Spanish club Celta Vigo have called on Madonna and their club fans to help them end their 36-year search to find the team jersey that the global icon wore during her concert at their Balaidos stadium in 1990.

Madonna’s show on July 29 1990 in Vigo marked the first major international concert in the city and was one of the last stops on the pop star’s Blond Ambition European tour.

The LaLiga outfit said it wants to recover the “unique and irreplaceable garment” to add it to its historical archives.

“That night, the artist donned a Celta Vigo jersey with [former Celta defender Jose Manuel] Espinosa’s number 5 on the back,” a club statement said.

“This moment, captured by photographer Víctor de las Heras, became an iconic image in the history of the club and the city. After the performance, the jersey vanished, its whereabouts unknown ever since. Celta Vigo has now revealed that it had been searching for it privately for years, but the investigation stalled.

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“Thirty-six years later, the club is launching an appeal to all Celta Vigo fans to help locate the jersey, with the intention of adding it to its historical archives. For Celta Vigo, it is a unique and irreplaceable garment that forms part of its emotional heritage. For this reason, the club would appreciate any relevant information regarding the whereabouts of the shirt Madonna wore on stage at Balaídos. The following link has been provided to receive any information related to the garment.”

Celta president Marián Mouriño has also written an open letter asking Madonna for her help while explaining why that jersey means so much to the club.

“Your image with our shirt has become a myth and is part of the history of Celta that is also written off the pitch,” she wrote.

“Many see all this as a simple anecdote. But I like to think that nothing happens by chance. Although it was not the only shirt you wore on stage, that image began to shine in a different way over the years. Because we understand better what you defended back then: questioning the established and standing up to those who try to tell you what you can or cannot do.

“At the club that I preside over, we recognize ourselves in that way of being in the world.”

In the letter, Mouriño said her club will “dedicate a gesture of affection” to Madonna ahead of Friday’s home league game against Real Madrid with the intention of asking the singer: “Do you have it? If you know where it might be or want to help us, please contact us by private message.”

Semi-final hero Finn Allen said New Zealand’s thumping demi-final win over South Africa was a “huge confidence booster” ahead of going for their maiden T20 World Cup title in Sunday’s final.

Opener Allen hit the fastest-ever T20 World Cup century, off 33 balls, to give his side a crushing nine-wicket win over South Africa and set up a final against India or England in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

Allen blasted 10 fours and eight sixes as New Zealand raced to their victory target of 170 with 7.1 overs to spare at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens.

It was a bruising defeat for 2024 runners-up South Africa, who had been unbeaten in the tournament.

“They fight hard, they come hard at us, they’ve got good tall, fast bowlers and it makes it challenging for us,” Allen said of Aiden Markram’s South Africa.

“Their boys hit the ball hard, so to get one over them is a huge confidence booster for us going into Sunday. They’ve been the in-form team the whole tournament.”

The Auckland-born Allen rose to the occasion in the knockout match after ordinary outings in the tournament apart from his unbeaten 84 against the UAE in a group fixture.

Allen said his heroics in India would have kept his parents and the nation awake to cheer the team.

“I’m sure my parents are up watching the whole game. Hopefully they’re proud.

“But I think as a nation, I think hopefully everyone gets behind us and rallies around us for Sunday,” said Allen.

The final will begin at around 2.30am on Monday in New Zealand.

“Obviously, difficult time for people to watch back home but I’m sure people were keeping tabs on the game and hopefully they can get up and have a Monday off at work and watch the final.”

Allen put on 117 with opening partner Tim Seifert, who made 58, to pummel the opposition attack that included high-quality pacemen Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi.

‘Best seat in the house’

Seifert was the early aggressor as he raced to 41 off 21 balls before Allen took over and finished with two fours, two sixes and a four to raise his hundred and seal victory.

Allen said batting with Seifert makes life easy.

“He’s in incredible form, he’s an incredible player and I think he’s just showing the world what he can do,” said Allen.

“And I think that makes it easy for me to sit back and have the best seat in the house. So, yeah, it’s good fun batting with Timmy.”

New Zealand squeaked into the semi-finals on net run-rate ahead of Pakistan and lost to South Africa by seven wickets in the group stage.

But Allen said a five-match T20 series in India that the visitors lost 4-1 ahead of the World Cup prepared them for the grind.

“I think it shows the importance of that India series that the boys played before the World Cup,” he said.

“Five games on all black soil (pitches) and I think it just shows that as a team we get up for the fight (in) those important fixtures.”

A number of prominent basketball coaches, including NBA champions Steve Kerr and Doc Rivers, signed a public letter released Wednesday contending that political interference in universities threatens to undermine college athletics.

“College sports unite us as a nation, drawing out team spirit and shared values of fair play,” the letter said. “Campuses – big and small, public and private, two- and four-year – are a bedrock foundation for the role sports play in American life. Protecting university independence safeguards this proud tradition.”

Kerr and Rivers are joined in signing the letter by former coaches Jim Boeheim and Muffet McGraw (both of whom have won NCAA basketball titles), former Michigan coach John Beilein, Harvard coach and former Duke All-American Tommy Amaker, and Phil Martelli, who coached perennial NCAA tournament teams at St. Joseph’s. Head men’s basketball coach James Jones of Yale and Judith Sweet, the first woman elected as president of the NCAA, are also among the signees for the group.

The coaches and other athletic administrators who signed the letter said that political interference harms university culture, and that includes college athletics. They point to cuts to funding for research, censorship, intimidation of university leaders and faculty and having federal officers deployed to college campuses as examples of that interference.

“Right now, at both the federal and state levels, acts of political interference threaten the independence of our colleges and universities,” the letter said.

The letter asks that leaders and fans of college sports urge elected officials to support academic independence.

“When students are afraid to speak their minds, they cannot give their all,” the coaches wrote. “When campuses are polarized, it’s hard to maintain the ‘one team’ spirit we instill in the locker room. Unprecedented political pressure on colleges and universities undercuts the values we have sought to instill in student-athletes.”

The letter is on the website of Stand For Campus Freedom, an organization that describes itself as a nonpartisan project “that holds universities accountable to their highest ideals, resists political coercion and strengthens America’s leadership on the world stage.”