BOURNEMOUTH, England (AP) — Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola is leaving the Premier League club at the end of the season after failing to agree on a new contract.
“I feel this is the right moment for me to step away, but I will always carry fantastic memories of this club,” Iraola said in a statement on the club website on Tuesday. "I am proud of what we have achieved together.”
The Spanish coach, who previously enjoyed success with Rayo Vallecano including promotion to La Liga in 2021, took over at Bournemouth in 2023. He improved the Cherries three places in the table to 12th and received a new contract to 2026. They were then ninth with a club-record points total last season. They are currently 11th and in the race for European competition — only three points behind sixth-placed Chelsea.
Bournemouth enjoyed a memorable 2-1 win at league leader Arsenal on Saturday.
The 43-year-old Andoni has, through 108 games, been the most successful Cherries manager in the Premier League, with the highest winning percentage and points per game.
“Andoni has been instrumental in shaping the direction of this football club,” club chairman Bill Foley said. “He brought intensity, innovation, and a clear philosophy that elevated AFC Bournemouth both on and off the pitch. We are incredibly thankful for his leadership and will always have great memories of our time working together, as well as the things we accomplished.”
Tiago Pinto, Bournemouth’s sporting director, also praised the former Athletic Bilbao right back’s impact.
“Andoni is someone I have a lot of admiration for, both as a head coach and as a person. His attention to detail, tactical intelligence and ability to bring the best out of players is something we have seen every day,” Pinto said. “We of course respect his decision and thank him for everything he has done for this football club over the last three years.”
Fitness coach Pablo de la Torre is also leaving at the end of the season.
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Bournemouth's head coach Andoni Iraola reacts during the Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Bournemouth in London, England Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
Bournemouth's head coach Andoni Iraola reacts during the Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Bournemouth in London, England Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
Bournemouth's head coach Andoni Iraola reacts during the Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Bournemouth in London, England Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The standoff between the United States and Iran deepened Tuesday as the U.S. declared it had blockaded Iran's ports, Tehran threatened to strike targets across the region, and Pakistan said it was racing to bring the sides together for more talks.
Though last week's ceasefire appeared to hold, the showdown over the Strait of Hormuz risked reigniting hostilities and deepening the regional war's economic fallout.
Meanwhile in Washington, direct talks between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the U.S. were set to begin, the first such negotiations in decades.
Talks aimed at permanently ending the conflict in Iran — which began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran — failed to produce an agreement last weekend, though Pakistan has proposed hosting a second round in the coming days.
Two Pakistani officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media, said the first talks were part of an ongoing diplomatic process rather than a one-off effort.
Two U.S. officials said Monday that discussions were still underway about a new round of talks. A diplomat from one of the mediating countries said that Tehran and Washington had agreed to it.
The talks could happen Thursday, according to the U.S. officials. The location, timing and composition of the delegations had not been decided, although Islamabad and Geneva are being considered as host cities.
The U.S. officials and the diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.
The war, now in its seventh week, has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,000 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
The blockade is intended to pressure Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil, mostly to Asia, since the war began. Much of it has likely been carried by so-called dark transits that evade sanctions and oversight, providing cash flow that’s been vital to keeping Iran running.
Both the nature of enforcement and the extent to which ships will comply remained unclear during the first full day of the blockade Tuesday. Tankers approaching the strait Monday turned around shortly after it took effect, though one reversed course again and transited the waterway.
The tanker Rich Starry had been waiting off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to shipping data firm Lloyd’s List, which cited data from the energy cargo-tracking firm Vortexa. It was not immediately clear whether the tanker had earlier docked in Iran. Yet it was listed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control as linked to Iranian shipping.
Lloyd’s List, citing ship registry and tracking data, reported that the vessel is owned by a Chinese shipping company and ultimately bound for China.
U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to questions about the tanker after it cleared the 21-mile-wide (nearly 34-kilometer) waterway. A day earlier, Central Command said the blockade applied to vessels going to and from Iranian ports.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Chinese tankers will not be allowed passage through the strait. "So they're not going to be able to get their oil,” he told reporters Tuesday on the sidelines of IMF-World Bank meetings.
Since the start of the war, Iran has curtailed maritime traffic, with most commercial vessels avoiding the waterway.
Iran’s effective closure of the strait, through which a fifth of global oil transits in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing, pushing up the cost of gasoline, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that Iran's control of the strait amounted to blackmail and extortion as the U.S. blockade took effect. He said in a social media post that Iran’s navy had been "completely obliterated,” but it still had “fast attack ships.”
He warned that “if any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED."
Iran threatened to retaliate against Persian Gulf ports if attacked.
“If you fight, we will fight," Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a statement addressed to Trump.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British prime Minister Keir Starmer will co-chair a conference Friday for nations willing to deploy warships to escort oil tankers and container ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment will happen “when security conditions allow,” Macron’s office said Tuesday.
The talks in Washington between Israel and Lebanon were expected to be preliminary, focused on setting parameters rather than resolving core issues.
After more than a year of near-daily strikes in southern Lebanon, Israel escalated its offensive in the early days of the Iran war following Hezbollah launching rockets into Israel. The fighting has carved a path of destruction from agricultural towns near the border to Beirut, killing more than 2,000 people and displacing in excess of 1 million others, according to Lebanese authorities.
After the ceasefire in Iran, Israel pressed ahead with its air and ground campaign, insisting that the truce does not apply to fighting in Lebanon. It has, however, halted strikes in the country’s capital since April 8, after a deadly bombardment that hit several crowded commercial and residential areas in central Beirut and killed more than 350 people in one day.
It sparked an international outcry and threats by Iran that it would end the ceasefire.
The fighting has intensified in and around the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil. The Israeli military said Tuesday that it killed three Hezbollah militants after they fired on troops, wounding 10.
Fighting has intensified in recent days between Israeli ground forces and Hezbollah militants in and around Bint Jbeil, with the army saying Monday it had killed over 100 Hezbollah fighters over the past week.
Lebanese officials have pushed for a ceasefire. Israel has framed the negotiations around Hezbollah’s disarmament and a potential peace deal, without publicly committing to halting hostilities or withdrawing its forces.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, much as was envisaged in a November 2024 ceasefire. But the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades and said on Monday that it will not abide by any agreements that may result from the talks.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Tuesday floated the idea of cooperation with the Lebanese government to dismantle Hezbollah.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee, and Fatima Hussein in Washington, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo, Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Damage is visible on a residential building that, according to Iranian authorities, was hit by a strike on March 4 during the U.S.-Israeli military campaign, in southeastern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
FILE - Oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri,File)
Ahlam Badawi, 51, left, mother of Hassan Ali Badawi, 31, a paramedic of the Lebanese Red Cross killed in a Israeli strike, cries during his funeral in Choueifat, Lebanon, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man flashes a victory sign as he carries an Iranian flag in front of an anti-U.S. billboard depicting the American aircrafts into the Iranian armed forces fishing net with signs that read in Farsi: "The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground," at the Eqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman wears a badge with a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, during a campaign in support of the government at the Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man drives his motorbike with a poster on its windshield depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, top, and his father, the slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
President Donald Trump speaks outside the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
