What do a female plumber from Somerset, an Arab property magnate with a fondness for buying English football clubs and an eco-friendly Los Angeles architect have in common? The answer is they all feature in an intriguing legal battle over just who gets a share of the $1m dollar prize money from a Middle Eastern version of The Apprentice.

Manchester United are preparing for Roberto Mancini to pull a fast one by naming Yaya Toure in his starting line-up for Sunday's FA Cup third round tie at the Etihad Stadium.

Steven Finn is hoping a month spent in New Zealand can prove time well spent, on his arrival in the United Arab Emirates.

Spain’s Telefónica secured overall victory on the second leg of the Volvo round the world race with a strong second place on the sprint finish, but the last word went to France’s Groupama as they notching up its first win of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, snatching top spot ahead of their rivals in the dying moments of the sprint into Abu Dhabi.

For the world's super-rich, nothing brings in the new year with a bigger pop than a guest list that includes some of the most expensive names in music.

After 15 days of nip and tuck battle between the two Spanish boats in the Volvo Iker Martinez at the helm of Telefonica added, by less than two minutes, second leg victory over Chris Nicholson’s Camper at the still undisclosed staging post from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi.

“This is war. Tomorrow I am in line to be the only person to win the Women’s Match Racing world title four times,” said an elated Annie Lush ashore. “So Anna just needs to go down. It doesn’t have to be pretty. We’ve battled our way through to the final.”

Britain won gold, silver, and bronze on a sail-off today at the world championships for all 10 Olympic classes, but there was a great big gap on the race course off Fremantle.

Barely had England announced a tried and trusted party for their first tour of the winter yesterday than they were installed as odds-on favourites.

England's selection of Steven Davies for the tour to the UAE comes after a sterling season for Surrey; he played a key role in their promotion from the second Division of the County Championship after publicly announcing his homosexuality.

In a slug it out, last man standing confrontation between rival members of a British squad that is eclipsing the rest of the world, the Finn class world championship, one of 10 being staged off Fremantle, W. Australia, saw reigning Olympic champion Ben Ainslie grab a slender lead over reigning European champion Giles Scott.

Monty Panesar's return to the England fold was confirmed this morning, after he was selected as the second spinner for the Test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.

All five of the British Finn class singlehanders were in the top seven for race six of their world championship off Fremantle, but none of them was first as both the win, and the overall lead, still belonged to Pieter-Jan Postma of the Netherlands.

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