F1 flop Sebastien Bourdais has been officially dumped by his team Toro Rosso with immediate effect.

Rumours have been circling around the paddock for weeks that the Frenchman was on his last legs after failing to meet the expectations of the team.

And two consecutive retirements – from last weekend’s German GP and at Silverstone three weeks earlier – has proved to be the final straw for the Ferrari outfit who have cut their losses and axed the 30-year-old.

The news will come as no great shock to F1 fans but its French contingent will no doubt be devastated at the departure of their sole representative in the sport.

Toro Rosso are reportedly due to fill the cockpit with Spain’s British Formula Three champion Jaime Alguersuari for the Hungarian leg of the world tour on the final weekend of July.

Originating from the famous racing town of Le Mans – home to the 24-hour endurance race – Bourdais failed to live up to the superstar reputation which saw him dominate the American ChampCar series for four straight years before his switch to F1 in 2007.

Bourdais tasted early success with a seventh place finish in his debut race in Melbourne last year, but just a week later he spun out of the Malaysia GP to trigger the first of seven retirements in his short career.

The Frenchman then continued to skid and stutter his way to just six points from 27 Grand Prix, finishing a dismal 17th last season.

Kept in the dark initially by teammate Sebastian Vettel (now with Red Bull) the Frenchman has continued to be overshadowed by his new partner Sebastien Buemi who is driving his rookie season.

If selected to pilot alongside Buemi in Budapest, Alguersuari will become the youngest driver in F1 history at 19 years and 126 days.

Tom Harverson examines the success of the new Glenn Hoddle Academy – a project set up to give rejected footballers a second shot at the beautiful game.

Now this may come as a shock but I’m not a professional footballer. In fact, I’m an embarrassingly bad footballer but hey, that’s why I write about it. But knowing several people who could have and perhaps should have made it to the big time, I’d say one of the biggest fears for the majority of pros or almost-pros, alongside big injuries, is having your contract cancelled and ultimately being released.

My housemate for three years at university was on the books at Derby when he was younger but he was unceremoniously dumped from their academy at 15. And he assures me it isn’t a nice feeling. He maintains he could have made it somewhere near the top of the game and would have battled to secure a permanent contract had he been given more time on the field.

But there has to be a cut off point and unfortunately he dipped under the bar. Contract terminations are common, especially in the lower leagues where countless talents are discarded to the footballing scrapheap. A lot of clubs outside of the top two or three English divisions lack the essential time and the funding to nurture a potential talent and sometimes even fail to spot a spark – they deal in instant results.

Having been dumped, it takes a certain type of person and sportsman to build on the rejection and improve their game. A lot give up and settle for a part-time contract at a basement club or quit the sport altogether.

But for the fighters there is a lifeline – the Glenn Hoddle Academy. Set up in June last year on the Montecastillo Resort in the Spanish city of Jerez and boasting state-of-the-art facilities, the centre aims to give young players a second chance at hitting the big time.

The successful Academy trialists – all of which had been released from pro contracts – receive full scholarships and are set through their paces, free of charge, by the ex-England manager’s coaching team which includes amongst its ranks Dave Beasant and Nigel Spackman.

And after just a year in operation, the ground-breaking scheme is already rehousing players. The first to bag a permanent deal with an English professional club was Chris Fagan who signed for Lincoln City last month. The 20-year-old striker had joined up with Hoddle after running his course at Manchester United.

But already Fagan’s success story has been topped by another fallen star. Dropped by League One new boys Wycombe Wanders and then by Northampton Town, you wouldn’t blame Ikechi Anya for perhaps rethinking his career path. But Anya battled on and signed up with Hoddle last summer.

On 6 July 2009 he joined La Liga side Sevilla on a two-year contract with an optional two-year extension.

The move was based purely on his performances at the Academy and try-outs at Chelsea’s training ground at Cobham. The 21-year-old now has mouth-watering away trips to the Bernabeu and Camp Nou to look forward to, lining up against some of the world’s greatest players. Oh and thanks to the Andalucian club’s third placed finish last season, he has a chance of playing in the Champions League.

Not too bad for a kid who wasn’t good enough for Wycombe.

The Academy presents an exciting future for young players who thought their careers were over before they had started. Hoddle himself admits that 18 is too young to really assess the true quality of a footballer – the prime and obvious example England legend Ian Wright who had to wait until 21 before making it onto the big stage.

Hoddle and his team are ticking every box possible to ensure his lads secure another contract. One of the best is on YouTube where each player has his own highlights package giving interested clubs an instant snippet of their abilities. No longer is there a need to wait for scouting reports or DVDs via airmail for continental clubs looking for a new signing. Hoddle has harnessed modern technology to bring scouting into the 21st century.

And the knock-on effects of the scheme should go beyond just rekindling dormant talent. Historically few British players have made a success out of playing abroad, although recently the trend is being bucked slightly. Greek outfit Olympiakos have snapped up Matt Derbyshire after a season long loan and Tyrone Mears enjoyed similar success at Marseille (even though he’s just joined Burnley for the up-and-coming season).

Of course others such as Paul Ince, Ian Rush and Gary Lineker have graced foreign fields, but despite the flurry of Europeans delighting us with their skills at all levels of the British game, we have never returned the favour in any great numbers.

However, Hoddle’s experiment has the potential to change this by opening up the one-way street to two-way traffic. With his lads being advertised across the continent more foreign clubs should be encouraged to venture into the British market. In turn as demand from abroad increases, the battle for British talent will intensify and the standards of our players will hopefully improve accordingly. British clubs with then have a battle on their hands to keep a grip on those who at the moment are being overlooked.

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Andrew Flintoff: Reportedly struggling to control his drinking.

It’s a debate that has raged for years – the effect of alcohol on sports stars.

This week has seen another chapter written in the chequered history between players and booze; firstly England cricket captain Andrew Strauss admitted that Freddy Flintoff is still struggling to control his drinking.

The 31-year-old all-rounder missed an organised team trip to a WWI cemetery in Belgium due to a heavy one the night before, and everyone will remember the infamous ‘Fredalo’ event in 2007 where the star was found drunk at sea on a pedalo.

On Monday, French rugby starlet Mathieu Bastareaud was admitted to a psychiatric ward in Paris for observation after the centre reportedly tried to kill himself by jumping into the Seine in the French capital.

The 20-year-old, who is a cousin to Arsenal footballer William Gallas, had been thrown off the French tour of New Zealand after he claimed he was attacked by five Kiwi rugby fans during a night out.

But in a statement through his club Stade Français the player admitted to falling over drunk in his room and damaging his cheekbone. Fearing an iron fist response from the Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR), Bastareaud concocted the fairytale about the fans but later spilt the truth to team officials.

Football is no different. We could pick one of many players that has been caught with their trousers round their ankles due to alcohol – literally in some cases, eh Nicklas Bendtner?! Joey Barton of course is another and most recently injury-ridden Spurs defender Ledley King was arrested after a drunken assault in London.

The next morning his manager Harry Redknapp pledged to instill a drinking ban from next season at the London club insisting that, “Footballers should dedicate their lives to playing”.

And so we arrive at the question, should there be a unilateral alcohol ban across all professional sport?

YES

Redknapp gave the best metaphor following the King arrest, “You shouldn’t put diesel in a Ferrari. I know it’s hard but they are earning big money, they are role models to kids.” The role model thing is probably the biggest issue for sportsmen who cannot have a night out and escape the photographer’s lens.

Earning big bucks and being in the spotlight brings added responsibility meaning you can’t go out and get hammered, stagger home via chicken hut and pass out on the front step. We all look up to different sportsmen and the impression they leave on kids is deep and longer lasting.

Beyond the responsibility issues lies performance. If a footballer is on upwards of £70,000-a-week they cannot justify pumping substances into their body that are going to affect their on-field results. Alcohol impairs the fitness, reaction time and ability to be at the top of your game. To get the best performances out of any sports star, it is essential that they don’t drink to ensure that their body is at its best.

The days of rugby players drinking before, during and after a game are gone, and George Best’s glory days cannot be relived by modern day players of any sport – except maybe darts. The era of multi-million pound players, professionalism and sponsorship deals means that alcohol can no longer be a part of sport.

NO

Why shouldn’t a player or athlete be allowed to drink? Everyone else in every other profession does it – doctors, opticians, police officers, taxi drivers… It isn’t often that footballers at the highest level spend an evening out on the sauce, and it is normally the same ones every time that do. What’s wrong with letting your hair down at the end of the season or going out with your mates if you don’t have a game or a race meet for a few days?

Sport has to have a social side and in many cases a night on the tiles can be key to the development and bonding of a team. Anyone who has seen the ‘Living with Lions’ DVD which documents the behind-the-scenes build-up to the 1997 triumphant Lions tour of South Africa will know how vital alcohol is to removing the inhibitions of players and constructing a truly united unit.

The key is moderation. During the Lions film there are two or three occasions where the team go out as a squad and drink together in a pub or restaurant in a controlled atmosphere. That is different from heading to the nearest club and taking advantage of the three-for-one deals on shots. In calling for allowing sports stars to drink it is not to permit binging but just to loosen the strings to allow a professional – as in any career – to relax.

There is no right answer to the conundrum of alcohol in sport and every manager and agent has a different take on the issue. But with controversy still surrounding the debate, I don’t think it will be long before one sport attempts to introduce a blanket alcohol ban and perhaps the rest will follow sync.

In 2007 the NFL introduced a ban on teams providing alcoholic beverages at team events including on buses and flights. The interdiction applies to all members of the club, including personnel, and expands upon the original ruling that prohibited alcohol from team locker rooms.

With perhaps a couple of exceptions, this is the situation in most professional sports outfits, but if alcohol abuse by sports stars continues – as seen with the most recent and persistent rule breaking by Aussie cricketer Andrew Symonds – how long will it be before sporting authorities call time at the bar for alcohol in sport?
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Photo: Paul Walsh

Brian O’Driscoll has launched a scathing attack on Peter De Villiers following the Springbok coach’s comments that defended eye gouging in the game.

The Lions centre labelled De Villiers a “disgrace” after the Bokkes boss admitted he saw nothing wrong with the actions of his player Schalk Burger who was sin binned and then banned from rugby for eight weeks after gouging Luke Fitzgerald in last Saturday’s second test.

O’Driscoll, who is today flying home after sustaining concussion in the same match, also slammed De Villiers by insisting that the coach has brought rugby into disrepute, “When I heard those comments I wondered how someone could get away with something like that”, said O’Driscoll.

“Irrespective of any apology, I found it an absolute disgrace that a coach of a national team can make comments as he did about gouging being part of the game.

“Essentially, it brought the game into disrepute.”

His early exit from a Lions tour is all-too-familiar for the Irish centre whose captaincy four years ago was cut short following the spear tackle in the first test against New Zealand which dislocated his shoulder.

But despite the premature departure, hopefully O’Driscoll’s comments will linger long after his plane climbs into the South African sky.

De Villiers has now provided the IRB, the sport’s governing body, with the excuse and the opportunity to leap upon gouging and kick it into touch permanently. The coach of the newly crowned world champions cannot get away with condoning gouging.

Aside from the physical effects – it is only a matter of time before someone is blinded – the act itself completely undermines the ethos of rugby. Although by nature it is a brutally tough game that seeks out and exploits weakness, rugby overflows with morality and professionalism. It is a game that rewards physical heroics like few others, whilst weeding-out the cowardly and weak.

Gouging is cowardly and terrifying, designed to cripple an opponent in the worst possible way. OK, stamping is technically permitted in rugby, but only in order to move a player blocking the ball in a ruck, and the use of the boot is closely monitored by the officials.

Gouging isn’t even in the same book, let alone on the same page as stamping and the IRB must act now to rid the game of such acts by banning any player for life who is caught carrying it out.

During ten years of playing rugby I have thankfully never been gouged or witnessed it happen. Stamping is a regular occurrence, I’ve been there and got the shredded t-shirt and whilst often it bends the rules, it is what you could call accepted violence.

But fingers routing around in eyes sends a shiver down the spine and oversteps what should be allowed. Yes, I’ve seen one devastatingly harsh nose-cracking head-butt and experienced an off-the-ball injury that needed surgery but although that again oversteps the mark, it is all the product an inherently physical sport in which one can easily get lost in the moment

The gouging isn’t. It has to be cut out now. Big punishments need to be introduced for gouging – with no exceptions, no buts, ifs or maybes. If you gouge, you’re gone. If the authorities do no take action the problem will continue to escalate and will become harder to eradicate.

To get the ball rolling Burger’s ban should be extended and, for his comments, De Villiers must follow his blond Bokke into the rugby wilderness.

Anne Keothavong is the British women's number one

So it would appear that Andy Murray has just been papering over the cracks of British tennis as six out of eight of the British contingent crashed out of the nation’s flagship event.

From all British entrants into this year’s Wimbledon only number two Elena Baltacha and Murray survived the first round cull.

Anne Keothavong, the women’s number one, slumped to a 7-5, 6-2 defeat to Patricia Mayr whilst men’s number two Alex Bogdanovic fell at the first hurdle for the eighth year running.

Yet again the 25-year-old Bogdanovic, who currently sits 191 in the world, stuck true to his Wimbledon form by losing in straight sets to Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Despite this perpetual failure at Wimbledon, and the LTA admitting that Bogdanovic should not have been included in the last British Davis Cup team for a play-off four months ago, he is still allowed to participate at SW19. Why?

The simple answer to the question, and one that Bogdanovic made himself after his match, is that there is no one else to give the wildcard to. Clearly, below the gleaming surface of British tennis lies a stagnant sea of mediocrity. Again, you really have to ask, why?

A quick example would perhaps clear this up. Look at Serbia: three players inside the world top 50, two women – Jelena Jankovic (6) and Ana Ivanovic (12) – and one man, world number four Novak Djokovic, whilst Janko Tipsarevic sits just outside at number 51.

Two years ago at what was then the DFS Classic in Birmingham – one of the women’s warm-ups to Wimbledon – Jankovic, the former world No1,responded to the question about British shortcomings by telling me about her life growing up in Belgrade which still bore the scars of war.

Everyday, she said, her and her friends would practice on bombed-out courts littered with shell holes, knocking up across split nets with out-of-date racquets in a region that had been ravaged by conflict.

But still she rose to the summit of world tennis. Her counterpart Djokovic has a grand-slam to his name and Ivanovic has tasted victory on the red clay of Roland Garros.

So why with the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton – which cost an estimated £39m and boasts 22 indoor and outdoor courts with fitness gurus and exquisite training facilities – do we produce just one superstar?

OK, admittedly the centre was only opened in 2007 but the LTA has been pumping countless millions into development and training for decades and yet all we can show for it is the excellent but not-quite-the-finished-product Tim Henman and hopefully, hopefully, a Scot with a several grand slams in him.

So what’s the difference? Does it simply come down to how much you really want to win? Are the Serbians simply battle hardened in relation to the Brits that take a pristine court and state-of-the-art Babolat racquet for granted?

Is the fight of Murray – that seemed to be lacking in Henman – and the fire burning deep in his stomach to keep scrapping, to keep improving and to keep winning simply an anomaly in British tennis players?

True, it is hard to question the fight of someone who is in the top 200 players of any sport in the world, but it would appear that something is not quite right in the mentality of British tennis players when Bogdanovic defends himself with, “who else would you give the wildcard to?”

Step one for the LTA and British tennis is pinpointing the cause of this apparent apathy, stamping it out and then kicking the production line into overdrive.

But also the sport must become more accessible to the country as a whole by shaking off its high-class shackles and tapping into the raw talent that exists in Britain.

We all have a lot of work to do. Already the hopes and dreams of a nation lay heavily on the shoulders of one young Atlas. If we are going to end more than 70 years of hurt, he’s going to need a hand.

Real Madrid have scooped their second superstar of the summer as Manchester United accept an unconditional £80m (€92m) offer for Cristiano Ronaldo.

After a year of speculation over the future of the Portuguese star, a statement on the Manchester United website on Wednesday morning revealed that the Premier League Champions are now ready to let Ronaldo leave.

The news will come as a massive coup for the new Real Madrid president Florentino Perez who has been in the hot seat for just ten days but has already secured the services of former world player of the year Kaka for £56m.

Now it appears that man behind the famous galaticos era, which brought the likes of Zinedine Zidane, the Brazilian Ronaldo and David Beckham to the Spanish capital, has done it again by grabbing the current world player of the year.

And it will be doubly pleasing for Perez who has sealed the deal so quickly despite his predecessor Ramon Calderon pushing relations between the two clubs to breaking point as a result of his constant courting of the 24-year old.

Clearly Manchester United had no choice but to accept the colossal offer, which will smash the world transfer record in both pounds sterling and euros and allow the Northwest outfit to stuff yet more talent into their squad.

United fans will be split on the departure of the superstar – who joined from Sporting Lisbon in 2003 – but with the sums of money involved not one will criticise the club’s decision and of late many have become tired of the striker’s attitude and apparent apathy.

The door is now open for the Champions League runners up to target other big hitters such as Franck Ribery and Antonio Valencia and the departure of his former team mate may even encourage hitman Carlos Tevez to stay.

Reports suggest that the Ronaldo deal will be moved through very quickly, but with United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the man himself both away on holiday, expect the deal to be finalised by the end of the month.

The question is now, having spent £136m in two days on two of the games greatest players, who is next and for how much? One thing is for sure: the galaticos era part two has definitely begun.

The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) developed to increase overtaking in Formula One is set to be scrapped next season just a year after it was introduced.

Despite KERS’ ability to provide a surge of kinetic energy that increases overtaking capabilities on the track, the Formula One Teams’ Association has agreed to chop the optional system in a move which will leave many F1 fans disappointed.

At a time when the world’s most glamorous sport is attempting to tighten its belt, the ditching of KERS appears, in part, to be an extension to the cost cutting drive of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and FIA boss Max Mosley.

The past few weeks have seen yet another pantomime in the paddock as some of the biggest manufacturers threatened to quit and set up a rival competition after Mosley announced that the sport would introduce an optional £40m budget cap.

After weeks of infighting, the drama finally climaxed when Ferrari lost a bid in a French court to have Mosley’s plans ruled unjust and it is widely believed that an elevated cap of around £100m could be introduced in the next few years.

But KERS, which adds weight and therefore increases fuel consumption, has been viewed as a dispensable luxury during the current economic climate and it appears that FOTA has made this decision in order to appease Mosley.

Clearly the system’s maiden season has been a flop with only McLaren, Ferrari, BMW Sauber and Renault having snapped up the new technology – of which the latter two have already cut their trial short whist Ferrari is struggling to harness its potential.

But teething problems with new technology are nothing new and arguably during a strong economic period KERS would have survived its embryonic stages to be molded into an exciting new addition that would increase the thrill of watching F1.

Therefore the question is if new and potentially exciting technology is being shunned before it has had time to be developed because of the economic downturn, will F1 lose its attraction?

F1 is a business that thrives on celebrity, glitz and glamour – hundreds of motor homes stuffed full of the world’s A-listers tearing across the planet from one incredible destination to another. But away from the celebrity world still lurks the petrol heads and the engine junkies for whom the thrill is the shriek of an engine, the smack of petrol fumes and the difference between soft and hard tyres.

The downfall of KERS is perhaps a worrying precedent that technology may take a backseat in what is becoming a scrappy dogfight as F1 looks for expendables in the sport.

If pioneering technology disappears, all that is left is a bunch of crazed celebs on a racetrack. If this continues expect race days in the future to be broadcast on E4 and hosted by Davina McCall.