BBC Award: Yaya Toure wins BBC African Footballer of the year award

Manchester City and Ivory Coast star player, Yaya Toure has won the BBC African Footballer of the year award . He beat competition from Yacine Brahimi, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Andre Ayew and Sadio Mane to win the coveted award in London today. He last won it in 2013, and has now become the only player to have won the award twice apart from Jay Jay Okocha and Kanu Nwankwo.

"I am very proud. To receive this dedication from the fans is unbelievable" Toure told BBC Sport. "Also I want to pay tribute to the other nominees. African football is growing up, becoming much better and we have fantastic young players coming through now. I am delighted and very happy. And as an African player, I want to lead all my younger brothers to be successful in the future. When I was a kid I was always dreaming of being an important player. I have sacrificed a lot. I will continue to try to win a trophy every year, I will fight to win a personal trophy." he said

Real Madrid's second Cheryshev appeal dismissed

After a second appeal against their expulsion was rejected, the Liga side's hopes of staying in the Copa del Rey look to be over

Real Madrid have seen their second appeal against expulsion from the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player rejected by the Administrative Tribunal for Sport (TAD).

Madrid were kicked out of the competition for playing Denis Cheryshev in the first-leg of their round-of-32 tie with Cadiz. The Russian - who picked up three bookings in last season's competition while on loan at Villarreal - started and scored in a 3-1 win for Rafael Benitez's side.

Cadiz complained and Madrid subsequently saw an appeal against their disqualification turned down by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) on Thursday.

And the TAD has concurred with the RFEF's ruling, meaning Madrid will not have the opportunity to regain the trophy they last won in 2014.

Tech: Facebook Joins Stampede of Tech Giants Giving Away Artificial Intelligence Technology

Facebook is releasing for free the designs of a powerful new computer server it crafted to put more power behind artificial-intelligence software. Serkan Piantino, an engineering director in Facebook’s AI Research group, says the new servers are twice as fast as those Facebook used before. “We will discover more things in machine learning and AI as a result,” he says.

The social network’s giveaway is the latest in a recent flurry of announcements by tech giants that are open-sourcing artificial-intelligence technology, which is becoming vital to consumer and business-computing services. Opening up the technology is seen as a way to accelerate progress in the broader field, while also helping tech companies to boost their reputations and make key hires.

In November, Google opened up software called TensorFlow, used to power the company’s speech recognition and image search (see “Here’s What Developers Are Doing with Google’s AI Brain”). Just three days later Microsoft released software that distributes machine-learning software across multiple machines to make it more powerful. Not long after, IBM announced the fruition of an earlier promise to open-source SystemML, originally developed to use machine learning to find useful patterns in corporate databanks.

Real Madrid persist with Cheryshev appeal

Real Madrid are to continue with the appeal against their Copa del Rey expulsion having initially had it rejected by the RFEF for fielding a suspended player against Cadiz

Real Madrid are to appeal to the Administrative Tribunal for Sport (TAD) regarding their expulsion from the Copa del Rey due to fielding the ineligible Denis Cheryshev.

The Appeal Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) had previously rejected Madrid's appeal against their disqualification.

Russia international Cheryshev started and scored in a 3-1 victory over Cadiz in the first leg of Madrid's round-of-32 tie earlier this month.

Record-breaking Jamie Vardy and Ranieri claim November awards

Record-breaking Jamie Vardy

Leicester City's fine season was given another boost as the striker and coach won the Player and Manager of the Month awards respectively

Jamie Vardy's stellar start to the season was given more recognition this week as the Leicester City striker picked up consecutive Premier League Player of the Month awards, while Claudio Ranieri scooped the manager's accolade.

Vardy took the October award after scoring five times in four matches, and has become just the fifth player to win back-to-back Player of the Month prizes after Robbie Fowler, Dennis Bergkamp, Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Kane.

Question of the day: How will Man United & Van Gaal solve their Rooney riddle?

Wayne Rooney may have been absent when Wolfsburg drove the final nail into Manchester United’s Champions League coffin on Tuesday and also missed the previous defeat at PSV in the opening group fixture, but that makes him no less culpable for the embarrassing early exit which has left everyone at Old Trafford reeling.

The rigid style of play demanded by Louis van Gaal has certainly done nobody any favours, but Rooney’s complete lack of form this season has had a defining impact on United having lost much of their edge, even though he has been afforded countless allowances as the club’s captain and icon.

Save for his hat-trick against a disappointing and increasingly desperate Club Brugge in the Champions League play-off tie, Rooney has regularly failed to create any sort of danger for opponents whether playing as a main striker or off the shoulder of the front man as a No.10.

He is constantly on the back foot whenever a 50/50 ball is there to be competed for, suggesting the extra yard of pace lost in the body has not been sufficiently compensated by a sharpness in the mind. If Van Gaal is pinning his hopes on the 30-year-old to help United through their difficult patch, as currently appears to be the case, then it would seem he is backing the wrong horse.

Rooney has netted a total of 237 goals for United, but the days when fans filling local pubs before matches at Old Trafford would chant his name long and loud, comparing him to Pele, have long gone. Look for videos of such instances on YouTube and you’ll find they are anything between four and eight years old.

Former Super Eagles Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi loses wife

Former Super Eagles player and coach, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi has lost his wife, Kate to the cold hands of death on Wednesday night.

In a statement from family spokesman Emmanuel Ado, Kate battled with cancer for three years but finally succumbed to it in the United States of America.

A condolence message released by the NFF through its website described the death of the wife of the former coach as a big loss.

 “This is devastating. To lose a spouse is the equivalence of a tragedy. I pray that Almighty God will give you and the children the fortitude to bear this huge loss," NFF president Amaju Pinnick said.

Barcelona left sweating on Leo Messi's fitness again

Barcelona are again sweating on the fitness of Lionel Messi after their superstar forward ended Wednesday's draw against Bayer Leverkusen with a pain in his left hamstring. 

However, Luis Enrique, despite having one substitute left to use, did not deem it necessary to withdraw the 28-year-old from the action. 

Messi, who played for 90 minutes against Valencia at the weekend, has now played back-to-back games, while many of his Barca team-mates were rested in Germany. 

Luis Enrique’s decision to play Messi against Leverkusen - while Neymar was out injured and Luis Suarez took a break - was perhaps influenced by the upcoming Club World Cup. 

The Catalan club head off to Japan next week and Messi is in need of game time, given he has just returned from a two month injury layoff.

Barca return to training on Thursday to begin preparations for Saturday’s La Liga game against Deportivo La Coruna.