director

Saracens are set to receive a series of fines from Prem Rugby due to director of rugby Brendan Venter’s failure to fulfil media commitments.

It is understood the club have already been handed a £5,000 sanction after Venter was not present at the Prem’s pre-season launch day.

The South African also did not speak to the media before, during or after the opening-weekend victory at Leicester.

The Daily Telegraph reported earlier on Tuesday, external that Venter “resigned” as director of rugby last month and took up a new role of “head of rugby culture and wine consultant”, with head coach Joe Shaw assuming responsibility for media commitments.

The report also claims Saracens asked permission in July for Shaw to front the club’s media commitments.

However, none of this has been confirmed by the club nor Prem Rugby.

It is also thought a change of job title would not preclude Venter from his contractual responsibilities.

Saracens announced in January that Venter would be returning to the club as director of rugby and have yet to confirm any change to his day-to-day responsibilities.

He succeeded Mark McCall, who stepped down at the end of last season after 15 trophy-laden years in the job.

Venter’s first spell as Sarries’ director of rugby, which began in 2009, also included clashes with authorities over media commitments.

In September 2010, the club apologised to European Rugby Cup (ERC) officials for then-captain Steve Borthwick’s failure to attend the Heineken Cup launch at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Borthwick, now England head coach, was the only missing representative from the coaches and captains of 12 English, Welsh and Scottish clubs attending the event.

He had been told by Saracens to instead attend a team bonding session at a beer festival in Munich.

In December 2010, Venter himself was warned by European Rugby Cup officials for a post-match interview after his side’s 24-21 Heineken Cup loss to Racing Metro, in which he repeatedly gave short answers, agreeing with whatever was being asked.

He later said it was inspired by a scene in the football mockumentary film, Mike Bassett: England Manager.

Venter left his full-time role at Saracens halfway through the 2010–11 season, to be replaced by McCall.

Julian Ward’s appointment gives Liverpool‘s hierarchy some much-needed stability after a summer of transition.

Ward has done the sporting director job before – and bar a spell between the summers of 2023 and 2024, has been at the club since 2012.

Liverpool did speak to external candidates but Ward was seen as the stand-out choice.

One source described him as: “Calm, well-spoken and with a clear opinion and vision.”

Ward’s previous spell as sporting director came under Jurgen Klopp, where he oversaw the signings of Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister and Darwin Nunez – he has a global contacts network and plenty of experience when it comes to negotiations.

He was also influential when Mohamed Salah renewed his contract in 2022 – flying to see Salah on holiday to seal the deal – and his relationship with the agent Jorge Mendes helped Liverpool in their pursuit of Diogo Jota.

There will be plenty of jobs for Ward to tackle – including the securing of Rio Ngumoha on a long-term deal now that he is 18 and determining whether new contracts are offered to Alisson and Virgil van Dijk before their current agreements expire this summer.

As FSG’s technical director, Ward played a role in Liverpool‘s push to recruit younger talent. And he has a good relationship with Mike Gordon, who oversees the day-to-day running of the club.

Under Klopp, Ward left 12 months into a three-year deal, but should have more of a say now, given how the head coach role has been structured under both Arne Slot and his successor Andoni Iraola.

Time will tell if Ward’s appointment proves successful – but in the here and now, he looks a more-than-sensible choice.

Barcelona’s sporting director Deco said the club has no interest in pursuing Manchester United teenager JJ Gabriel.

Gabriel, 15, travelled to the Spanish city after informing United that he wanted to leave Old Trafford earlier this month.

Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain are among the clubs reportedly keen on securing his signature.

“There’s nothing to say about this boy,” Deco said at a news conference.

“It’s normal we always have players linked with us. There’s a huge market for that, even when they are young.

“We are not interested in any player in his situation. I’m not sure what’s happening, and if he’s still a Manchester United player. We are not involved in that.

“First of all, we need to understand how the situation is before we try to do something. To speak about young, teenage players, it is not our business.”

Gabriel has not trained at United since scoring a hat-trick on his Uefa Youth League debut on 10 September.

Tournament rules prevent him from playing for a side other than United in this season’s competition.

But if he obtains a European Union passport through either his father – a former Republic of Ireland international – or mother, who has Greek-Cypriot heritage, he could join a club in the EU when he turns 16 on 6 October.

Last week, United manager Michael Carrick urged for people to be “careful and sensible” about the amount of exposure and scrutiny given to the youngster.

Sept. 23, 2026 5:09 PM PT

A two-part docuseries about Melania Trump arrives later this year, the first lady revealed Wednesday. The new project follows the January release of director Brett Ratner’s documentary, which made $16.7 million worldwide at the box office and was universally panned by critics.

“It will come out this year, and it will be very different what is in the movie,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” ahead of her appearance to ring the New York Stock Exchange opening bell. “It’s more [like a] conversation one on one with me.”

Trump indicated that the docuseries will cover new ground.

“So when I was traveling and doing all of the filming, the director was asking me questions, and there’s some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before,” she said.

The Times has reached out to Amazon Studios for more information on the project, which does not appear in press materials, though Ratner teased the new “chapters” in an Aug. 11 Instagram post.

“Here we go again….” the director wrote. “The saga continues …. can’t wait to share with everyone around the world the next two chapters of MELANIA, THE DOCU SERIES!”

Ratner’s film followed the first lady in the 20 days leading up to President Trump’s 2025 inauguration, promising “exclusive footage capturing critical meetings, private conversations, and never-before-seen environments” as Melania “orchestrates inauguration plans, navigates the complexities of the White House transition, and moves her family back to the Nation’s Capital.”

Critics, however, found the cinematic experience lacking.

“I’m hesitant to call ‘Melania’ propaganda because I can’t imagine anyone watching this movie and thinking that Melania Trump comes off well,” Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote in a February review. “If this vapid, airless, mindless time-waster had subversive designs of being a satire about the first lady of the United States, there’s not much it would have changed. Yet somehow, ‘Melania’ is exactly the film that the first lady wanted to make — her company was paid $40 million for the rights to this self-greenlit production — and no one around her warned that it was a very expensive bad idea.”

“Melania” was Ratner’s first film since six women accused him of sexual assault in 2017. In February 2026, The Times reported that the “Rush Hour” filmmaker appeared in the unsealed Epstein files in photos with unidentified women and the financier, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In addition to the initial $40 million Amazon MGM Studios paid to license the project, the marketing and promotion budget was reportedly another $35 million.

Acclaimed Russian film director who won 2026 Grand Prix award at Cannes, ⁠has been critical of the war in Ukraine.

The winner of a prestigious Cannes Film Festival award has been declared a foreign agent by Russian authorities for his criticism of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Acclaimed Russian film director ⁠Andrey Zvyagintsev was designated a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin on Friday, according to state news agency ⁠TASS.

Zvyagintsev won the 2026 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for, Minotaur, a film depicting a Russian businessman who is forced to ‌decide which of his employees should be mobilised to go and fight in Ukraine.

“Millions of people on both sides of the front line dream of only one thing: for the massacres to stop,” Zvyagintsev said in his acceptance speech, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the ⁠only person capable of ending the ⁠war.

Moscow has kept casualty numbers from the fighting in Ukraine heavily restricted and has not provided timely or complete public updates, but estimates of Russian soldiers killed in the four-year war range from anywhere from 200,000 to half a million.

Russia’s Ministry of Justice on Friday accused Zvyagintsev of disseminating “false information about decisions taken by the public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies they pursue”.

“He interacted with foreign agents and resides outside the Russian Federation,” it said.

The 62-year-old director, who has lived outside Russia since the COVID pandemic, ⁠is known for a series of other films including, The Return, The Banishment, and, Leviathan, a bleak ⁠portrayal of life in rural Russia.

People listed ⁠as foreign agents are subjected to onerous bureaucratic requirements and restrictions on their income in Russia.

They are barred from holding public office and forced to register their activities with the authorities.

They also have to add warnings on everything they publish, including ‌on social media, that the content was produced by a foreign agent.

The label adds connotations of espionage to numerous people, including public figures, whom it deems ⁠to be engaging in anti-Russian activity with support from abroad.

Previously, writer Boris Akunin and rock musician Boris Grebenshchikov have been labelled as foreign agents by Moscow.