Francesco Molinari is European Tour’s Golfer of the Year following his historic season that saw him become the first Italian to win the Open and first European to win a full five points at the Ryder Cup.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: The idea McIlroy needs to show greater loyalty to the game on this side of the Atlantic, or risk forfeiting his place in the Ryder Cup team, is just nonsense.

Lee Westwood all but removed any doubt that he will be Europe’s Ryder Cup captain in 2022 on Tuesday when he declared the timing ‘ideal’ for him to take the reins in Italy.

The European Tour has hired former Premier League executive chairman Scudamore to help boost revenue from the Ryder Cup, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

Ryder Cup winner Thorbjorn Olesen has been suspended from the European Tour after being charged with sexual assault, being drunk on an aircraft and common assault.

Exeter Chiefs are desperate for their 'normal' squad to solve the European puzzle this year, having added Border piece Stuart Hogg. The 27-year-old Hawick-born full-back faces his old club.

He's less than two months away from celebrating seven years of marriage to Jessica Biel, with whom he raises four-year-old son Silas.

Rory McIlroy picked up five shots in his last five holes to fly up the leaderboard and sit just one shot off the lead heading into the weekend at the Omega European Masters.

Andres Romero opened up a one-shot lead heading into the final round of the Omega European Masters but Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy were well in contention in Switzerland.

It's not only the Masters at Augusta that continues to be an elusive target for Rory McIlroy. The European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre keeps slipping from his grasp as well.

Scientists studying Gangelt, the town at the centre of Germany's first big outbreak discovered that as many as 15 per cent of people may have already acquired coronavirus immunity.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY KIERAN GILL: The front page of The Glasgow Herald on Thursday April 16, 1970, was split in two. On the right-hand side, the headline read: 'Apollo 13 off course for the Earth.'

​Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has voiced his opposition to the formation of a European Super League.

EXCLUSIVE: Premier League clubs are worried about receiving instalments of transfer fees worth over £100m due from European clubs due to the collapse of TV deals on the continent.

Club transfer records will tumble at PSG and Barcelona if moves for Neymar and Philippe Coutinho come off this summer. But what are the record signings at the big clubs across Europe?

An increasing number of fans have voiced their frustration at Valverde after a series of underwhelming Barca displays this season, with Argentine coach Gallardo being mooted as a replacement.

MALLORCA 4-1 VALENCIA: The unfancied home side welcomed the European hopefuls needing a big boost, with the team still stuck in the relegation zone after just one win in seven games.

Spain beat Germany to secure a record-equalling fifth European Under-21 Championship title thanks to goals in either half from Fabian Ruiz and Dani Olmo.

ADAM SHERGOLD AT WHITEHALL STADIUM: England ended their Under 17s European Championship campaign on a winning note but it wasn’t enough to carry them to the quarter-finals.

Gareth Bale believes Wales reaching the European Championship next summer could trump the achievement of playing at Euro 2016. Wales ended a 58-year wait in 2016.

As coronavirus sweeps Europe, Queen Letizia of Spain has adopted air kisses, while King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has adopted the traditional Hindu naamste greeting.

Laura Trott won her second gold medal of the European Track Cycling Championships by following up her team pursuit medal with a win in the scratch race.

Laura Trott secured victory in the omnium to take her third gold medal of the European Track Cycling Championships. Trott had already won gold in the women's team pursuit and the scratch race.

The French official said the 2015 attacks in Paris 'was nothing', and that terrorists are planning 'simultaneous attacks on the same day in several countries, several places' in Europe in the next year.

Muhammad Ghani Usman (pictured), linked to the Mumbai attacks that killed 164 people, and suspected Algerian Isis fighter Adel Haddadi were detained at a refugee centre near Salzburg, Austria.

In 2014, four people were killed in a deadly attack in Brussels, in 2015 a staggering 267 people were slain in atrocities across the continent and so far, in 2016, 172 have died in terrifying attacks.

Holland left it late to turn the game around against Northern Ireland and run out winners in Rotterdam. Wales secured a well earned point in Slovakia while Scotland crashed to a heavy defeat in Russia.

The singer, 28, announced via Instagram on Thursday that his shows in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm and Amsterdam had been rescheduled in wake of recent news.

The singer, 28, is currently on a world tour, with his next two dates scheduled to be at London's Roundhouse from March 23.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN TURKEY: Englishman Steven Brown thought he'd be a bag of nerves by now, but he is rightly soaking in the praise and plaudits following his victory in the Portugal Masters.

The protests began in early June over a now-shelved extradition bill to mainland China that many saw as Beijing's creeping interference on legal and other rights guaranteed to Hong Kong.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN ABU DHABI: What were you doing at the age of 15? Josh Hill, taking a break from his GCSE studies, warmed up for his European Tour debut by taking on Brooks Koepka.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN ABU DHABI: It is still more than two months until the clocks go forward, and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have yet to hit a shot.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: Perhaps no American golfer in the past 35 years has had the ability to rub Europeans up the wrong way quite like Paul Azinger.

EXCLUSIVE BY DEREK LAWRENSON: As ever with Fleetwood, the tone was measured and the words considered - but he made no secret of his displeasure at being in the middle of a media storm.

The European Tour are ready to hold events on every day of the week and are prepared to have tournaments running concurrently in a desperate bid to save the season.

Count the previously buoyant European Tour as another branch of sport staring into a financial black hole owing to the effects of coronavirus.

Health ministers from across the continent were pictured greeting each other with elbow bumps instead of traditional handshakes at an emergency meeting being held in Brussels.

Actress Brittany Ando, who is based in Sydney, was planning a six-week holiday to Europe during the northern hemisphere's summer months and was excited about relaxing in Greece, France and Italy.

Ministers from nine countries, including France, Italy, Greece and Spain, wrote to European Union chiefs yesterday warning the industry faces collapse if measures are not rolled out soon.

Mr Banks, who bankrolled Nigel Farage's campaign to leave the EU, argued that his political donations being exempt from inheritance tax breached his human rights and breached EU law.

As of Sunday night, most clubs were still gathering their players for training on Monday morning, despite the impending news.

World Rugby have stated intentions to reschedule coronavirus-hit Tests for October, despite those weekends already being set aside for club rugby and the EPCR claim clubs have been overlooked.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson explains the pain of missing out on the European Championships and Commonwealth Games, but says best is yet to come.

HARRY BROWN: Having missed out on London 2012, the European Championships will be my first senior major on home soil, so I’m very excited by it.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson can’t wait to compete at the European Indoor Championships in Prague. But for multi-eventers, packing your suitcase to go abroad can be a bit of an ordeal.

One of the best parts about being a professional athlete – apart from playing your favourite sport, of course – is getting to see the world. We've just come back from a training camp in Italy.

Nicola Adams has targeted boxing history as she steps up her plans for her Olympic title defence. The 32-year-old will fight for Team GB in the first European Games in Baku this month.

Throughout the day, Sportsmail will bring you all the latest transfer news from the top flight, the Football League and all across Europe.

It was one of the darkest moments in Tottenham's 137-year history but some solace can be taken in the fact they're not the first English club to be embarrassed in European competition