Wales centre Ben Thomas has signed a new contract to stay at Cardiff.

Thomas, who was due out of contract at the end of the 2024-25 season, made his Cardiff debut in 2019 and has played eight internationals.

The 26-year-old can also play at full-back and fly-half where he has started two Tests for Wales.

"We have a good group and I believe we can build to achieve something special together in the next few years," said Thomas.

"The style of play suits my own game and I believe it is getting the best out of me as an individual and us collectively as a group.

"We also have so much talent at the club, with younger players continually emerging, which is driving us all on and developing our game."

Kata, a versatile back who has established himself at centre with Tigers, has featured seven times so far under Michael Cheika this season, scoring three tries to take his overall club tally to seven.

"Sol is a big talent and also a big character inside the squad," Cheika said.

"We really welcome his decision to stay with the club as I know he is a player in demand."

Kata is the third Tigers player in as many days to sign a new deal with the club, following England lock Ollie Chessum and Scotland prop Will Hurd.

Exeter boss Rob Baxter says he needs England centre Henry Slade's experience at fly-half.

The 31-year-old has started at 10 in both of his matches for Chiefs since returning from international duty.

Exeter are still searching for a first win of the season in either the Premiership or European Champions Cup as Baxter prepares to take his side to Sale on Saturday.

Slade began his career as a fly-half before finding success at centre.

"When you talk about what you need on the field - what do we need right here and now? - we need some real strong leadership and some real strong guidance," Baxter said.

"We need people with the confidence and that kind of - I'm not going to say cockiness because it's the wrong word - but that self-belief to stand there and make decisions and make calls and back them up and get the team to believe in it and back it up and do it 100%.

"That's why we put Sladey in at 10, to give him that opportunity to drive the game for us."

With Tamati Tua returning to fitness, Baxter moved Slade inside with Ben Hammersley starting in Slade's usual 13 shirt in the 64-21 thumping by Toulouse.

"Ideally would I like him (Slade) at 13? Right here and now I probably would," added Baxter.

"But I've got to make the call on where I want him to play and I think at the start of games it works particularly well for us.

"I actually think moving him to 13 later in the game, as we had to make some changes, also worked well.

"So it's not that we haven't got options, we've got options, but I'm trying to create a little bit of control with a couple of senior players at nine and 10 that can kind of lead the way a little bit."

The financial meltdown of London Irish, Wasps and Worcester has left the taxpayer out of pocket by more than 30m in unrecovered Covid loans.

The three Premiership clubs went out of business during the 2022-2023 campaign after taking 41.6m in contingency funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to cover the loss of revenue from matches and broadcast deals affected by the pandemic.

Worcester Warriors owed 15.7m in total, but the club's administrators paid back 9.8m in June 2023.

Wasps' administrators have repaid 300,000 of their 14.1m loan, while no money from London Irish's 11.8m has yet been returned to the public purse, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.

The DCMS says it expects to recover a further 7.3m to 11.1m in all from the trio and six other borrowers who have gone bust since receiving loans.

London Irish, Wasps and Worcester have all applied to return to the Championship when it expands from 12 to 14 clubs next season.

While all rugby creditors need to be repaid in full before they can return to professional rugby, government debt could still be on the books.

"Although progress has been made in recovering initial repayments, it is concerning that up to 29m of taxpayer money could be lost from borrowers who have since gone under," said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

Clifton-Brown added that the DCMS should have a more detailed plan in place to recover the rest of the 123.8m loaned to Premiership clubs during the pandemic.

"DCMS should continue to keep a close eye on English rugby union clubs that have been teetering on the edge," he added.

"Given the public money at stake, the department has more to do to show it has a long-term plan for managing and recovering loans across the sectors."

"DCMS accepted that some borrowers were already financially risky before the pandemic," noted the NAO in its report.

"It nonetheless considered it needed to provide loans to some organisations in both the culture and sports sectors despite their financial vulnerability as otherwise the bodies would almost certainly have failed, and its overriding intention was to protect the sectors through the pandemic."

Premiership clubs accounted for 57% of the loans made to sport by the DCMS during the pandemic, with rugby union in total making up 64% of the total borrowed.

Rugby league (24.2m), horse racing (21.5m) and tennis (14.3m) were the next highest beneficiaries, while non-league football clubs received 13.4m.

Two-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Justin Schultz is retiring after 12 NHL seasons following a short stint in Europe.

The NHL Players' Association announced Schultz's decision Wednesday. The 34-year-old terminated his contract with HC Lugano in Switzerland last week.

Schultz won the Cup with Pittsburgh in 2016 and '17 after spending his first four seasons in the league with Edmonton. The Kelowna, British Columbia, native played two seasons each with Washington and Seattle and eight games for Lugano this fall before calling it a career.

"Mine is a strictly personal choice," Schultz said in a team release. "I discussed it with my family, and I made the decision to end my career here and return to Canada. I thank Hockey Club Lugano for the professionalism shown and for respecting my choice."

Schultz was a 2008 second-round pick of Anaheim's who did not sign with the Ducks and joined the Oilers as a free agent in 2012. Since debuting that year, he put up 366 points in 826 regular-season and playoff games for the Oilers, Penguins, Capitals and Kraken.

The CIES Football Observatory has published data on the most used players over the course of the calendar year, with Barcelona's Jules Koundé atop the list and Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk and Real Madrid midfielder Federico Valverde among the top five.

France defender Koundé played a total of 5,872 minutes for club and country across the year, with Fluminense's Colombia international Jhon Arias in second place with 5,599. Valverde played 5,573, while Van Dijk racked up 5,523 minutes in all competitions.

Arsenal's William Saliba, Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Granit Xhaka and Benfica's Nicolás Otamendi also featured in the top 10.

CIES noted in their release that for the top 100 players in terms of minutes played, domestic club football accounted for 73.2%, with 15.1% from intercontinental club competitions and 13.4% from national team action.

Player usage and rest has become a topic of considerable concern in recent weeks and months, particularly after Manchester City's Ballon d'Or-winning midfielder Rodri said players could go on strike if the football calendar continues to become more congested.

Koundé agreed with Rodri's sentiments, telling a news conference last September: "Every year, we have more matches and less time to recover. It's not for want of saying it. We've been saying it for three or four years but no one listens to us.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CIES Football Observatory (@cies_football)

"The coaches have also said it and they are not listened to either. There will come a time when we will have to strike, because it is the only way for us to make our voice heard by those who decide."

In October, the global players' union FIFPro filed an antitrust complaint against FIFA along with European football chiefs in which they that argue that global football's governing body is abusing its right as both tournament organiser and regulator.

Kylian Mbappé has been named in the starting lineup for Real Madrid in their Intercontinental Cup final against Mexican side Pachuca.

The star forward was thought to be out of action for around 10 days after suffering a thigh injury in Madrid's 3-2 Champions League victory at Atalanta, but his progress has been better than expected.

The game is taking place in the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, where Mbappé scored a hat trick against Argentina for France in the 2022 World Cup final, though lost out on penalty kicks to Lionel Messi's team.

Mbappé has faced criticism for his performances for Madrid so far since arriving from Paris Saint-Germain last summer, but has still scored 12 goals in all competitions, with four of those goals coming in the last month.

Enzo Maresca has said that Chelsea believe Mykhailo Mudryk is innocent following his positive drugs test and will continue to "support" the player.

Mudryk and Chelsea released statements on Tuesday confirming that the FA had been in contact over the Ukraine winger supplying an adverse urine sample, with both player and club expressing their surprise.

Head coach Maresca faced the media for the first time since that news on Wednesday and insisted that everyone at Chelsea trusts Mudryk, who is not training with the team while they await further test results.

"We are all upset, sad," Maresca said. "We are giving him general support.

"We trust Mykhailo, when these types of things happen you need to support your player in all the aspects. He is one of the players in my squad so it is my duty to be in contact with him, we are all there. The teammates, the club, me, we are all there.

"Trust means we believe Myka, we support him. We want to help him in anything he needs. It is normal that in this moment he needs help from the club and we are there to support."

Pressed on whether "trust" meant Chelsea feel Mudryk is innocent, Maresca nodded and replied: "We all believe [he is innocent]."

Reports in Ukraine on Tuesday suggest a prohibited substance was found in an "A" sample given at the end of October. Those same reports state the "B" sample has not yet been tested but will be in the coming days.

Confirmation that Mudryk has used a banned substance could trigger a lengthy ban from football. FIFA's guidelines state that the maximum ban for an anti-doping violation is four years.

"It is not the first time this has happened. It will happen again for different players, they know exactly what they have to do," Maresca added. "I think he is going to come back, but for sure we don't know when."

Mudryk was one of the most sought-after players in Europe when he joined Chelsea in January 2023, for a fee which could potentially rise to 88 million.

But the 23-year-old has started just 26 Premier League games and only one this season under new boss Maresca, who admitted Chelsea could well look to more January reinforcements.

"We have three or four games before January," he said. "After these three games, we will see if we need to do something."

Chelsea play Shamrock Rovers in the UEFA Conference League on Thursday before Premier League fixtures against Everton, Fulham and Ipswich Town to close out 2024.