davidse leads after the first round of thejo'burg open. and five time winner ronnie o'sullivan struggles, but eventually progreses to the quarter finals of the uk snooker championship. hello and welcome to the programme. we start with the news that cristiano ronaldo has won the ballon d'or for a record—equalling fifth time in a poll of football writers from around the world. his latest victory means he joins lionel messi on the most number of wins and it comes at the end of a year in which he helped real madrid to a 33rd spanish league title and 12th european cup victory. ronaldo also scored 15 goals for portugal as the european champions qualified for next year's world cup finals as john bennett reports. it's official. footballjournalists from around the world have voted cristiano ronaldo the world's test player this year. year started well and real madrid were top byjanuary.

i made a worker lalique champions for the 33rd time. ronaldo played his part, with 25 league goals in 25 games. couple of weeks later came a record extending 12 champion league titles. he found the back of the net twice in the final againstjuventus, enough to give him man of the match. as if that wasn't enough, cristiano ronaldo did his bit to help portugal qualify for the world cup. this is it's been more of a struggle. he has only scored twice in the league is so only scored twice in the league is so far, but continues to break records. he scored in all six champions league group games. so all in all not a bad time for the player regarded as one of the greatest of all time. i still have the motivation to be cristiano, to play with happiness, so cristiano, to play with happiness, so the main word is happy. enjoy myself. i am still motivated and playing in a fantastic club and a

fantastic nationality, so let's see what the future brings. at this moment i'm very happy. uefa have confirmed that london will now stage a total of seven matches at euro 2020 when the tournament will be co—hosted by 12 different countries. wembley stadium had already been chosen to host the semi—finals and final, but london has also been given the four games originally allocated to brussels. that's because belgium can't guarantee their new stadium will be ready in time. our sports news correspondent richard conway has more. this has been coming for some time, that brussels were going to lose out. the stadium still is under construction and uefa gave authorities time to get their house in order to start building it and it just hasn't happened. so they will ta ke just hasn't happened. so they will take three group games and one round 16 game away from them. where it would go was the big question. cardiff, wales, very interested. stockholm also interested to bring the games to their shores. in the end uefa decided to go with wembley,

at wembley already has two semifinals and a final. it will now have those additional games. the light for the football association in london. wales today saying they are extremely disappointed by the decision. they hoped they would get those games. and this... for europe as it is being built, it is now in its final shape we think. —— billed. the additional games leaving brussels and coming to london. they said the opening game, also a decision that needed to be made, will take place in rome, so italy getting the prestigious opening match. and then the group pairings, which cities would host the different games in pairs. london and quadrant will be one, dublin and bill bal will be another. —— bilbau. so you can see that this is a unique

format. uefa had said this is probably not going to be repeated any time soon, but we have got the european competition being played all across europe, so we will see a lot of travel for fans, players, officials and journalists. save your pennies! out of about 4000 professional footballers in england, only ten are from a british asian background according to new research. the study found huge numbers of british asian people watch and play the sport, but problems like racism and a lack of role models prevents them from reaching the professional ranks. here in bradford, a common scene across the country. youngsters of asian descent playing the british national sport. but for them it seems it's almost impossible to make a career out of the game to love. it's kind of surprising, because football is supposed to be a sport for everyone. it's a fair game and

they all say no to racism, and yet i'm shocked at times when you don't see as much asians in the sport. with the quality i've seen, you would expect those players could play in the premier league. it's bad when you don't see it. the research suggests that old—fashioned stereotypes are still widely believed within the football world. let me give you some examples. british asians prefer cricket. they haven't got the physical build for football. religion is more important than sport. and on top of all that, the problem of racism. sometimes over the bike more often hidden away. there is a view here that the lack of british asians at the top level is partly due to deep—rooted racism among football's powerbrokers. it lies with the people who make the decisions. the people who make the decisions. the people like germany who make the decisions are coaches, scalp and jammers. we don't have anyone from

ethnic backgrounds in those positions. —— scouts. ethnic backgrounds in those positions. -- scouts. overalla lot of clubs are ignorant of the problem and we need to change that and get the links and networks in place with tradition asian foot all communities and professional clubs. this event at bradford city was held to encourage people from ethnic minorities to get involved with the club. we have a new development centre at the technology college. we don't sit there and think, how do we only bring asians in? but as bradford city there's nothing and i'm sure the chairman will tell you, there's nothing more he would rather sit in south lad from bradford come out onto the pitch and play in front of 20,000 every week. players like aston villa's neil taylor romanian tiny minority. two years ago the fa launched what it called a plan to

increase asian inclusion in football, hoping things might be different for the next generation. after missing the cut and spending four days in hospital last week, south africa's keenan davidse had the best run of the day. he was tied seventh at last year's event. he shot a 63 to sit at a number —— eight under par. he made nine birdies and one bogey. now to the nba. the brooklyn nets will play the first of two regular season games in mexico later on thursday. they'll play the 0kalahoma city thunder in the mexico city arena. it's the first time the country has hosted four games in a calendar year, after two games last january. it's all to mark the 25th anniversary of the first time the nba visited the country.

i love playing abroad. i love playing in different countries, playing in different countries, playing in different countries, playing in front of different fans and giving them the opportunity to see us. and giving them the opportunity to see us. some people may never see us play. there might be kids out there who have never seen us play, so to give them that opportunity to see us up give them that opportunity to see us up close is wonderful. very much looking forward to that. five—time winner ronnie 0'sullivan is through to the quarter—finals of the uk snooker championship after a six frames to five win over thailand's sunny akani. having trailed 4—2 at one point in the best of 11 match, 0'sullivan did ride his luck throughout against the 22—year—old. former world champion shaun murphy is through to the last eight. the englishman eased past compatriot ricky walden six frames to one to reach the next stage.

the 2008 champion now plays mark king in the quarter—finals on friday. here's a piece of sporting theatre which you don't see happen very often. people will be talking about this miraculous race for years to come. jockey jack kennedy was thown out of his saddle in the 2:35 at clonmel course in the irish county of tipperary. first, as you can see, the teenager defied the laws of gravity by staying on his horse, and then, as if that wasn't impressive enough, he went on to win the race. for everything else, including europa league results from thursday, head to our website. from me and the magnificent sport today team, goodbye for now. hello there.

right now we are more concerned about snow and ice rather than the strength of the wind. but for a while on thursday we had a gust of 90mph in the far north of scotland, all due of course to storm caroline. the centre of that storm is heading away from scotland and over towards scandinavia. but around that area of low pressure we've still got very windy weather right now. very quickly we're drawing down some much colder air, rapidly down across the whole of the country. so we've had some snow already. there will be more of that and some icy conditions continuing into friday. keep up to date with any travel disruption on bbc local radio. snow not unusual across northern scotland at this time of year. there will be more snow piling up. blizzards in the hills as well. probably largely dry and sunny

and frosty into the central belt. more snow showers for northern ireland getting blown over the irish sea into north—west england and the north—west midland and wales. it's here we could see most of the disruption into the morning. a wintry mix in the south—west of england. but for many eastern parts of england, friday could be largely dry and quite sunny as well. those wintry showers, mostly of snow inland, continuing in roughly in the same sort of area through the day, perhaps moving further into the midlands. the totals could be 5—10 centimetres here and there, perhaps more than that in the north—west of scotland. it will be a cold day. these are the temperatures. because it will be windy there will be a significant windchill. so it will feel quite a bit colder. a real change from what we've seen earlier this week. the winds gradually ease off a little overnight, but the wintry showers, mostly snow inland, continue, perhaps lacking some of the potency,

but nevertheless icy conditions and a covering of snow in many northern and western parts of the uk. the frost more widely and quite severe in the countryside and over the higher ground. it won't be quite as windy on saturday. there will still be wintry showers around, but not as heavy. probably turning more to rain in the south—west with damp is beginning to rise a little. elsewhere it is a cold day. coming into that cold air, more problems on sunday, with this weather system here. a lot of uncertainty about the position of that weather system. but there is the potential for some significant snowfall across parts of wales, england and northern ireland. very cold in that wet weather and to the north. mild and windy in the south—west. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is tom donkin. our top stories:

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