Fulham has initiated an investigation to determine if anyone associated with the club was impacted by allegations made against its former owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed.

The allegations, which were detailed in the BBC documentary on Thursday night Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, involve more than 20 women who accused the late Egyptian billionaire of sexual abuse during his time overseeing department store Harrods and hotel the Ritz.

Al-Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, is alleged to have committed abuses in various locations, including London, Paris, and St Tropez.

Fulham, owned by Al-Fayed between 1997 and 2013, said it is “in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club is, or has been, affected.”

The club acknowledged the severity of the claims in a statement: “We are deeply troubled and concerned to learn of the disturbing reports following yesterday’s documentary. We have sincere empathy for the women who have shared their experiences.

“Should any person wish to share information or experiences relating to these allegations, we encourage them to contact the club at safeguarding@fulhamfc.com or the police.”

During a press conference held by the legal team representing the victims, barrister Maria Mulla addressed potential connections between Fulham and…

For 14 seconds, Jordan Chiles paused and looked down to collect her thoughts and emotions.

The question — about what Chiles felt she lost when the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics floor exercise — forced her to stop mid-answer. The audience at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in New York applauded her as she regrouped and held the microphone back up to her mouth.

Holding back tears, Chiles said she lost more than a bronze medal through the controversy that dominated the end of last month’s Paris Games. The controversy “wasn’t about the medal,” she said, but other realities that made her feel “stripped.”

“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am,” Chiles said.

“It’s about my skin color,” Chiles added. “It’s about the fact there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete.”

The on-stage interview Wednesday — which occurred before Chiles appeared at MTV’s Video Music Awards at night — marked the gymnast’s most extensive comments since the IOC said it would reallocate Chiles’ bronze to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu following an appeal by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.

At the floor…

SAN DIEGO — Last week, I tossed out my plans to be in Washington D.C. for a different NWSL match and booked a last-minute flight to San Diego. I then stood on the field at Snapdragon Stadium, staring through my camera lens at Alex Morgan, the athlete, one more time. I watched every microexpression flicker past, every smile, every time she blinked back tears, and the times she failed to. I pressed the button every time something felt like it could somehow capture the magnitude of the moment, yards away but able to compress the distance between us simply with a twist of the lens.

There was distance too — there had to be — between Alex Morgan, the image, and Alex Morgan, the human.

When Morgan stepped off the pitch in her socks on Sunday, boots in hand, it had only been three days since she had announced her retirement from professional soccer at age 35.

The lack of notice and Morgan’s lengthy video explaining her decision, announcing that she and husband Servando Carrasco are expecting their second child, meant there would be no long farewell tour. Fans would only have days, not months, to contemplate what women’s soccer would look like without Morgan on the field.

Her abrupt retirement set off a scramble, all the emotions of sending off one of the game’s best,…

Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, made the most outward political statement of her young career when she liked music superstar Taylor Swift’s Instagram post on Tuesday endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

Clark did not publicly endorse Harris but explained to reporters on Wednesday the rationale behind liking Swift’s post.

“I have this amazing platform, so I think the biggest thing would be to just encourage people to register to vote,” Clark said. “That’s the biggest thing I can do with the platform that I have and that’s the same thing Taylor did.”

Clark, 22, stressed the importance of being informed about candidates before deciding who to vote for.

“Continue to educate yourself on the candidates that we have, the policies that they’re supporting – I think that’s the biggest thing you can do,” Clark said.

Clark, who plays for the Indiana Fever, has been guarded when discussing topics outside the game for most of her rookie WNBA season. In June, she denounced her name being used to push agendas of racism and misogyny, calling it “disappointing” and “unacceptable.”

“The women in our league deserve the same amount of respect, so people should not be using my name to push those…

The death of Juan Manuel Izquierdo has left Nacional de Montevideo, and the whole of Uruguay, in a deep sense of despair.

He died on August 27 at the age of 27, five days after collapsing on the pitch during Nacional’s Copa Libertadores round of 16 match against the Brazilian club Sao Paulo. A week after his tragic passing, those closest to Izquierdo search for answers, hoping to make sense of the senseless. 

“My heart is torn, it’s bleeding,” his wife Selena wrote on social media. Izquierdo leaves behind two children, the youngest of whom was only two weeks old when he died.

“I couldn’t return to the pitch for training. I didn’t have the strength to do it,” said his Nacional team-mate Diego Polenta in the days that followed. 

Then, on Sunday, his club Nacional played against the team he had left to join them, Liverpool de Futbol Club. The players from both sides walked on to Nacional’s Estadio Gran Parque Central pitch wearing shirts that featured Izquierdo’s picture and the badges of both clubs.

There was a moment of silence as the players shook hands. It was eerily quiet. The chanting had stopped. The drums fell silent. When the cameras focused on Polenta, the hard-nosed defender was visibly emotional. It was clear how difficult a moment it was for him…

The Athletic has launched a series of sports debates in which two writers break down a specific topic. In this edition, Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman debate which WNBA team will be the most dangerous in the playoffs. (Stats are before Wednesday night’s games.)

Sabreena Merchant: For the first time in three seasons, the WNBA has a new title favorite entering the postseason: the New York Liberty. They’ll have the best record in the league and have beaten each of the other top teams in the standings – the only squad in the WNBA to win against each of the other playoff teams. But even if the Liberty are the favorite on paper, that doesn’t mean they’re heading into the postseason with the most momentum. Ben, is New York the team you most wouldn’t want to play in the 2024 playoffs?

Ben Pickman: If it’s the team most likely to put a top-four seed on upset alert, I have to choose the Indiana Fever, right? Indiana has won nine of 11 contests since second-half play resumed and heading into Wednesday’s loss against the Aces, the Fever had a 6.1 net rating, the third-best mark in the league. Kelsey Mitchell is averaging 24.9 points per game (second-most since play resumed) on 49.7 percent shooting, while Caitlin Clark is third in scoring (24.7 points) and first in…

At the end of the 2023 WNBA season, after the Las Vegas Aces had captured their second consecutive title and A’ja Wilson earned Finals MVP, Wilson had a message.

“Whoever you are out there that voted me fourth (for MVP), thank you. Thank you so much,” Wilson said during the team’s championship rally. “I wanna say I appreciate you, ’cause that just means that I got a lot more work to do.”

Although the 2024 Aces have disappointed relative to expectation, Wilson has not. Just as she vowed last October, Wilson returned an improved player in her seventh WNBA season.

Already a two-time MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, Wilson is now the record holder for the most points in a single season. Against the Indiana Fever — and rookie Caitlin Clark, who could challenge these marks in the not-so-distant future — Wilson scored her 941st point in the second quarter, breaking Jewell Loyd’s single-season mark of 939 set in 2023.

941 buckets in 2024 and counting…

Most Points Scored In A WNBA Single Season belongs to A’JA WILSON #WelcometotheW pic.twitter.com/ysR3DWubVz

— WNBA (@WNBA) September 11, 2024

Many single-season WNBA records have been broken over the past two years since the regular season expanded to 40 games. When the league debuted in 1997, the season was 28…