PRAGUE (AP) — Former Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic and West Ham goalkeeper Luděk Mikloško has died. He was 64.
His death was announced on Monday by his family and by Baník Ostrava, the Czech club where Mikloško spent eight years before moving to England and where he served as sporting director despite fighting cancer the last five years.
Mikloško joined West Ham in February 1990, becoming the first Czech to make an impact in the English football after the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended the communist rule in Czechoslovakia, and made 373 appearances for the club.
He was voted West Ham’s player of the year following his first season, helping it secure promotion to the English top flight.
He was loved by supporters, who would sing at matches “My name is Luděk Mikloško, I come from near Moscow, I play in goal for West Ham.” He could speak only a few English words when he arrived in England.
“Rest in peace Luděk, our beloved, inspirational goalkeeper and gentle giant of a man,” West Ham said in a statement.
The club said Mikloško will be honored before Tuesday’s League Cup third-round match against Fulham and also the Championship game against Queens Park Rangers on Oct. 9.
Mikloško moved to QPR in 1998 before retiring in 2001. Then, he returned to London to coach West Ham's goalkeepers until 2010.
He also played 42 international games for Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.
Fellow Czech, Petr Čech, called him “a goalkeeping legend, brilliant man, one of the nicest people in football.”
The former Chelsea and Arsenal keeper said he was grateful Mikloško opened the door to England to other Czech goalkeepers, like him.
“We spent time talking about Premier League and English football when I came to Chelsea and his insight helped me to understand what’s awaiting — I used it well!”
During his last visit to England in December 2024 to attend a game against Liverpool at the London Stadium, Mikloško confirmed he was diagnosed with cancer and said in a statement he decided to withdraw from treatment.
“I decided not to take the chemotherapy, because I want to live a normal life,” he said. “I have very good people around me, and I have my work and my football, which is my life, all I have known. I want to keep doing that for as long as I can.”
Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak, a die-hard Baník Ostrava fan, joined the mourners.
“We'll never forget...You were fighting till the end.”
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE - Ludek Miklosko, a board member of the Baník Ostrava football club, watches a training session led by new head coach Pavel Hapal in Ostrava, Czech Republic, Oct. 12, 2022. (Sznapka Petr/CTK via AP, File)
U.S. futures fell as calls grow louder for a slowdown in artificial intelligence development and oil and gasoline prices continue to climb as the Houthis, an Iranian proxy, intensify a military campaign at a key energy transit point in Middle East.
Futures for the S&P 500 dropped 0.7% on Monday, while those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2%. Futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 1.6%.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman supported the stance taken by Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei over the weekend in saying that the AI industry should slow down development of the world-changing technology to ensure that it is safe.
Altman also confirmed in an interview with Fortune published Saturday that OpenAI would not make its initial public stock offering this year as it focuses on safety.
The biggest AI companies, valued in the billions of dollars, remain private enterprises.
The rising concerns over the safety of AI hit the stocks of chipmakers, however, which are publicly traded.
Shares of Nvidia slipped 2.7%, while Intel’s stock dropped nearly 6%. Other shares declining include those for Broadcom, Texas Instruments and Advanced Micro Devices.
President Donald Trump on Sunday played down the need for his administration to check the development of artificial intelligence, saying he worried about ceding America’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the advancing technology.
Oil prices gained more than 2% as worries grow over global oil supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a major oil pipeline used to help bypass the Strait of Hormuz after it was attacked.
U.S.-Iran tensions remain escalated while Iran-backed Houthi rebels stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia, capturing more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea and strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route.
The capture of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish is the latest in the rebels’ swift advance around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key passage for Saudi oil shipments that has become more crucial during the Iran war since it serves as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
While the prospect of a de-escalation of war in Iran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz may have dimmed, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary on Monday, the situation is still fluid and “sizeable” volumes of oil have still been moving through the strait.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.6% to $107.37 per barrel. It was at roughly $72 a barrel before the start of the war in Iran in late February.
Benchmark U.S. crude was up 2.3% to $102.39 per barrel.
Gasoline prices continued race higher, reaching $4.32 per gallon on average overnight, according to motor club AAA. That is 16 cents more than it cost last week. Diesel, a fuel with an outsized impact on consumer prices because it’s used in shipping and manufacturing, is rising even faster, gaining 3 cents overnight to reach $6.23.
Investors are also monitoring this week’s Federal Reserve meeting, in which Fed policymakers could raise rates as inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target.
Growing inflationary worries following the Iran war-caused energy shock and rising U.S. government debt have fueled a sell-off of government bonds and put pressure on U.S. Treasury yields.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury was at 4.97%, up from 4.95% last Thursday despite the U.S. Treasury Department’s expanded buyback operations meant to stabilize the bond market.
In Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.6% to 10,717.86. France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.7% to 8,125.20, while Germany’s DAX was 0.3% lower at 25,480.15.
South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.3% to 6,684.37. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slid 0.8% to 63,492.99. Shares of Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group, a key investor in OpenAI, plummeted 10.7%
The U.S. dollar rose to 154.48 Japanese yen from 153.58 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1547, down from $1.1598.
A monitor shows the Nikkei 225 stock index in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (Miyuki Saito/Kyodo News via AP)
