Martin

Marco Bezzecchi triumphed at the Indonesian Grand Prix, while Jorge Martin finished third to retake the lead from Marc Marquez in the MotoGP world championship.

Italian Bezzecchi made his move on pole-sitter Raul Fernandez with nine laps to go at a sweltering Mandalika International Circuit.

Fernandez finished second ahead of compatriot Martin, with the Spanish duo locking out the podium for Italian manufacturer Aprilia.

Ducati’s reigning seven-time world champion Marquez finished sixth, losing the championship lead he had taken for the first time this season by winning Saturday’s sprint race.

Fernandez and Bezzecchi had clashed and crashed out in that race, with the Spaniard needing to brake with his middle finger for the whole of Sunday’s race after fracturing his index finger.

Starting at the front of the grid, the pair negotiated the first turn and then surged away from the chasing pack.

Having initially looked comfortable, Fernandez began to fade and Bezzecchi seized an opportunity on lap 19 before putting distance on his rival.

The result for 2024 world champion Martin moves him up to 355 points at the top of the championship standings, with Marquez second on 353 and Bezzecchi third with 309.

There are five grands prix remaining in the 2026 season, with the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island the next meeting in the calendar in a fortnight’s time.

Irish taoiseach [prime minister] Micheal Martin said comments made by the Israel Football Association about the Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson are “unacceptable” and “should be withdrawn”.

Israel’s football governing body accused Hallgrimmson of “ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity” regarding comments made last week when he said: “We’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. We’re playing against Israel, we’re not playing with Israel.”

The teams are set to meet twice in the space of a week in the Nations League, with Israel’s ‘home’ game in Debrecen, Hungary on Sunday, with the return fixture also in a neutral venue of Backa Topola, Serbia on 4 October.

On Monday, the Israel FA posted a message on X, saying: “We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way.

“Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by @IrelandFootball team coach.

“We’re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, We’re playing against the coach who embodies them.”

While the Football Association of Ireland [FAI] did not respond, Martin did comment.

“They are unacceptable remarks and should be withdrawn,” he told reporters in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly.

“We’re very clear and I think [UN secretary-general] Antonio Guterres said it again this morning, he has never in his lifetime seen the level and scale of death and destruction as he witnessed in terms of the Israeli government’s war on Gaza in the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attack preceding the war. Our manager is saying the exact same thing.

“Israel can’t keep denying what the world knows and what the world understands.”

Celtic will “come together and support” manager Martin O’Neill after a “painful” week for the club, chief executive Michael Nicholson has said.

O’Neill had indicated that he would use the international break to consider his future following two defeats to Rangers, either side of a home loss to Ferencvaros in the Europa League.

In the wake of Sunday’s 1-0 derby defeat at Celtic Park, 74-year-old O’Neill had said “it might be time to wrap it up”.

However, Nicholson suggested the club will rally round the manager who has delivered nine trophies over two spells.

His remarks came with the latest financial figures revealing a drop of nearly £33m in revenue.

A loss of £4.8m is largely down to the failure to reach last year’s Champions League and Celtic have missed out again, squandering a 4-0 aggregate lead in their play-off with LASK last month.

“Having started well in the Premiership this season, we experienced disappointment in the Champions League play-off,” said Nicholson in a written statement accompanying the financial results.

“Reaching the league phase of the Champions League is an objective for us all, and we are sorry not to have achieved it.

“On top of that, the losses in the last week have been painful for us all. We will now come together and support Martin and the players, as we focus our efforts on achieving success domestically and in the Europa League.”

Things can turn quickly in Scottish football.

The second act of this season’s Old Firm show on Sunday is still a hard one to call, partly because it’s at Celtic Park and also because there surely has to be some kind of response from O’Neill’s team to their pitiful fate at Ibrox last weekend.

Their fans will be worried, though. Five goals given up against LASK, a desperate experience at Ibrox – and now this.

In moments on Thursday, some of their football was reminiscent of darker days – the failures of Cluj and Copenhagen in 2019 and 2020, when Bayo and Bolingoli were in the building; Sparta Prague in 2020, when Klimala and Ajeti, Duffy and Laxalt were in the team.

It was all very Legia Warsaw, very Salzburg, very Maribor. The energy levels were low, the booing was loud and the feeling of a side with no answers was unmissable.

In the aftermath, O’Neill spoke about frustration, failure and psychological damage, how low moments like these hit you hard and test your resolve. He promised to “get ourselves together” for Rangers on Sunday but his tone was flat and a touch tired.

He outlined some of the ways in which Celtic were deficient on the night but didn’t talk with the spirit of a man who had answers. In many ways his post-match comments mirrored his team’s performance – leaden, stale, disheartening.

O’Neill has fixed many problems over the years, not just in his first trophy-laden spell but in his return to chaos last season. He restored order and confidence, two things that have been lost.

The force of his personality gave Celtic fight. They were not always pretty to watch but they were ferociously hard to beat. Nobody managed it on the title run-in.

That kind of never-say-die only seems like yesterday, but in other ways it feels like an awfully long time ago.