• Supporters celebrating Europa Conference League triumph
• Clashes take place in Prague’s Old Town area

West Ham fans clashed with riot police in Prague after setting off flares as they celebrated winning the Europa Conference League on Wednesday night.

Fans poured on to the streets of the Czech capital after West Ham’s victory over Fiorentina, with many already in the city centre after thousands travelled from the UK without tickets.

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Deciding things on match days or after a poor result is a popular but flawed concept when the heart rules the head

When we became the major shareholders at Grimsby Town in 2021 we chatted to the manager, Paul Hurst, and set out two commitments that we continue to stand by. The first was that, as owners, we would never go into the changing room. This is a surprisingly common occurrence, as demonstrated by Todd Boehly at Chelsea. For us, this is about setting clear expectations and boundaries of trust and we limit our visits to the training ground for the same reason. These spaces are for the manager and players and they should know that. Owners, while setting the tone, should trust the people they hire to run the club, in our case the manager and CEO.

The second commitment was that after a game the manager has no obligation to see or speak to us. After a busy day we want the manager to be able to get home and see his family but, just as importantly, we feel that no good decisions about anything will be made immediately after a match.

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• Winning team will be paid $270,000 (£217,000) each
• Players’ union Fifpro praises ‘tremendous collective action’

Fifa has revealed that players at the Women’s World Cup next month will earn individual fees directly from the global governing body for the first time.

The winning team’s players will receive $270,000 (£217,000) each in Australia and New Zealand, while each individual competing in the group stage will earn $30,000 (£24,000). The amount paid will increase the further the team progresses and in many cases, the figures far exceed players’ salaries at their clubs. Fifa’s 2022 benchmarking report found the average salary of paid players is $14,000 (£11,300).

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Fiorentina impressed but David Moyes’s side dug deep thanks to their relentless captain who is expected to leave this summer

Declan Rice could never have dreamed this. Almost a decade after being released as a teenager by Chelsea, West Ham’s captain and talisman has the fairytale ending he so dearly craved.

Until Jarrod Bowen’s dramatic late winning goal that prompted David Moyes to embark on a David Pleat‑esque jig across the turf at the Eden Arena, winning a first major European trophy since the days of Bobby Moore and company in 1965 had seemed the least likely scenario against Fiorentina. The Italian side dominated possession thanks to the outstanding Sofyan Amrabat despite falling behind to Saïd Benrahma’s penalty. But it is a testament to the spirit Moyes and Rice have created among this group of players that West Ham simply refused to give in. Now they have their reward.

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• Fiorentina 1-2 West Ham (B’ventura 67; Benrahma 62, Bowen 90)
• David Moyes’s side lift club’s first trophy since FA Cup in 1980

It was David Moyes’s moment. Off he went, racing down the touchline, only stopping when he was front of the fans behind the Fiorentina goal. The clock showed 90 minutes and Jarrod Bowen, released by a beautiful pass from Lucas Paquetá, had raced through to put West Ham within touching distance of their first trophy in 43 years.

They were all off the bench when Bowen’s shot slithered past Pietro Terracciano. West Ham had not played well but it made no difference. Moyes had the first trophy of his managerial career. Declan Rice, playing in his final game for the club, had joined Bobby Moore as one of two captains to lead West Ham to a European trophy.

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• Conference League final updates, 8pm BST kick-off in Prague
• Get in touch: you can email Rob here with your thoughts

In the simplest terms, tonight’s match is 8th in Serie A v 14th in the Premier League. But you probably want to know a bit more about Fiorentina. Educate yourself with the help of Nicky Bandini.

The final is being played at the Fortuna Arena , where Vladimir Coufal and Tomas Soucek used to play their football for Slavia Prague. It has a capacity of less than 20,000, and it feels like Uefa have been surprised by the success of their own competition. Last year’s final between Roma and Feyenoord was played at the Arena Kombëtare in Tirana, Albania, with a crowd of 19,597.

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An extract from the 15th anniversary edition of Inverting the Pyramid charts the rise of superclubs and all-powerful players

Football is dominated now as it never has been before by a handful of superclubs. For many of them, winning their domestic title has come to be regarded almost as a formality. There are vast imbalances within leagues and that, of course, conditions the tactical approach teams take.

If you expect to win most games comfortably, everything becomes focused on attacking – which can cause problems for the superclubs on the rare occasions they come up against a team at around their level: they forget not merely how to defend, but also how to fight. The standard of defending has declined alarmingly among elite clubs, something that’s not just to do with a shift to a more attacking focus. In the eight seasons of the Champions League from 2009–10, 21 of 104 games in the quarter-finals or later finished with a winning margin of three or more; in the eight seasons before that, there were only eight. Never has a three-goal lead seemed less secure.

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• Police say three people injured in attack near Old Town Square
• Supporters are gathered for Europa Conference League final

Czech police detained 16 suspects after a group of black-clad Fiorentina fans attacked West Ham supporters in a bar in central Prague on Wednesday before the Europa Conference League final, injuring three patrons, authorities said.

Video on Twitter showed fans setting off flares and throwing tables at the bar located off Prague’s Old Town Square. A police officer was also attacked.

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• Argentinian star will join David Beckham’s Florida club
• World Cup winner will join team struggling in MLS

Lionel Messi has confirmed his next, and possibly final, club in his wildly successful football career with the news that he will join Inter Miami of MLS.

Messi and Inter Miami are expected to confirm the news on Tuesday afternoon.

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