JOHN Giles is retiring from football punditry at the age of 84 after a 23-year run with Newstalk’s Off the Ball radio programme.

“Thursday night football with John Giles” has been a staple of the evening sports show since the station’s inception in 2002.

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Giles was RTE’s ‘senior analyst’ throughout a golden period of football analysis[/caption]

RTE

Giles, Dunphy and Liam Brady were affectionately know as ‘The three amigos’[/caption]

This evening it was announced that the Leeds United great has chosen to blow the final whistle on his long and distinguished media career.

His final appearance was preceded by a touching and poignant tribute featuring the best bits of his broadcasting career, both in RTE and Off The Ball.

He goes down as one of the most influential man in the history of Irish football with a career spanning almost 70 years – both on and off the pitch.

And speaking on OTB for the final time, Giles said: “I was really lucky. I fell into the television. Eamon [Dunphy] helped me a lot in that.

“When you’re doing the job I was trying to do, you have to watch all the matches. You can’t make it up as you go along.

“I think it got to the stage where I was getting a bit stale trying to watch as many matches as I could and it became hard work.

“Football has never been hard work to me, I have always loved it but there are so matches.

“Even in the summer now, you see the teams over in America [for the Club World Cup].

“I have had a good run of it. I am 84, nearly 85.

“I have enjoyed it. I loved playing. I fell into to the television, I had no intention of doing that when I was actually playing the football.

“No complaints whatsoever.”

Off the Ball are going to hold a night of celebration in his honour in Dublin’s Sugar Club on Thursday August 14.

To quote the man himself, he’ll be joined onstage by the great and the good of his many friends and colleagues down through the years where they’ll reminisce on all he’s witnessed across his media career.

Those who’d like to attend should keep an eye on Off the Ball’s social media channels as ticket information will be released in due course.

Ger Gilroy, Managing Director of Off The Ball, hailed: “John Giles, Senior Analyst, is a titan of Irish sport.

“His weekly explanation of football truth on Off The Ball helped deepen what the country knows about football.

“His ability to see through bulls*** and his love of the game
shone through in every contribution.

“Off The Ball has been blessed to call John a mentor, colleague and friend for over 20 years, he set the bar for what’s expected every Thursday night and we can only hope to live up to his legacy.

“We have truly been standing on the shoulders of a giant.”

RTE DEPARTURE

The Dubliner departed RTE after Euro 2016 when his contract with the national broadcaster was allowed to run out.

Unlike his exit from Newstalk, it was a somewhat acrimonious parting as Giles told the Irish Sun in 2017.

The former Ireland player-manager stated at the time that he would be open to a return to the RTE panel – if an offer ever came his way.

He said: “I don’t think that’s possible, an offer coming in. If it did, I would consider it, but I wouldn’t be dashing in, strange as that may seem, I don’t miss it.

“I wasn’t disappointed with how it ended with RTE, I had 30 good years at RTE.

“It took them that long to find me out! That was their business to do it, I would have continued but I wasn’t broken-hearted about it, I had a great run.”

Over the course of his stint with RTE he was a quarter of an iconic panel when you lump in host Bill O’Herlihy with “The Three Amigos” of Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady.

Giles was an ever-present feature from Ireland’s major tournament breakthrough at Euro 1988 right up until Euro 2016.

That remains the last major international tournament that the Republic of Ireland men’s team have played in.

Betway Premiership giants Kaizer Chiefs and Kappa will reveal a new kit design. The club’s Marketing Director Jessica Motaung given an update.

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FORMER Manchester United star Marcos Rojo is a free agent after his Boca Juniors contract was terminated.

The defender now finds himself with a club just days after the Argentines were dumped out of the Club World Cup.

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Marcos Rojo is a free agent after having his Boca Juniors contract axed[/caption]

AFP

The defender won several trophies during his time at Man United[/caption]

Rojo, 35, didn’t play a single minute in the US as Boca failed to win a single group game.

After a 2-2 draw in their opener against Benfica, the Buenos Aires side lost 2-1 to Bayern before being held to an embarrassing 1-1 draw against semi-pro Auckland City.

Heads are sure to be rolling at Boca, winners of 35 league titles and six Copa Libertadores.

And one man who has paid an immediate price for their failure is Rojo.

The centre-back joined them from United in 2021 and went on to play 133 times.

But Rojo immediately fell out of Miguel Russo’s plans when the gaffer took charge in May.

And despite still having six months remaining on his contract, ESPN claim Rojo has now been let go.

Indeed, it’s reckoned the defender will not even return to Argentina with his side, who are midway through their season and sit joint-top of the table.

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Rojo could now be eyeing a return to Europe, having also played for Spartak Moscow and Sporting Lisbon.

United paid the Portuguese side £16m to sign Rojo in 2014.

And the defender became a hit as won the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Europa League in his first three seasons.

However, a cruciate ligament injury in 2017 marked the beginning of the end of Rojo’s Old Trafford career.

Having played 95 times in the first three years, the following three saw Rojo feature in just 27 games.

But he turned things around at Boca as he led them to title glory in 2022, playing 44 times that year before suffering another decline in form and fitness.

THIS is the haunting moment cops raided a mass live burial to rescue cult followers wrapped like mummies and entombed in graves.

Police in Russia raided a bizarre shamanic ritual in which two young women were “buried alive”.

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Police in Russia raided a bizarre shamanic ritual in which two women were ‘buried alive’[/caption]

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Reports said participants were wrapped in rags and buried alive as part of a supposed rebirth[/caption]

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The self-styled shaman named Timur[/caption]

The pair with heads wrapped like mummies had to be dug out of the graves in a forest in Leningrad region.

Both were alive after their ordeals.

One had difficulty standing up when she was dug out.

Thirteen more worshippers were gathered around a fire, some waiting to be buried after digging their own graves.

The self-styled shaman named Timur and his female assistant Yekaterina Koroleva were both detained on suspicion of running a sinister cult.

First, the shaman was ordered to dig out the two women from their 20-inch deep graves.

Koroleva – organiser of the ritual –  denied that the participants had paid almost £80 to die in the graves, and claimed their heads were not completely buried, allowing them to breathe.

“The essence of the ritual is essentially a kind of reset,” she said.

“It’s a psychological trance ceremony where a person undergoes a complete reboot, a full cleansing.

“If someone has gone through certain life events, or wants to be completely reborn, to fully change their life — they opt for this extreme form of burial.”

Reports said participants were wrapped in rags and buried alive as part of a supposed rebirth or symbolic encounter with Hel, the Norse goddess of death.

Law enforcement were deciding how to proceed against the detained pair.

They could face up to seven years in jail, reported Novye Izvestia news outlet.

A shaman is a person believed to have access to, and influence in, the world of spirits, typically through rituals, visions, and healing practices.

This comes as a Russian rape cult leader who called himself an alien named Great Shaman was arrested in Argentina.

Konstantin Rudnev, 57, was handcuffed and dragged away by cops at Bariloche Airport as he attempted to flee to Brazil with six women.

Video shows the twisted guru — who once claimed to be a god from the star Sirius — being busted in a dramatic operation that saw 14 suspects snared at two airports over 1,000 miles apart in a joint swoop by Argentine authorities.

Rudnev — already convicted of rape and running a violent sex cult in Russia — reportedly tried to slit his throat with a razor as officers closed in, according to El Pais.

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The shaman was ordered to dig out the two women from their 20-inch deep graves.[/caption]

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The pair could face up to seven years in jail[/caption]

He was reportedly treated for his injuries and was pictured with a bandage around his neck.

He now faces fresh charges of human trafficking, sexual exploitation and drug offences, more than a decade after he was jailed for 11 years in Siberia for a string of abuse crimes involving female followers.

The bizarre cult, Ashram Shambala, founded in 1989 in Novosibirsk, brainwashed followers — mostly women — into surrendering their property.

They would reportedly cut ties with loved ones and take part in so-called “ritual orgies” in exchange for “salvation.”

Women were allegedly coerced into sex with Rudnev — while male followers were ordered to remain celibate.

The cult even flogged recordings of the encounters to fund operations and promised spiritual enlightenment via “women’s practices” and Eastern esotericism.

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Thirteen more worshippers were gathered around a fire[/caption]

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Yekaterina Koroleva was also detained on suspicion of running the sinister cult[/caption]

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The women were wrapped like mummies and lowered into the soil[/caption]

Former shock jock Gareth Cliff has been accused of racism and Islamophobia after another controversial social media comment...

LOVE Island beauty Alima furiously ends things with Remell tonight in an explosive showdown following his return from the sleepover.

Viewers were stunned last night when Remell chose to stick with partner with Alima instead of pairing with new girl Poppy, who he spent the last two days snogging at every opportunity.

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Alima clashes with Remell in tonight’s Love Island[/caption]

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Alima calls her man out on his behaviour in the other villa[/caption]

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She warned the other girls she was going to unload on him[/caption]

Though Alima was thrilled to be picked, her mood quickly changed when she learned what Remell had been up to.

In a teaser clip from tonight’s show, Helena, who was also in the other villa with Remell, tells her: “Alima, I’m not gonna lie to you I was really surprised.”

Alima then says: “See, when I start smiling like this s**t is about to go down.”

The original villa girl then confronts Remell in a bad-tempered chat in the garden.

She fumes: “This is why I was struggling to open up to you, right. Then the moment I start to this is what you f*****g go and do.

“It was all fake. All the recoupling speeches.”

Remell denies that’s the case but struggles to get a word in as Alima continues: “Why did you have to share a bed with her?”

Eventually she gets up and storms off, leaving a stunned Remell to say: “Oh my days, bro.”

While in the other villa, Remell made Poppy believe he was going to pick her.

He told her: “I’m being comfy around you still. It’s the first time in, you know, the villa that I have felt like this, so it’s telling me something.”

However, he changed his mind at the last moment and a shocked Poppy was dumped from the show, along with fellow newbies Will and Caprice.

Helena was the only person to couple up with her bombshell, choosing to bring hunky Gio back to the villa with her.

As a result of this, Shea was sent packing.

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Remell couldn’t keep his hands off Poppy during the sleepover[/caption]

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Despite this, he chose to stay coupled up with Alima[/caption]

REPRESENTING your country at the Olympics is every athlete’s dream – but for Dubliner Nadia Power, it was a goal she was almost too afraid to set.

The 800m track star, who started running when she was just eight-years-old, should have backed herself from the off because in 2021 she ran for Ireland in Tokyo.

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David Ramos/Getty Images

swifterstore.com

After a breakthrough season in 2021, including breaking the Irish indoor 800m record twice, first running 2:02.44 and then to 2:00.98, she placed seventh in her heat in Tokyo.

And the Templeogue native is open about the ups and downs of life in athletics, admitting it’s “been a bad few years” after being hampered by various injuries.

She told the Irish Sun: “I think my body is struggling to tolerate the training needed to be at a high level.

“It’s been a bad few years for me, to be honest.

“I’ve had a lot of injuries over the last few years. Mostly lower leg from falling and calf and Achilles issues. 

“So I’m still dealing with one now at the moment. So it’s been a bad few years for me to be honest with athletics, I’ve really struggled.”

Nadia told how the Olympics goal wasn’t always on the table, adding: “I was never looking at the Olympics. I was always just not backing myself, I suppose.

“It was only as it came closer that I realised I was running really well and had a chance. But it was probably just not being ambitious enough when I was younger.”

But after the disappointment and frustration of mounting injuries, Nadia now turned her focus to her fast-growing business – inspired by her athletics background.

She told us: “So that’s why I’m working hard on something else. I guess to distract me because athletics hasn’t went how I wanted it to go.”

BRAND BUZZ

Nadia and her hurler partner James Madden teamed up to use their sports experience to create a homegrown range of practical fitness essentials through their brand Swifter.

Nadia said kicking off the company was a way to “control” her time and combine work with her career as an athlete, adding: “Starting a business gave me the flexibility to train and work on something I’m passionate about.”

Noticing a “big boost in running” across the country, the pair decided to focus on creating “problem-solving products”.

James used his background in product development and sporting experience with the Dublin hurling team to create their first product – the SwiftVest back in 2023.

And Nadia leads the design and content, using her years of running experience to ensure every product passes the pro athlete test.

Run clubs are booming, with big races selling out within hours of going on sale and a huge surge in interest in the sport.

COMMUNITY VIBES

The pair host regular run clubs and events in Dublin, encouraging people to get a run in and connect over a coffee afterwards.

Nadia said: “There’s less interest in drinking and party culture and more interest in wellness.

“Running clubs are a way to bring people together to socialise—it just makes the runs fly by.

“It’s so nice now that my friends want to do wholesome activities with me. 

“We’re all happy to grab a coffee, go for a swim, or do an exercise class together.”

When it comes to overcoming a sports injury, Nadia emphasised the importance of “taking a step back” and “focusing on other things in your life” – like how she’s thrown her full attention at Swifter, which is now stocked at Lifestyle Sports as well as Brown Thomas outlets in Dundrum and Cork.

She advised: “Don’t rush back for something. That’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made—trying to rush back for races. Just know the opportunity will come again next year.

“Taking a step back and focusing on other things in your life really helps.”

JOURNAL TIME

One of Swifter’s bestselling products was inspired by Nadia’s love of journalling – their Pursuit Training Journal, which they aim to be a personalised roadmap to achieving your fitness goals.

Nadia said: “I’ve always kept a journal, for the last 10 years, I’ve tracked all my training, distances and times. 

“It’s so helpful to look back when things went well or badly, or to figure out what caused an injury.”

And while her athletics career has sometimes left her frustrated and she’s focusing on work over sport this summer, Nadia said she’ll continue to work towards her goals on the track.

She said: “I think just surrounding myself with good people, finding good training partners and a good coach, and making sure my lifestyle supports my training has helped a lot.”

• See swifterstore.com

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WellFest

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A WOMAN has revealed how she had such an incredible glow up that some say her before and after photos look like two different people.

Amy Salmon, a 31-year-old business owner from London, says she was prompted to make a change when her long-term relationship broke down in March last year.

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Amy Salmon said she was left ‘miserable’ after a break up and hated the way she looked[/caption]

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She went from a size 22 to a size 6 and people say she looks over 15 years younger[/caption]

At the time she was size 22 and felt ‘horrific’ in her own skin, admitting she was “miserable, had no confidence, didn’t know her worth, and was completely lost.”

It was only when Amy saw photos of herself in a dress after a night out post break-up that she decided she needed to do something about her ‘unhealthy’ habits.

At first, Amy tried to lose the weight through exercise but, due to her binge-eating habit, opted for a £4,200 gastric sleeve in Egypt in June 2024 which helped her shift 8st.

She’s now dropped to a svelte size six after undergoing the surgery and has done £5,000-worth of beauty treatments.

This includes changing her make-up and giving her wardrobe a refresh in an attempt to boost her confidence.

She had skin booster treatments, had her face filler and Botox regularly topped up and changed her hair from a ‘miserable’ blonde bob to flowing 18-inch brunette extensions.

Amy said: “I have changed my hair and got 18-inch extensions put in. The short bob was such a miserable cut and colour for a miserable person.

“I do a lot of the treatment myself but I would have spent absolutely thousands on this. My hair alone cost me £600 and in total at least £5,000 for everything else.”

Not only has it completely changed her appearance – with some people saying she now looks like Love Island’s Gemma Owens – it’s boosted her confidence.

Thanks to the gastric sleeve, Amy lost seven stone and has “no regrets”, as she described getting the surgery as the “best decision” she ever made. 

Amy said: “When I look in the mirror, I see a different person and I don’t recognise the person I was. I could cry looking at photos.

“When I stepped out of that relationship, I didn’t recognise myself. I am so happy in myself now and I just ooze confidence.

“I got compared to Love Islander Gemma Owens. She’s so young but maybe my aesthetic treatment is working.”

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Amy Salmon when she was size 22 before her weight loss[/caption]

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Amy lost eight stone to get a ‘revenge body’ and now oozes confidence[/caption]

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Many people compare Amy to Love Island’s Gemma Owen – daughter of footballing legend Michael Owen[/caption]

BINGE-EATING HABITS

Amy said her unhealthy habits started when she was in her old unhappy relationship.

“[In the relationship], I would order a lot of Uber Eats. I would have constant takeaways and live off these.

“I was probably having five takeaways a week and it was setting me back at least £100.

“The binge-eating had gotten out of control. I just needed something as extreme as a gastric sleeve to kick me into gear.

When I stepped out of that relationship, I didn’t recognise myself. I am so happy in myself now and I just ooze confidence

Amy Salmon

“It [losing the weight] made me feel amazing. I love fashion and it meant I was able to buy clothes from shops as before I had to buy my clothes online.

“As a mum it has massively changed the game. As a 17 stone woman, I would be sweating at soft play.

“I used to be embarrassed to do those things because of how I looked and my energy levels but now I feel so much better.”

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Gemma opted for a £4,200 gastric sleeve in June 2024[/caption]

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Amy in May 2024 after coming out of her long term relationship[/caption]

And after getting her ‘sparkle’ back post break-up, she says she has started dating again and is now encouraging others to leave their relationship if they’re unhappy.

She added: “The break up was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It needed to happen and I dread to think where I would be if I was still in that relationship.

“Do not let the fear of what your life will look like keep you miserable. Life’s too short.”

SOCIAL MEDIA REACTION

She posted her before and after snaps on her @amysal93 account, in a video which has racked up over 91,000 views. 

One person said: “The way my jaw dropped !! You did that! I’m so proud of you.”

Another added: “Wowwww you look like your own daughter.”

A third commented: “pardon me! you look about 15 years younger.”

Take a look at what the weather has in store for South Africa’s nine provinces this Friday, 27 June 2025.