Barcelona have cancelled a pre-season friendly in Morocco due to the ongoing migration crisis in Ceuta.
The LaLiga giants were scheduled to play a local team on August 15 in Tangier.
However, in the past week, the Spanish government has deployed armed forces to Ceuta, which is its territory on the north African coast.
This action was taken after thousands of migrants arrived by sea on Thursday and Friday last week.
“FC Barcelona informs that the men’s first team friendly match in Tangier potentially scheduled for 15 August has been ruled out,” a club statement said.
“In light of the current uncertainty and circumstances, FC Barcelona considers playing the match would be inappropriate.”
Preseason: Barcelona cancel friendly in Morocco
The maiden South-East Zonal Weightlifting Championship has ended in Umuahia, with the host State, Abia, winning 8 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze medals to top the final medals table.
Imo State won 2 Gold, 3 Silver and 1 Bronze while Anambra State won 3 Silver and 1 Bronze; Ebonyi won 2 Silver and 2 Bronze while Enugu State occupied the bottom of the table with 3 Bronze medals.
The championship was used to discover new weightlifting champions for Abia and Nigeria, including Divine Emmanuel who won Gold in the 55kg category with a 155kg lift.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Abia State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Nwaobilor Nwadinma Ananaba, praised the competing spirit of the athletes, saying that the competition exposed new stars.
Ananaba, who was represented by the Abia State Director of Sports, Obioma George, praised Governor Alex Otti for hosting the tournament and for procuring modern weightlifting equipment for the athletes.
Also speaking, the Coordinator, National Sports Commission, South-East zone, Chief Bernard Ezema, said the zone is reclaiming its lost place in the sporting sector.
Ezema noted that through regular engagement of youths in sporting activities, Abia State government is contributing to the peace in the South-East by dissuading them from deviant activities.
Speaking at the Indoor hall of Umuahia Township Stadium, a young weightlifter, Divine Emmanuel, said the Gold medal he won for Abia State would be a stepping stone to represent Abia and Nigeria at national and international sports events.
Feyenoord have decided to sack Robin van Persie as their manager.
This means the Dutch club will begin the 2026/27 campaign under a new head coach.
A terse statement released on its X handle on Sunday, read: “Feyenoord will start the 2026-2027 season with a new head coach. The club would like to thank Robin van Persie for everything he gave during his time as head coach.”
Van Persie returned to his boyhood club as head coach in February 2025.
He leaves despite leading Feyenoord to a second-place finish in the Eredivisie and qualifying for next season’s UEFA Champions League.
Explaining the decision, Feyenoord’s newly appointed technical director, Devy Rigaux, said, “We conducted a thorough internal analysis. In this, we took into account, among other things, the development of the style of play and the declining trend in terms of points total, both in Europe and in the Eredivisie.
“The conclusion was that it is better to start the next season with a new head coach.”
Plateau United technical adviser, Gbenga Ogunbote has highlighted the importance of his team’s 2-1 over Remo Stars.
Johnathan Okechukwu and Harrison Ebah netted for Plateau United, while Albert Korvah was on target for Remo Stars.
It was the Jos club’s first away win of the season.
Ogunbote’s side moved out of the relegation zone following that win.
“I’m happy with the victory because the points garnered helped the club move away from the relegation zone,” Ogunbote told Plateau United’s media.
“We have been struggling to get the away win but finally, we managed to do it.
“We were careless in the game, we could not take advantage of the one man advantage. May be it’s due to nervousness but the players were aware of the importance of the win.”
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
_gac_
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
__utma
ID used to identify users and sessions
2 years after last activity
__utmt
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
Marketing cookies are used to follow visitors to websites. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user.
Name
Description
Duration
__smWelcomeMatShown
30 years
A video-sharing platform for users to upload, view, and share videos across various genres and topics.
Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Session
DEVICE_INFO
Used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website.
179 days
LOGIN_INFO
This cookie is used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.
2 years
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA
Youtube visitor privacy metadata cookie
180 days
GPS
Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.
1 day
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing
179 days
PREF
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
