Unlike their Premier League counterparts, Spain-based players usually have their feet up around this time. But a shortened La Liga winter break this year means everything is speeding up and in places hurtling out of control.

Lionel Messi has gone home to Argentina to fry in the Christmas sunshine with his partner Antonella, infant son Thiago and all the other Messis.

The Moroccan-born nightclub dancer at the centre of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex trial told friends he was ready to pay millions for her silence, according to newly published wiretaps.

A mass funeral has been held in Italy for the victims - most of them children - of Thursday's earthquake.