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Monday, February 23, 2026
TopicFootball

Topic: Football

No refund for flop Messi Kolkata event yet. Fans ask, ‘Who is accountable?’

For many, the memory of seeing Messi — even from a distance — has already faded. What remains is a transaction unresolved, and a demand that platforms, organisers, and authorities stop passing the buck.

English Premier League teams no longer dominate football’s rich list

Spain’s Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, as well as Germany’s Bayern Munich and France’s Paris Saint-Germain, now make up the top four.

Photos of the Week: Uttarakhand’s man-animal conflict, Army chief’s annual briefing, Netflix India @ 10

In PhotosOfTheWeek, we bring you pictures clicked by ThePrint’s photojournalists, video journalists and reporters this past week.

‘Goal Machine’ Anushka Kumari, 14, was taunted, stopped. Now she’s India’s rising football star

Anushka Kumari started out on an uneven village ground, playing barefoot with boys despite family resistance. Three years later, she is India’s U-17 ‘Goal Machine’.

‘I met Messi’ was the headline of the GOAT tour. Football and fans were ignored

Perhaps the clearest indicator of how shallow the tour was lies in how Luis Suárez and Rodrigo de Paul were treated. These aren’t random names.

Messi mania in Delhi: Fans pull all-nighters to see the GOAT, tight checks to avoid Kolkata-like fiasco

Fans of the Argentine legend like Alben, 24, who stood in 3 km-long queues, have called the Delhi crowd and the management 'much better' than Kolkata.

ThePrint photos of the week: Gujarat’s hybrid coconuts to a Messi chaos & a jumbo protest

New Delhi: This week in photos, ThePrint brings together images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi paying tribute to security...

What a mess! Cops detain organiser of Messi tour, Mamata apologises for chaos at Kolkata stadium

Lionel Messi was invited to Kolkata as part of his multicity GOAT India Tour 2025. As fans went on rampage at Salt Lake Stadium, police resorted to a lathi-charge to restore order.

London sanctions UK Sikh entrepreneur over links to ‘terror activities’. Who is Gurpreet Singh Rehal

UK authorities find Rehal involved in Babbar Khalsa and Babbar Akali Lehar’s terrorist activities, including promoting, recruitment and providing financial services to Sikh separatists.

On Camera

Life in Delhi isn’t easy for Northeast Indians. Racism is always round the corner

Racism is a problem for privileged mainlanders only when it's meted out to them abroad. In their own backyard, it's normalised as 'I was just kidding. Chill yaar'.

In the West, there’s anxiety. In India, optimism—Rishi Sunak says India poised to be leader in AI

On Wednesday, the former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was speaking in New Delhi at a Carnegie & Observer Research Foundation event on AI.

Post-elections, Bangladesh Army shuffles top military & intel posts, defence adviser in India recalled

Orders issued by Army Headquarters reassign key operational commanders and senior intelligence officials, including the head of DGFI, the country’s premier military intelligence agency.

No country is ever fully sovereign. Cold War era taught India its real meaning

India’s fraught neighbourhood places multiple constraints on its strategic choices. It leaves no time to take a deep breath, lean back and reset.