Chelsea are considering a move for Cristiano Ronaldo but it remains to be seen whether Thomas Tuchel is keen on signing the Manchester United forward.
Ronaldo wants to leave United because of what he perceives as a lack of ambition in their summer transfer dealings and his agent, Jorge Mendes, offered the 37-year-old to Chelsea’s co-owner Todd Boehly last month, the Guardian reported.
Boehly is understood to be intrigued by the idea of signing the Portugal international and has held further talks with Mendes but is likely to be led by Tuchel’s thoughts on Ronaldo, who cited family reasons after failing to return to training at United on Monday, before firming up any offer.
Chelsea’s new ownership do not want to foist unwanted players on their head coach and it is unclear whether Tuchel wants Ronaldo, who has also been offered to Bayern Munich, Napoli and Paris Saint-Germain.
The Chelsea manager plans to mould a versatile, fluid attack and has allowed Romelu Lukaku to join Internazionale on loan. Lukaku struggled to adapt to Tuchel’s system last season – the Belgium striker did not press enough and lacked mobility – and it is likely that signing Ronaldo would create similar problems.
Signing Ronaldo would give Chelsea a proven goalscorer but, although he registered 24 goals in 38 appearances for United last season, it was debatable whether he had a positive impact on the team. United, who have insisted Ronaldo is going nowhere and are unlikely to want to lose him to a domestic rival, finished sixth and often lacked cohesion.
Dane deal
Meanwhile, Christian Eriksen has agreed to join Manchester United on a three-year deal after talks with Erik ten Hag.
The Denmark midfielder, who spent the final four months of last season at Brentford and is out of contract, has reached a verbal agreement and the move is subject to a medical.
 

Veteran center Hamed Haddadi chipped in 14 points, as well as 15 rebounds, to help Iran walk away with a 91-56 victory over Syria in Aleppo to cap off the first round of the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup Asian qualifiers.
Mohammad Jamshidi topped the scoring for Iran with 16, with Navid Rezaeifar scoring 11 in 17:58 minutes of play, as head coach Saeed Armaghani celebrated a first win in the second game in charge.
Nadim Issa had 13 points to lead Syria.
Iran had already secured a runner-up finish in Group D of the qualifiers with 10 points – following Kazakhstan – and a place in the second-round group phase.
Also on Monday, Bahrain stunned Kazakhstan 62-51 in Nur-Sultan to overtake Qatar for the third place in the group and progress to the next round.
Iran will kick off the fourth window of the qualifiers with a home fixture against Japan on August 25 in Group F – also featuring Australia, China, Kazakhstan, and Bahrain.
Having beaten Bahrain twice in the previous round, while suffering back-to-back defeats against Kazakhstan, Iran will take a 4-2 record into the group to start in the fourth place.
Top three of the two qualifying groups will advance to the final showdown – starting Aug. 25 next year in Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
New Zealand, Lebanon, Jordan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and India are in Group E.

 

Iranian judo has been given the go-ahead by the International Judo Federation (IJF) to participate at the upcoming Islamic Solidarity Games.
IJF president Marius Vizer, in a letter with regards to the Iranian federation’s query, wrote on Monday that the international governing body of the sport “does not oppose in anyway the participation of Iran Judo Federation” at the event – starting August 9 in Konya, Turkey.
The announcement comes amid an ongoing case in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding the Iran’s appeal against an IJF ban.
In September 2019, the IJF Disciplinary Commission had suspended the Iranian federation from all competitions, administrative and social activities for what the Budapest-based organization described as “repeated and very severe breaches of the IJF Statutes and the Fundamental Principles of Olympism.”
The IJF made the ruling following the incidents at the 2019 World Judo Championships in Tokyo and the controversy surrounding the then Iranian -81kg representative Saeed Molaei.
According to the IJF, the world judo governing body had been informed that during the competitions in the Japanese capital, Molaei intentionally lost to his Belgian opponent Matthias Casse to avoid a potential bout against the Israeli’s Sagi Muki in the final.
Iran has firmly rejected the allegations.
Arash Mir-Esmaeili, the president of the Iran Judo Federation, on Tuesday, welcomed Vizer’s letter as “a positive signal which offers a starting point for the development of the relationship between the IJF and Iran.”
Mir-Esmaeili added that the country will send a complete team of seven male and female participants apiece to the fifth edition of the Games, which will be held after a one-year postponement – caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
 

A total of eight medals, including two golds, saw Iran’s freestyle team finish second at the Asian U15 Wrestling Championships on Manama, Bahrain.
Reza Afshar (68kg) and Ramtin Khodabakhsh (85kg) claimed the ultimate prizes of their respective weight classes.
Afshar outmuscled Tajikistan’s Alirizo Bakhromov 6-4 in the final, while Khodabakhsh beat Indian Badal Chaudhary 5-2.
M anwhile, Aryan Mehr-Alizadeh (44kg), Hossein Aryan (48kg), Mahan Kavousi (62kg), and Amir-Mohammad Rahimi (75kg) added four silver medals to the country’s medal haul.
Amir-Abbas Alizad (38kg) and Amir-Hossein Mohammadi-Moqaddam (41kg) finished their campaigns with a couple of bronze medals.
Iran collected 184 points, equal with India, which bagged four golds to finish atop the table.
Kazakhstan stood third on 147 points.