South America

BARCELONA — Brazilian footballer Dani Alves was convicted of raping a woman in the restroom of a Barcelona nightclub in 2022 and sentenced to 4-1/2 years in prison on Thursday, which he will appeal.

The top court in Spain's Catalonia region also ordered Alves, who has been jailed on remand for over a year and repeatedly changed his story, to pay $163,000 to the victim.

Inter Miami will be the last club Luis Suarez plays for, the Uruguay striker said on Thursday.

Suarez, 37, signed a contract with the Major League Soccer side last year for the 2024 season after a stint with Brazilian club Gremio.

He reunited with former Barcelona team mates Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, with whom he won four LaLiga titles in five years in Spain.

""Inter Miami will be my last club, my family already know that. I don't have a date yet, but it's the last step," Suarez said in an interview with Uruguayan radio station Del Sol.

The door is open for Lionel Messi to play at this year's Paris Olympics, Argentina's under-23 manager Javier Mascherano said.

Argentina secured their place at the Games after beating Brazil 1-0 on Sunday in the final four of South America's qualifying tournament.

ARGENTINA U-23 DEFEATED BRAZIL 1-0 AND IS GOING TO THE 2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS pic.twitter.com/t8eIYg6ppj

HONG KONG — Chinese sporting authorities have canceled next month's friendly international between Argentina and Nigeria amid a growing backlash against Lionel Messi's failure to play in an Inter Miami match in Hong Kong last week.

Argentina were scheduled to play Nigeria in the Chinese city of Hangzhou next month before facing the Ivory Coast in Beijing, but Messi's failure to take the field for Inter Miami in Hong Kong on Sunday caused widespread anger among fans.

LONDON — Argentine Lionel Messi retained the FIFA men's player of the year trophy on Monday, beating Manchester City's treble-winning Norwegian striker Erling Haaland and France's Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappé to the award.

Spain's 2023 World Cup winner Aitana Bonmati was voted the best women's player of the year.

Messi, who also secured the men's award in 2022 after guiding Argentina to World Cup victory, clinched the Ligue 1 title with PSG alongside Mbappe following that success, before moving to Major League Soccer team Inter Miami.

Inter Miami have signed striker Luis Suarez, the Major League Soccer club announced on Friday as the Uruguayan once again teams up with close friend and former Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi.

Suarez has signed a contract for the 2024 season and has also been reunited with former Barca players and treble-winning teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, with who they won four LaLiga titles in five years.

Brazil forward Neymar will not recover from knee surgery in time to play at next year's Copa America, national team doctor Rodrigo Lasmar said on Tuesday.

Brazil's top scorer underwent surgery last month after suffering a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus in his left knee on international duty in October.

Lasmar, who carried out the surgery, said the 31-year-old is not expected to be fit until August and they do not intend to take short cuts in the recovery process for him to play at the June 20-July 14 tournament in the United States.

FIFA announced on Sunday that its revamped Club World Cup, to be held for the first time in 2025, will feature 32 teams and will be played from mid-June to mid-July.

Following are details of how the tournament will work:

- The United States will host the 2025 edition of the expanded event, which will be held every four years thereafter.

- The tournament will have eight groups of four with the top two teams from each group going through to the knockout stages -- the same format as the 2022 World Cup.

The first place a match-worn soccer jersey usually goes is the washing machine, however that wasn’t the case for six Lionel Messi shirts worn at the 2022 World Cup. A Messi shirts auction saw six of the Argentine’s World Cup jerseys sold for a staggering $7.8 million.

Messi shirts auction

New York based auction house Sotheby sold the six jerseys for a price tag higher than nearly any other jersey in history. The most expensive in sports history was a Michael Jordan jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals that sold for $10.1 million.