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GREEN BAY, Wis. — One of them arrived here by choice. The other had no say. Together, Javon Hargrave and Zaire Franklin give the Green Bay Packers something they haven’t had much of in recent years: veterans.

When the NFL’s youngest team three years running traded for Franklin, who will be 30 next month, and signed the 33-year-old Hargrave as a free agent, it was well-received in the locker room — especially among the few veterans.

“We have guys now that have a lot of experience, or more experience than we’ve had in the past,” said All-Pro safety Xavier McKinney, who will turn 28 in August. “I’m not saying nothing about the guys we had, because those guys were great too. But just the guys that we have now: a lot of experience, people that can go out there and make a lot of plays, and we all gel well together.

“I think you kind of see that with who we have now and what we have kind of going on. I think that’s going to be big for us just going throughout the year.”

During OTA practices this spring, not only has Franklin been the linebacker next to rising star Edgerrin Cooper, but he has also been wearing the green dot on his helmet, signifying that he will be taking the defensive calls from new coordinator Jonathan Gannon.

Meanwhile, Hargrave has been a calming presence on a defensive line that has undergone massive changes in the past 10 months. Gone are Kenny Clark, who was part of the August Micah Parsons trade; Colby Wooden, who was traded to the Indianapolis Colts for Franklin; and Rashan Gary and Kingsley Enagbare, both of whom left in free agency this offseason. Parsons is expected to miss at least the first month of the season.

“Both those guys have played a lot of football,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “Obviously ‘Z’ was a captain in Indy, and you can see why because you can feel his presence. But having Hargrave in the mix, a guy that I’ve got a lot of respect for, having gone against, and then get to know him as a person, and it’s not a surprise to why he’s had so much success.”

While Franklin and Hargrave had never played together, they have a common denominator in Gannon, who was on the Colts’ staff as cornerbacks coach during Franklin’s first three years in the NFL and Hargrave’s defensive coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021 and 2022 — two of Hargrave’s best pro seasons.

For Franklin — who is essentially replacing Quay Walker after he signed with the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency — the feeling of being wanted made the move to Green Bay exciting. In fact, Franklin heard years ago that Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst had wanted to acquire him.

“I think it was the first time I went to free agency after my fourth year and my agent at the time was like, ‘Do you know that Green Bay has been trying to get you for a couple of years now?’” Franklin said recently. “I’m like, ‘No, I had no idea.’ And at the time, it just didn’t work out with free agency, but like I said, everything happens for a reason. I feel like me coming here, it was a bit of fate, so I’m just really looking forward to earning it every day and helping the guys win.”

For Hargrave, who played last season with the Minnesota Vikings, he sees this as an opportunity to provide leadership and help a perennial playoff team turn into a Super Bowl contender.

“They call me ‘the old head,’ but yeah, I just appreciate it and seeing how hungry they are,” Hargrave said. “It kind of reminds me of when I first came into the league and not knowing much but just going so hard every day.”

HENDERSON, Nev. — Tre Tucker’s career with the Las Vegas Raiders has required the 25-year-old wide receiver to grow accustomed to change.

Since he was drafted in the third round of the 2023 draft, Tucker has had four head coaches, seven offensive coordinators (including interim coaches), three wide receiver coaches and caught passes from seven different starting quarterbacks. As challenging as it has been for Tucker to adjust to a new offensive system and role each season, he searches for the beauty behind the madness.

“Obviously, you don’t want to have multiple different offensive coordinators [because] you can’t play in the same system, but you can’t look at the negatives,” Tucker said. “The positives, I was able to learn different schemes, different terminology [and] just seeing different things. And I think that’s helped me now because a lot of things we’re doing, I mean, the NFL is the NFL, everybody runs the same plays, they just call it different, so you know the coaching points, and you get to learn more.”

In Year 4, Tucker will be much more different than in seasons past. As the longest-tenured Raider in the fairly young wide receiver room, he’s tasked to play a leadership role, similar to his former teammates Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers.

“I was very fortunate to have some great guys in my room when I was a rookie, which helped me grow as a person and as a player,” Tucker said. “So that’s my whole thing with those guys, is how can I make them better and how can I help them in any way possible?”

Coach Klint Kubiak called Tucker a “quiet leader.” While Tucker might not be the loudest person in the room, Kubiak entrusted the 5-foot-8 pass catcher as one of the team’s leaders because his mentality and play style embody the culture that the Raiders want to establish under this new regime. “There’s already a culture of hardworking guys in our building. He’s an example of one of them,” Kubiak said.

Tucker didn’t ask to be in this role. It was forced upon him due to being at the center of an unproven group of wide receivers. Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Jack Bech are entering their second season. Newly signed wideout Jalen Nailor has been in the league a year longer than Tucker, but he is still getting adjusted to a new team and environment after four seasons with the Minnesota Vikings.

Sixth-round pick Malik Benson has flashed his potential during the team’s OTA practice, but he’s a rookie and will endure his growing pains.

The Raiders will need Tucker to take another leap as he did in 2025. With former quarterback Geno Smith under center, Tucker caught 57 passes for a career-best 696 and five touchdowns. He started the season strong, catching 29 passes for 389 yards and four touchdowns in seven games. Tucker’s numbers dropped as the offense struggled greatly. Tucker totaled 307 yards and a touchdown on 28 catches in the final 10 games.

Despite the Raiders’ offensive issues, Tucker was still effective at creating separation from opposing defensive backs. Tucker generated 3-plus yards of separation on 54.3% of his targets.

“He’s got to be a playmaker for us, and he has been. And now let’s go see what else we can get out of him,” Kubiak said.

Tucker is optimistic about how the Raiders plan to utilize him in his new scheme. He said Kubiak’s scheme requires wide receivers to be versatile, lining up as an “X,” “Z,” or a slot receiver. That’s a shift in focus from last season under former offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and interim Greg Olson, when he lined up on the outside on 83.2% of his routes compared to 14.5% in the slot.

“In our scheme, you’ll see guys everywhere, and that’s the whole versatility part. I’m excited to do a bunch of different things,” Tucker said.

Tucker has benefited from the presence of veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins. He praised Cousins’ knowledge of the offense, having played for Kubiak and offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko in Minnesota. Tucker and Cousins were in sync during the team’s ninth OTA practice on Wednesday. Cousins completed a 20-yard pass to Tucker on a comeback route, in which he was able to create separation from cornerback Eric Stokes before securing the ball that sailed over nickel cornerback Taron Johnson.

Later, Cousins concluded the two minutes of practice by throwing a touchdown pass to Tucker in the back corner of the end zone.

“[Cousins] knows the system, so like there’s things in the system that he’ll be like, ‘Hey, on this, this is what I’m looking at.’ So, then you go out there and you’re on the same page,” Tucker said. “He knows defense, he knows coverage, and all that. He’s one of the best in the game, for sure, and he has always been. I’m very excited to keep working with him.”

The free-to-play sports simulation video game, developed and published by Strikerz, was prominently featured in the inaugural Games of the Future Abu Dhabi 2025 and will return this summer in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The competition, set to run from 4-9 August at the ‘Qazaqstan’ Athletics Sports Complex, will bring together the world’s leading phygital (physical, digital) football teams to contest a total prize pool of $625,000 (€537,500). Built around competitive integrity, responsiveness and player control, the free-to-play football simulator has swiftly cultivated a global community, making it a natural fit for the breakneck demands of phygital competition.

In phygital football, teams first compete on the UFL virtual pitch before moving straight into a live five-a-side match. The results from both stages are then combined to determine the winner. It is a format that forges a direct link between digital decision-making and physical execution, obliging athletes to prove tactical consistency across two very different arenas.

At the Games of the Future 2025, phygital football emerged as the most-watched phygital discipline, generating 87.6 million cumulative views across streaming platforms during the event.

William Al-Badeesh, head of Publisher Relations and IP Licensing at Phygital International, considers that “when you build a phygital competition, the game title is not just a licensing decision, it’s a sporting one. UFL’s emphasis on player control and genuine competitive balance means the digital stage truly reflects skill, not game mechanics. That’s what makes it the ideal title for Phygital Football, and why we’re bringing it to Astana.”

UFL, partnered with FIFPro, the global union representing more than 65,000 professional footballers, and holds licences for a number of European clubs, joins a strong line-up of game titles that also includes 3on3 Freestyle, Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, offering a robust spread of top-tier esports on the digital side.

“This is another important step for the game’s competitive and esports ecosystem,” Eugene Nashilov, CEO at Strikerz Inc, the title’s developing company, explained recently. “We’re excited to continue supporting a format where digital gameplay and realworld football performance come together, while giving players and clubs an opportunity to compete on one of the biggest stages in phygital sport”.

Several teams have already secured their place in Astana, including CD Holcattes of Guatemala, Peñarol of Uruguay and South Africa’s Orlando Pirates, alongside the reigning champions, Mexican outfit Quetzales-Armadillos.

The remaining spots will be decided at Phygital Contenders Astana, taking place from 10-14 June, where clubs from Brazil, Spain, Cyprus, Peru and other international markets will compete for the final berth in the main event.

The GOTF 2026, for which tickets have been on sale since the end of May, will be staged in the Kazakh capital, from 29 July to 9 August, with more than 800 athletes competing for a total prize fund of approximately $4.75 million (€4.85m).

The country’s Special Court has ruled that the allocation of public funds was unlawful and ordered the reinbursement of approximately 25 million rand (€1.3m) embezzled through a bogus Games-related programme a decade ago.

The court ruling this week, following an extensive probe by the Special Investigating Unit, exposed a scheme involving the diversion and laundering of public funds that implicated senior figures from both sport and the state lottery system.

The judge found that the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee had effectively placed itself in a position of complicity. The Olympic body argued it had been ‘forced’ to accept that the then head of the National Lotteries Commission, Alfred Nevhutanda, could hand-pick the beneficiary NGO, as SASCOC depended entirely on lottery funding to remain operational.

July 2016 marked the moment when the matter first took shape. At that time, the SASCOC applied to the NLC for a grant, acting as a conduit for the Mshandukani Foundation, a non-profit organisation registered just four months earlier.

The money was supposedly earmarked to fund awareness events and nationwide support tours for South African athletes ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, according to local outlet GroundUp. With striking speed, the NLC approved the sizeable sum in just six days.

The SIU’s investigation, however, concluded that the funds were never used for athletes. Within days of SASCOC transferring the money to the Mshandukani Foundation, it was broken up and funnelled to companies linked to former lottery executives.

South Africa excelled at Rio 2016, recording its strongest medal haul of the 21st century with 10 medals, including two golds, and one of its best performances in history. A total of 137 athletes represented the country across 16 sports, with the likes of Caster Semenya and Wayde van Niekerk among the standout names.

In the case itself, the SIU reported that 15.35m rand (€812,015), ended up at Ironbridge Travel Agency, a firm controlled by the NLC’s former Chief Operating Officer, Phillemon Letwaba. Investigators found money was spent on private vehicles, goats and personal expenses, as well as the purchase of a heavy-duty Powerstar industrial drilling rig valued at 1.7m rand (€89,930).

The remainder, around 11m rand (€581,900), was channelled into shell entities such as Mshandukani Holdings (a commercial company linked to foundation member Mashudu Shandukani), which was used to buy a luxury mansion; Mosokodi Business Trust (also connected to Letwaba); and direct cash payments of 450,000 rand (€23,805) to Letwaba and 600,000 rand (€31,740) to Tsietsi Maseiwa, the lottery’s former legal manager.

The SIU has previously secured smaller settlement agreements with third parties who received funds from the scheme but cooperated with investigators. Among them is South African presenter and celebrity Minenhle ‘Minnie’ Dlamini, who repaid money transferred to her without proper justification after acknowledging she was not legally entitled to it.

FIH will stage a key June build-up to August’s tournament in Belgium and the Netherlands, featuring Nations Cup events in South Africa and New Zealand, a decisive Pro League block in Europe, Olympic qualification at stake and Watch.Hockey coverage.

Before international hockey settles in Wavre and Amstelveen to bring together the world’s best men’s and women’s national teams from 15-30 August, June will serve as a month of acceleration for the International Hockey Federation.

It will not yet be the main stage, but a prologue full of competition, ambition and signs of what is to come: teams seeking promotion, leading sides fine-tuning their preparations, and a season beginning to gather momentum on the road to the first combined World Cup featuring an equal number of men’s and women’s teams.

The first stop will be Cape Town, on South Africa’s southern coast, where hockey will once again have the feel of a major occasion with the FIH Hockey Men’s Nations Cup South Africa 2025-26, scheduled from 11-20 June at Hartleyvale Stadium.

The men’s tournament will bring together nine national teams: South Africa, France, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Scotland and the United States, who will make their debut in the competition following Wales’ withdrawal.

The sporting reward explains much of its importance: the winner will strengthen their path towards possible promotion to the FIH Hockey Pro League, the annual circuit that brings together the leading national teams.

That objective makes the Nations Cup more than just another date on the calendar. It is a gateway to the elite, an opportunity for countries with international pedigree but outside the Pro League to measure their progress under real pressure, in a country where major events often find a vibrant response when the international stage comes calling again.

The opening day will hope to set the tone, with Malaysia facing Scotland, Korea taking on Japan, Ireland meeting the United States and South Africa hosting France at home.

With the men’s competition still under way in South Africa, the competitive map will also open towards Oceania. In Auckland, the FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup New Zealand 2025-26 will take place from 15-21 June, with eight national teams and a home setting that will seek to give the tournament its own pulse.

India, Japan, the United States and Uruguay will make up Pool A, while Chile, France, Korea and New Zealand will form Pool B. Uruguay will make their debut in the women’s tournament following Scotland’s withdrawal, France will arrive boosted by their promotion from the Nations Cup 2 and India will look for a response after their relegation from the 2024-25 Pro League.

From 13-15 June, Egypt will host the 20th African Championships, utilising the International Stadium in its capital city as the competition arena. Two weeks later, the Philippines will host the Asian Championships.

The African SAMBO Championships will bring together three distinct disciplines, covering Sport SAMBO, Combat SAMBO, and Beach SAMBO, with both men and women competing across a wide range of weight categories.

In the men’s Sport SAMBO and Combat SAMBO competitions, athletes will compete across the 58 kg, 64 kg, 71 kg, 79 kg, 88 kg, 98 kg, and over 98 kg divisions, whilst the women’s brackets for both styles feature the 59 kg, 65 kg, and 72 kg categories. For Beach SAMBO, the men’s tournament includes the 58 kg, 71 kg, 88 kg, and over 88 kg fields, whereas the women will contest the 50 kg, 59 kg, 72 kg, and over 72 kg divisions.

Delegations are scheduled to begin arriving in Cairo on June 11, with team registration and accreditation getting underway at the Jewel Glorious Hotel. The following day, June 12, will be dedicated to the African SAMBO Confederation Congress alongside the official referees’ meeting, technical meeting, and the initial weigh-in and draw.

The main Sport SAMBO and Combat SAMBO competitions will take place at the Cairo International Stadium across June 13 and 14. On the final day of the tournament, June 15, Beach SAMBO athletes will move to Egypt’s golden sands to compete for medals in their discipline.

Following the action in Egypt, the focus shifts to Southeast Asia. The Philippine Sports Commission has officially endorsed the 2026 Asia and Oceania SAMBO Championships, which are scheduled to take place at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila from June 25 to 28. This decision followed an official courtesy visit to the PSC by Pilipinas SAMBO Federation Inc. Founder and President Paolo Tancontian and Head Coach Ace Larida.

The delegation also featured SAMBO Union of Asia and Oceania Secretary General and Technical Delegate Suresh Gopi, alongside Sydney Sy Tancontian, who is an Asia and Oceania SAMBO champion, World SAMBO Championships medallist, and chair of the FIAS Athletes Commission.

PSC Chairman Patrick Gregorio expressed his appreciation to Secretary General Gopi for selecting Manila as the host city, noting that organising large-scale international competitions of this calibre plays a significant role in advancing the country’s sports tourism agenda. The championships are expected to attract more than 500 athletes from 31 countries across the Asia-Oceania region.

With less than a month to go before the competition kicks off, the Philippines is actively preparing to perform on home ground. Head Coach Ace Larida stated that the 21-strong national team is currently about 85 per cent ready and motivated to defend their standing in front of a home crowd, expressing confidence that the Filipino athletes will reach peak condition by the time the tournament begins.

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The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced this week its annual awards for seven coaches and four members of support staff, selected for their influence on athlete performance, education, development and care.

For the first time, the support staff awards were expanded to recognise specialists in dietetics, strength and conditioning, and sports medicine, a nod to reflect the fact that Team USA’s performance is not explained only by those who lead from the coaching side, but also by those who sustain health, recovery, nutrition and workload.

Alex Hoedlmoser, of US Ski & Snowboard, was named Olympic Coach of the Year after a key season at the head of the alpine team on the road to the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. Among the skiers who worked under his direction was Breezy Johnson, who produced one of the best campaigns of her career with world downhill gold in Saalbach 2025 and another title in the team combined alongside Mikaela Shiffrin.

Hoedlmoser also oversaw Lauren Macuga’s competitive breakthrough, as she secured her first super-G victory in St. Anton and a bronze on her World Championships debut, and was part of the process that allowed Lindsey Vonn to return to the World Cup and re-establish herself among the best on the circuit, within a group that the USOPC presents as cohesive and strengthened by a common culture.

The Paralympic award went to Kris Mack, of USA Track & Field, whose work as a coach was reflected in a chain of results across very different events. Under his guidance, Derek Loccident took silver in the T64 long jump at the World Championships and also finished fifth in the javelin and high jump, Jaleen Roberts won silver in the T37 long jump, Beatriz Hatz secured bronze in the T64 long jump, Noelle Lambert reached the podium in the T63 long jump and Ryan Medrano took silver in the T38 100 metres.

Mack also played a role in talent development by leading the USOPC talent transfer camp, within a season in which Hakim McMorris won the decathlon at the Mt. SAC Relays with the world’s leading mark at the time and Harrison Williams, also coached by him, earned another World Championships appearance in the decathlon.

In the development of new profiles, the distinction went to Li Geng, of US Speedskating, for her work with skaters aged 13 to 25, combining performance, personal maturation and workload management. Her athletes competed at the US Age Group Nationals, the International Skating Union Junior World Cups and the Junior World Championships, with several international A-finals, while Kamryn Lute added a milestone by finishing third at the 2026 United States Championships, which served as qualifiers for the Olympic team.

In the collegiate sphere, the recognition went to Caryl Smith Gilbert, who combined national leadership with collegiate influence. As United States head coach at the World Championships in Tokyo, she helped the team win 26 medals, 16 of them gold, the highest number of titles in the history of the championships.

At the University of Georgia, she led the women’s team to the NCAA outdoor title with a 23-point margin, placed both the men’s and women’s programmes as indoor runners-up and supported the progression of Aaliyah Butler, a double collegiate champion and world gold medallist.