We have a database of salaries and information, and I can slice and dice it depending on a players' age, position, experience, be it international or Premiership.

"So if there's a 25-year-old scrum-half who has played 40 games in the Premiership and has got two international caps, where does he sit with other people within that kind of range? Is there an issue there or not?"

For some clubs, there clearly isn't. Many in the league are operating well under the cap. Last year's champions Northampton haveargued for a reduction.

Bath, runaway leaders at the top of this season's standings and favourites to win their first English title in 29 years on Saturday, seem to be running closer to the line.

The depth and quality of their squad, which will be augmented by the signing of England wing Henry Arundell and Gloucester full-back Santiago Carreras this summer, is marked.

Steve Diamond, Newcastle's director of rugby, said this season that they had done"magnificently"

Bristol counterpart Pat Lam estimated that Bath had spent several million pounds more on their squad than the Bears could muster.

Rogers says all 10 Premiership clubs are in communication with him to ensure they do not run the risk of beefed-up punishments that now include relegation and the removal of titles.

"There are a lot of clubs who will be in almost daily contact with me, checking things and making sure what they're doing is right and wanting to make sure that any approach is appropriate and compliant within the regulations," he says.

"The clubs will talk to me a lot, whether they're way off the cap or they're very close to it."

Clubs can squeeze more talent under the limit by distributing pay unevenly across the course of a contract.

They might choose to backload a new deal in the knowledge that another high-earner will be off the books by the time it comes to pay up, flattening out their spending and staying the right side of the cap.

Credits for homegrown and international players also give them licence to spend more.

"Modern governance for me involves helping people work in the system," says Rogers.

"It's no longer the days where you set write a set of regulations, leave them on the shelf and then when low-hanging fruit happens, you dust off the book and take inappropriate action.

"This is about effective monitoring, good communication, support and education for those working within it and then constantly evolving the system to make it right for your own sport."

On Friday he will get a chance to compare notes.

In London officials in charge of financial regulations across 20 different sports will get together to talk about how they chase cheats.

Among them will be representatives from football's Premier League, EFL, Uefa, the Women's Super League, Major League Soccer and La Liga, officials from the three biggest American sports leagues – American football's NFL, basketball's NBA, baseball's MLB – and figures from motor racing's Formula 1 and FIA.

"I speak to them a lot individually, but this is the first time we're all getting together, which is really exciting," says Rogers.

Samuel Gauthier will also be there. Rogers' counterpart from France's Ligue Nationale de Rugby has been busy.

In March,Toulouse were fined 1.3m euros (£1.1m),externalover undeclared financial help they gave France full-back Melvyn Jaminet to buy himself out of his contract at Perpignan and ease a move to the six-time European champions.

Melvyn Jaminet joined Toulouse in 2022 before leaving for Toulon the following year

Gauthier and Rogers meet at least twice a year, in Paris or London, and are close to formalising a data-sharing agreement that will help them compare contracts for a player swapping the Premiership for the Top 14 or vice-versa.

However, one question that Rogers, Gauthier or anyone at Friday's summit can never be sure of is their hit-rate.

How much financial sleight of hand evades their detection?

"The system is now really robust," says Rogers.

"Look at all the different information we get on a weekly and seasonal basis and the incredible set of tools we have – examining tax returns, bank statements, phones, emails and Whatsapps – if we need to go in and do a proper investigation on a club.

"All that goes a long way to reduce that risk.

"It would be foolish to say we're pretty confident there's nothing else going on – we've always got to keep an eye on things – but the system is in a strong place."

Defensive systems, innovative tactics, technology, communication and a bit of old-fashioned human nous – the spreadsheet contest isn't that different from what happens on the pitch.

Listen to the latest Rugby Union Weekly podcast

Aaron Rodgers joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in time for the mandatory section of their off-season training programme

When Aaron Rodgers arrived at the New York Jets in 2023, he joked about theirsole Super Bowl trophy "looking lonely".

The Jets went all inon the NFL's four-time Most Valuable Player, who was expected to transform them into championship contenders.

The vibe was very different on the veteran quarterback's first day with the Pittsburgh Steelers on Tuesday.

Rodgers played down talk of a Super Bowl run while head coach Mike Tomlin said "we'll make no bold predictions".

And that seems to suit Rodgers just fine as the 41-year-old prepares for his 21st and possibly last season in the NFL.

After being releasedfollowing a disappointing second season with the Jets, Rodgers spent months considering his future and said in April that "retirement could still be a possibility".

He has chosen to play on but not for his football legacy. In 18 years with the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers ensured he will head into the Hall of Fame as one of the NFL's greatest quarterbacks.

Since winning the 2011 championship, a second Super Bowl ring has eluded him, but Rodgers said on Tuesday that challenging for another is not his main motivation.

It is not money either. His one-year deal with Pittsburgh is worth $13.65m (£10m) – one of the NFL's lowest annual salaries among guaranteed starting quarterbacks.

He still feels fit enough too. Rodgers' first season with the Jets was written off by a torn Achilles but he started every game in his second and currently "feels good" physically.

He kept the Steelers waiting because he needed time to deal with his personal life, which herevealed on Tuesday included getting married.Now he is ready to focus on football again.

"For my ego, I don't need to keep playing," he said. "A lot of decisions I've made over my career and life from strictly the ego – even if they turn out well – are always unfulfilling.

"But the decisions made from the soul are usually pretty fulfilling, so this was a decision that was best for my soul. This is about the love for the game."

Rodgers agrees Steelers deal to extend NFL career

Jets 'failed as a team' during Rodgers stint – Williams

Pittsburgh have struggled at quarterback since two-time Super Bowl winnerBen Roethlisberger retiredafter the 2021 season.

Justin Fields and Russell Wilson shared the role last season, and despite a positive start, the Steelers lost their last five games and bowed out in the first round of the play-offs.

Both then left – Fields replaced Rodgers at the Jets – while the Steelers brought in back-ups Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson, and sixth-round draft pick Will Howard.

They still needed an obvious, experienced starter, and they left the door open for Rodgers, who remained in regular contact with coach Tomlin.

Some felt Rodgers had too much of a say in who the Jets recruited and how they played, but he showed some humility on his first day with the Steelers, saying he believes in Tomlin.

"I just want to be a servant leader here, pass on the knowledge I have, and try to fit in with the guys," he added.

Rodgers is the NFL's oldest active player and will replace Roethlisberger as the Steelers' oldest-ever player.

After trying several quarterback options in recent years, Tomlin is ready to put his trust in Rodgers' experience and leadership. "Read his resume," he said.

Russell Wilson (left) and Justin Fields (centre) have made way for Rodgers to work under Tomlin (right)

Strong defences have played a major part in Pittsburgh's six Super Bowl wins and that remains a hallmark of the current team.

The Steelers made a big move on offence in March bytrading for Seattle receiver DK Metcalf,who trained with Rodgers in the off-season, but they then allowed both their leading receiver and running back from last season to leave – George Pickens and Najee Harris.

Since winning back-to-back MVPs in 2020 and 2021, Rodgers' stats have been in decline but ESPN analyst Stephen A Smith said: "He's still got a little something left and it's going to be better than anything we've seen in recent memory. Give them a chance".

Ryan Clark, who played in Pittsburgh's last Super Bowl success in 2009, said that Rodgers is "an upgrade but no longer elite" and that his arrival is "the worst-case scenario".

He and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky believe the Steelers will not make an impact in the play-offs but will "not be bad enough" to secure an early pick in next year's draft, meaning they will miss out on a potential franchise quarterback.

Tomlin is the NFL's longest-serving current head coach and the team has not had a losing record in his 18 seasons in charge, however, Pittsburgh have not won a play-off game since three-time Super Bowl winner Patrick Mahomes was drafted by AFC rivals Kansas City in 2017.

If Pittsburgh can emerge from arguably the NFL's toughest division and gain a long-awaited play-off win, surely the Tomlin-Rodgers pairing would be deemed a success.

Scotland-Williamson on life at Steelers under coach Tomlin

Vikings will bring 'best on the planet' to Dublin

Rodgers said in his documentary on Netflix last year that "I don't feel like I need to prove anything to anybody but myself".

But if this is to be his final year in the NFL, the schedule has provided plenty of opportunities to get the last laugh against his friends and foes.

The Steelers visit the Jets in week one andhost Ireland's first NFL game on 28 Septemberagainst the Minnesota Vikings, rivals of Green Bay and one of three teams that spoke with Rodgers in the off-season.

Pittsburgh welcome the Packers in week eight and the Steelers will visit both of Green Bay's other divisional rivals, Chicago and Detroit.

Two of the NFL's best quarterbacks are in Pittsburgh's division, the AFC North, so Rodgers could play two games against both Lamar Jackson (Baltimore) and Joe Burrow (Cincinnati), and he is set to face last season's MVP, Josh Allen (Buffalo).

"I just want to have fun," Rodgers added. "I want to go out still knowing I can do it, playing good football, and if that comes with a championship win, fantastic."

Watch: General Manager of NFL UK & Ireland Henry Hodgson says Croke Park game will be a 'great match-up'

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The 2025 Royal Ascot festival starts on Tuesday, 17 June, and ends on Saturday, 21 June.

Taking place at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire, the earliest roots of racing's most glamorous festival date back as far as the 18th century.

Around 250,000 spectators are set to attend across the five days that will see 35 races, including eight Group One contests.

Starting with the Queen Anne Stakes, Tuesday's opening day also includes the King Charles III Stakes and St James's Palace Stakes.

The Richard Hannon-trained Rosallion heads into the Queen Anne among the early favourites.

Leading jockey Ryan Moore is on Believing for trainer George Boughey in the King Charles III, while 2,000 Guineas winner Ruling Court and Field Of Gold are due to renew rivalry in the St James's Palace Stakes.

Racing ready for 'biggest five days'

Royal Ascot is known as being the most glamorous week of the horse racing calendar

Starting from Tuesday, the first of the seven races on each day of Royal Ascot take place at 14:30 BST, with the last starting at 18:10 BST.

Across the festival, a total of £10m prize money will be split across the 35 races.

There will be updates on BBC Radio 5 Live, and reports, racecards and results on the BBC Sport website and app.

BBC Radio Berkshirewill have a dedicated programme each day, with live commentaries from 14:00 to 16:45 BST – and until 18:00 on Saturday.

Sunshine is forecast, with temperatures expected to reach as high as 27C on Saturday.

The official going for the start of the meeting is expected to be good to firm.

What is the 'going' in horse racing?

14:30 Queen Anne Stakes (Group 1) one mile

15:05 Coventry Stakes (Group 2) six furlongs

15:40 King Charles III Stakes (Group 1) five furlongs

16:20 St James's Palace Stakes (Group 1) one mile

17:00 Ascot Stakes (Handicap) two miles, four furlongs

17:35 Wolferton Stakes (Listed) one mile, two furlongs

18:10 Copper Horse Stakes (Handicap) one mile, six furlongs

14:30 – Queen Mary Stakes (Group 2) five furlongs

15:05 Queen's Vase (Group 2) one mile, six furlongs

15:40 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes (Group 2) one mile

16:20 – Prince Of Wales's Stakes (Group 1) one mile, two furlongs

17:00 Royal Hunt Cup (Handicap) one mile

17:35 Kensington Palace Stakes (Handicap) one mile

18:10 Windsor Castle Stakes (Listed) five furlongs

14:30 Norfolk Stakes (Group 2) five furlongs

15:05 King George V Stakes (Handicap,) one mile, four furlongs

15:40 Ribblesdale Stakes (Group 2) one mile, four furlongs

16:20 Ascot Gold Cup (Group 1) two miles, four furlongs

17:00 Britannia Stakes (Handicap) one mile

17:35 Hampton Court Stakes (Group 3) one mile, two furlongs

18:10 Buckingham Palace Stakes (Handicap) seven furlongs

14:30 Albany Stakes (Group 3) six furlongs

15:05 Commonwealth Cup (Group 1) six furlongs

15:40 Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes (Handicap) one mile, four furlongs

16:20 Coronation Stakes (Group 1) one mile

17:00 Sandringham Stakes (Handicap) one mile

17:35 King Edward VII Stakes (Group 2) one mile four furlongs

18:10 Palace Of Holyroodhouse (Handicap) five furlongs

14:30 Chesham Stakes (Listed) seven furlongs

15:05 – Hardwicke Stakes (Group 2) one mile, four furlongs

15:40 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (Group 1) six furlongs

16:20 Jersey Stakes (Group 3) seven furlongs

17:00 Wokingham Stakes (Handicap) six furlongs

17:35 Golden Gates -Stakes (Handicap) one mile, two furlongs

King Charles III and Queen Camilla are regulars at Royal Ascot

While there has been no official confirmation of what days King Charles and Queen Camilla will be at the meeting, they are expected to attend.

Their horse Reaching High, trained by Willie Mullins, is set to run in the Ascot Stakes on Tuesday.

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