Sports

A plane carrying 81 people, including top Brazilian football team Chapecoense, heading for the biggest game in its history, crashed on its approach to the city of Medellin in Colombia. 76 of those on board have perished.

The charter flight was carrying 72 passengers and nine crew, when it crashed around 10:15 p.m. on Monday. Heavy rain first hampered and then halted rescue operations. Officials told local media that bodies would be removed at first light. Brazilian news organizations reported 21 journalists had been on board to cover the match.

Barry Bennell, the former football coach who is currently at the centre of a child sex abuse scandal, has been admitted to hospital. The convicted child abuser was found unconscious after police were called to a “welfare incident” in Stevenage.

A Kentucky man who hacked into an online account for followers of a Ohio high school’s football team to expose the gang rape of a teenage girl has pleaded guilty to charges associated with the hack. Deric Lostutter, 29  pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this week to one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statements to law enforcement agents after hacking into a site for fans of the Steubenville High School football team, according to court records. He is facing a longer term than the rapists.

Submitted by Brittany Hunter via The Mises Institute,

Cheering for the home team can unify communities divided by politics, economics, and personal differences. However, this unification can come at a high cost, one that will inevitably fall to the taxpayer. While it is typical for professional athletic associations to use tax dollars to pay for their stadiums, arenas, or other venues of choice, public subsidies are not the only means to this end, nor are they the most efficient.

A professional Iranian footballer has been banned from domestic competition for six months after wearing bright yellow SpongeBob trousers in public. The morality committee of Iran’s football association suspended Sosha Makani after seeing a picture of him wearing what appears to be a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants on social media.  Vice Sports reports: The federation’s morality committee was responsible for handing down the ban, after deeming Sosha Makani’s trousers inappropriate.