Donald Trump’s former lawyer Joe Tacopina is leading a consortium that wants to buy English League Two side Tranmere Rovers and replicate Wrexham’s star-fuelled climb up the table.

The 58-year-old New Yorker has been in talks with Tranmere’s owners for at least six months and his proposed takeover is now only waiting for regulatory approval from the English Football League (EFL).

Based on the west bank of the River Mersey across from Liverpool in the north-west of England and currently playing in England’s fourth division, Tranmere have been owned by former Football Association chief executive Mark Palios and his wife Nicola, a lawyer, since 2014.

Tacopina has become famous in the United States for defending a string of celebrity clients, including the late Michael Jackson, former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and rapper A$AP Rocky, as well as being a regular commentator on legal matters on American television.

Tacopina quit Trump’s legal team in January but had previously worked on the cases involving the payment of hush money to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a civil suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll related to accusations of rape. Tacopina, a former prosecutor, has also defended Donald Trump Jr’s fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle, now a key…

Manchester City completed a PFA Player of the Year double on Tuesday night as midfielder Phil Foden and striker Bunny Shaw were named men’s and women’s winners for 2023-24.

Foden, 24, scored 19 goals and provided eight assists to help City clinch an unprecedented fourth successive Premier League title under Pep Guardiola.

Erling Haaland — who won last season’s crown — was one of six nominees, including City midfielder Rodri, Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard, Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins and Cole Palmer.

Shaw finished the campaign as the top scorer in the Women’s Super League (WSL) with 21 goals in 18 games for the club, despite having her season prematurely ended by a foot injury in late April.

The Jamaica international becomes the first female City player to scoop the award since Lucy Bronze won the accolade in 2016-17.

Shaw’s Man City team-mates Yui Hasegawa and Lauren Hemp were also nominated, alongside Chelsea’s Niamh Charles, Erin Cuthbert and Lauren James.

Having missed out on the evening’s main award, City academy graduate Cole Palmer was crowned the men’s Young Player of the Year after an outstanding debut campaign at…

The policy that helps inform which match officials are chosen to appoint games in the Premier League, English Football League and Women’s Super League has been published for the first time.

Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) — the body in charge of refereeing in England — chief Howard Webb revealed that in an effort to be more transparent, his organisation wanted to make the appointments policy and its guidelines available to the public.

After earlier confusion due to Webb’s comments, PGMOL has since clarified the allegiances of individual officials within its organisation will not be made available to the public.

The move comes after public refereeing controversies in the Premier League particularly last season. Stuart Atwell, for example, was accused by Nottingham Forest of being a Luton Town fan following Forest’s controversial 2-0 defeat at Everton when the official was on video assistant refereeing duties.

GO DEEPER

Nottingham Forest, Stuart Attwell’s Luton link and a melodrama played out on social media

“Officials are asked to declare any specific interests in advance of the season and as the season goes on should any of those things change,” Webb explained. “That (the appointment policy) will be made public I believe and coming out as well so…

The Premier League, EFL, FA, and Women’s Super League (WSL) have announced a new code of conduct for gambling-related agreements in football.

The code, which will be implemented at the start of the 2024-25 season, is designed to regulate gambling sponsorships across the professional game, emphasising four key principles: protection, social responsibility, reinvestment, and integrity.

A key aspect of the code is its emphasis on reinvestment. Revenue generated from gambling sponsorships must be redirected into football-related infrastructure and community programmes. This includes improvements to stadiums and training facilities, as well as investments in grassroots football and local community participation.

Under the new code, gambling sponsorships will also be required to target their marketing efforts more carefully to avoid reaching children and individuals at risk of gambling-related harm. Additionally, any gambling-related sponsorship must include educational initiatives and awareness campaigns designed to promote responsible gambling practices.

GO DEEPER

‘Some players bet on football – they know it’s breaking the rules but still do it’

The importance of maintaining the integrity of football competitions is also stressed in the code, adding that gambling sponsorships must…

Scott Lindsey stood arms aloft, taking in the adulation of his supporters. He had just witnessed his Crawley Town side dismantle MK Dons in the League Two-play off semi-final to reach Wembley for the first time and, rightly, he and his team were taking it all in.

The eight goals they scored across two games may have surprised those outside of West Sussex but the manner of the victory — the bravery, the skill, the dominance — reflected a side in Lindsey’s image.

Tipped for relegation at the start of the season, Crawley are 90 minutes from reaching the third tier. It would bookmark a long and winding journey for Lindsey, 52, one of tragedy, grief, passion and positivity.

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It was the summer of 2019 and Lindsey, then assistant manager at Forest Green Rovers, was putting his team through a gruelling pre-season training camp in Devon when he received a phone call.

His wife, Hayley, who had stage four kidney cancer, had collapsed in the shower. “They’d taken her kidney out before this and then we were going on the surgeon saying he’d got it all out,” Lindsey says, “But because it’s stage four, there was a chance it could come back.”

The cancer had grown into her spine and her legs started to get weaker. “They said, ‘It’s going to eventually paralyse you, you…

The season is rapidly approaching its conclusion and the pressure is cranking up.

At the top of the Premier League, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are locked in a gripping title race; at the other end of the table, Rob Edwards is desperate to prolong Luton Town’s top-flight fairytale at the expense of Nuno Espirito Santo and Nottingham Forest. And in the English Football League (EFL), play-off season is in full swing, complete with all its usual emotional ebbs and flows.

These are the days when reputations are forged or shattered and, while it is enthralling for fans, managers would be forgiven for regarding the whole thing with dread.

Jurgen Klopp’s announcement in January that he would be leaving Liverpool at the end of this season was proof of how draining the job can be. “I cannot do it again and again and again and again,” said Klopp, who turns 57 next month.

In February, Roy Hodgson left Crystal Palace shortly after collapsing at their training ground. Although the 76-year-old’s health was not a factor in the club’s decision to end his contract three months early just a few days later, it caused understandable concern among players and staff.

It is not just in the Premier League, either.

Emma Hayes, who is leaving Chelsea Women at the…

It is probably a mistake to start with a British cultural reference that is nearly 29 years old, but this is a story about misgivings and mistakes, so it feels apt.

In 1995, the late, great comedian Caroline Aherne had a spoof talk show in which she played a character called Mrs Merton, an elderly lady from Manchester who would ask celebrities disingenuously blunt questions.

“So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?” was her famous opener to Debbie McGee, the glamorous assistant and wife of the aforementioned TV magician.

A version of that question had been rattling around my head while I tried to find a common thread between the four case studies we have done this week on men who want to buy football clubs.

So, Chris/Dozy/William/Thomas, what first attracted you to the cash business with property assets that would guarantee weeks, if not months, of positive media coverage and a huge dopamine hit from the gratitude of strangers?

Because when you put it like that, it is not hard to see how bidding for football clubs might be addictive/a good smokescreen/useful advertising/worth a go (delete as applicable).

We picked Chris Kirchner, Dozy Mmobuosi, William Storey and Thomas Zilliacus this time, but if there are any streaming giants reading, we could flesh out…

Will there ever be such a thing as a normal existence for Wrexham AFC under Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney?

Probably not, judging by another surreal couple of days that underlined, once again, how life at this previously provincial football club has been turned upside down.

First, Prince William rode into town on Friday lunchtime with his extensive security detail to mark St David’s Day, the patron saint of Wales. Like many before him, including Hollywood stars Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd, the King’s eldest son headed straight for The Turf, a pub now familiar to millions through the success of the Welcome to Wrexham documentary.

Having poured a pint behind the bar alongside landlord Wayne Jones and then downing a shot of whiskey with Wrexham co-owner McElhenney, the Prince of Wales moved next door to The Racecourse Ground to meet men’s manager Phil Parkinson and Steve Dale, the women’s team boss.

Ben Tozer and club captain Luke Young were also on hand to present William with a team shirt. A little over 24 hours later, Wrexham were running riot on the same pitch, as a first half hat-trick from Paul Mullin, surely the people’s choice Prince of (north) Wales, helped set up a…

The popular business lifelong Wrexham supporter Steve Tapp had built up over the previous decade or so was in ruins following a burglary and there seemed no way back.

“I was ready to pack it all in,” says the owner of Wrexham Trainer Revival about the October 28 break-in last year that saw £8,000 ($10,200) worth of stock stolen. “The shop had been ransacked and I went home that night to tell my wife that was it. I’d have to close, sell what was left on eBay and look for another job. I was devastated.”

Unbeknown to Tapp, an American couple who had befriended him on a transatlantic visit to see where the award-winning Welcome to Wrexham documentary was filmed had decided to help.

A GoFundMe page was immediately set up by Kirsten and Ray Webb and donations soon flooded in.

“I’d been blown away by the messages on social media,” he says. “But then this lovely couple I’d only met once before in person set up the GoFundMe. Suddenly, all these people were throwing money in. For that to happen in a working-class town, where there isn’t a lot of money around, was incredible. It was really emotional, watching the total go up.”

Then came the moment that left Tapp genuinely speechless, as Ryan Reynolds and Rob…

There is an EFL club that keeps a database designed to monitor the progress of its future head coaches. It is succession planning, a means of identifying the next best candidate before the search is even required to begin.

Individuals are marked and categorised; ones to watch and others to forget. A new tab has recently been created beneath those head coaches who are deemed unworthy of consideration, though. It is labelled “Joey Barton”. Do not touch.

The anecdote is relayed after one senior figure at the club was asked last week if Barton, sacked as manager of Bristol Rovers in October, would ever be considered for one of their managerial vacancies. “Not a chance,” they say.

Barton is unlikely to care. Not publicly, at least. After his playing career was held back by acts of violence and self-sabotage, the 41-year-old is now setting fire to his prospects of finding further opportunities as a football manager.

An industry that has provided Barton with no end of second chances – after prison, after an 18-month gambling ban and after multiple arrests – is finally seeing its patience expire thanks to a series of furious social media posts against female pundits and commentators.

They seem to have closed off any possible return to the game he claims to be defending. There…