This evening’s 2014 Ballon D’Or ceremony in Zurich brings an end to a long build-up period to the award which seems to have started almost as soon as Cristiano Ronaldo won the 2013 prize last January, writes Dermot Corrigan.

Last week, just before he would inspire Austin Stacks to their first county title in 20 years and win the right to captain Kerry in 2015, Kieran Donaghy ran a five-day basketball camp for 150 kids in his hometown of Tralee.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has agreed to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for a record-breaking $2bn (€1.46bn).

The National Basketball Association has apologised to former player Earvin Magic Johnson after Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling called him a bad role model for contracting HIV.

V Stiviano, the woman whom Donald Sterling was talking to when he made racist remarks, is "very saddened" by his lifetime NBA ban, and she didn’t release the recording of their conversation, her lawyer said.

These United States of America have been dealing with a doozie of a week when it comes to the long, ongoing tension between the races.

The first openly gay athlete to compete in one of the four major American sports received a standing ovation upon making his home debut last night.

It hardly carried the glamour or gravitas of an induction into Cooperstown or Springfield, it wasn’t like there was a Larry Bird to welcome his Magic Johnson into this particular Hall of Fame, but there was something particularly pleasing about seeing Ronnie Whelan being honoured at the FAI International Awards on Sunday.

For two weeks in 1992, a US team of NBA superstars spearheaded by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson destroyed all before them at an Olympic Games notable for the fact that it was the first since the collapse of the Berlin War.

Kerry delegates were informed by chairman Patrick O’Sullivan at last night’s county committee meeting that senior hurling manager Tom Howard and his management team have stepped down after just one year in charge.

They have a phrase in American sport: “the Face of the Franchise”.

Frank Lampard may equal Bobby Tambling’s Chelsea scoring record today, but the bond between the Stamford Bridge legends will always be stronger than stats. Kieran Shannon spoke to the Cork-based striker about Lampard, Jimmy Greaves and the swinging sixties in West London.

There comes a time when the narrative must change.

This is new for football, what it has with Messi and Ronaldo.

The only person to ever be cured of the HIV virus is launching a new foundation to help in the search for a wider cure.

Even President Barack Obama took time out of his busy re-election campaign to wade into last week’s debate-du-jour.

He’s now, if not fitter, richer and happier than when he played.

Even the outrageous creativity of Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson couldn’t have dreamed up a better start to an NBA career.

AS the last Democratic primary in 2008 was wrapping up and it became clear Hillary Clinton would not be the party’s presidential nominee, Barack Obama ignored the political analysis of CNN in favour of ESPN on the campaign bus TV.

Michael Jackson reportedly gorged on family-size buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken before making himself sick.

Antonio Villaraigosa unseated Mayor James Hahn to become the first Hispanic mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century, confirming the rising political power of Latinos in the second-largest city in the US.