As the NRL and AFL reach the pointy end of their respective seasons, speculation around players moving clubs only begins to increase. Here are the titbits making headlines today…

In the NRL, Jarome Luai has said he is committed to the Wests Tigers despite a clause in his contract that would allow him to walk away at the end of next season. The playmaker, who won four premierships with the Penrith Panthers before joining the Tigers this season, said: “When things get hard, people are expecting you to change. I'm not that type of guy. I'm here for the long run”.

In the AFL, Collingwood coach Craig McRae has confirmed that he met with Carlton star Jack Silvagni about a potential move to the top-of-the-table Magpies. According to reports, Collingwood have put a four-year deal on the table for the third generation Carlton player. It comes as Carlton sit 12th on the ladder and Silvagni becomes available as a free agent at the end of this season.

$US100,000 ($AU153,000)
The amount of money the Nigerian Government has promised the members of its women’s national football team after winning the Women's Africa Cup of Nations. Alongside the cash prize, each player has been promised a three-bedroom apartment. Nigeria defeated Morocco 3-2 in the final of the Africa-wide tournament on the weekend. The team have won 10 of the 13 times the tournament has run.

"You can't tell us what to do… you're just the groundsman, nothing beyond.”
Gautam Gambhir, the head coach of India’s Test cricket team, during a confrontation with Lee Fortis, the head groundsman at Surrey, ahead of the fifth Test match between England and India. According to Indian batting coach Sitanshu Kotak, the coaches were inspecting the pitch and were asked to move away. Kotak said: "When you are working with very intelligent and highly skilled people, if you sound a bit arrogant, you can be protective — but at the end of the day it's a cricket pitch. It's not an antique that you can't touch because it's 200 years old and it can be broken. That's what I feel."

At Moscow 1980, both the gold and silver medal-winning rowing crews in the men’s coxless pairs event were identical twins. East Germany’s Bernd and Jorg Landvoigt won gold, and the Soviet Union’s Nikolai and Yuri Pimenov won silver. 

🚴‍♂️ Dutch cyclist Lorena Wiebes won stage four of the Tour de Femmes, beating Marianne Vos in a sprint finish for the second consecutive day. Vos, who is also Dutch, remains the overall race leader and is 12 seconds ahead of Mauritius’ Kim Le Court Pienaar and Wiebes, tied for second place. Sarah Gigante is the highest-placed Australian. The 24-year-old is in 19th place, 51 seconds behind Vos.

⚽The groups for next year’s Women’s Asian Cup were drawn last night. Australia has been placed in a group with the Philippines, Iran, and South Korea. The Matildas’ biggest challenge in the group stage will be South Korea, who beat them in the quarter-finals of the 2022 Women’s Asian Cup. When it comes to the knockout stages, the most threatening teams in the tournament are likely to be world #7 Japan, world #9 North Korea, and defending champions China. The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup is being hosted by Australia and will begin in March next year.

🏊 Kaylee McKeown outswam American rival Regan Smith to claim the women’s 100m backstroke world title in Singapore last night. The five-time Olympic gold medallist swam a personal best time of 57.16 seconds, 0.03 seconds shy of Smith’s world record. Meanwhile, Lani Pallister won a bronze medal in the women’s 1500m freestyle, behind American Katie Ledecky in first and Italian Simona Quadarella in second.

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Content warning: Gun violence, suicide 

Police believe the man who killed four people in a shooting in New York City yesterday was targeting the offices of the National Football League. 

Here’s what you need to know. 

On Monday afternoon (local time), a 27-year-old man walked into a New York City office building with an AR-15-style rifle.

The man shot and killed a police officer in the lobby of the building before catching the elevator to two floors, where he killed a further three people. He died by suicide at the scene.  

Police found a note in the man’s pocket that suggested he was targeting the NFL’s New York office, one of several businesses with offices in the building he attacked. 

Officials said the man took the wrong elevator. None of those murdered worked for the NFL. 

One NFL employee was wounded but survived.

Police said the man’s note requested an autopsy be performed to determine whether or not he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from playing football in high school. 

CTE is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated head trauma. It can only be diagnosed post-mortem. 

The NFL admitted there was a link between CTE and football in 2016 and has since paid out more than $US1.6 billion ($AU2.5 billion) in settlements to its former players. 

NFL boss Roger Goodell described Monday’s shooting as “ an unspeakable act of violence”.

Lifeline: 13 11 14

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hosted a ceremony today at Parliament House to formally acknowledge the Australian athletes who competed at the controversial 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. 

The athletes who attended the Games faced significant public disapproval for their decision to participate in the face of an American-led boycott of the event.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States led a boycott of the Olympics in Moscow the next year. This was in the midst of the Cold War, when tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. were high.

Australia’s Prime Minister at the time, Malcolm Fraser, supported the boycott and urged Australian athletes not to attend. The Australian Olympic Committee voted on the matter and allowed individual athletes to decide, however.

In response to the voting result, Fraser said: “It is a decision in the interests of a small band of Olympic athletes. It is a decision contrary to the interests of hundreds of thousands of young Australian men and women, and of all other Australians, who will not be going to Moscow.”

Of the 204 Australian athletes selected for the Games before the boycott, 121 (96 men and 25 women) competed at the Games. The Aussies who competed did so under a neutral Olympic flag and won nine medals (two gold, two silver, and five bronze).

Around 50 Australians who competed in the games attended the event today. 

Regarding the backlash the athletes received, swimmer Michelle Ford told the ABC: "We were being treated as traitors. We were given death threats. We were nearly banished from this country.”

Australian Olympic Committee President Ian Chesterman said: "The parliamentary recognition will acknowledge the courage and resilience of the Olympians who faced intense public pressure not to compete, and the enduring hurt and pain many of them still feel to this day."