Watford captain Troy Deeney believes football should learn from the American youth sports system and make players’ school grades a mandatory part of their progression at academies.
Countless former and current academy players speak of an environment where schooling was secondary to their development as a footballer, even though the chances of a young teenager in an academy making it as a progressional remain slim.
In 2017, all 20 Premier League academies were awarded an “Outstanding” rating by Ofsted. But, ultimately, a players’ grades do not influence their ability to train or play for their club.
“We can learn so much from American sports,” Deeney tells i. “If your grades don’t match up you don’t get to do the sport. In the NBA, NFL, your grades have to add up. You have to be above a certain average. It doesn’t matter how good you are.”
In England, players as young as 14 are taken out of their school and into a system whereby they attend lessons within their club alongside their team-mates. At age 16, when many teenagers will go on to take A-levels, talented footballers given two-year scholarship deals will mainly leave schooling altogether.
In contrast, talented American athletes considered future sports stars receive scholarships with universities where their academic achievements are linked to their sporting development. It works within an entirely different sporting culture, yet that does not mean aspects of it could not be integrated into English football’s own academy environment.
“We should learn from this because I think now certainly players are given a bit more of a pass in education if they’re seen as promising. But what happens if we let them go?
“We’re setting them up to fail. I always think you should make better humans, and better people, and then if they happen to be good at football off the back of it then happy days.”
Manchester United fired a warning shot to their age-old adversaries and upcoming opponents Liverpool on Thursday night by blowing Roma away with a blistering display of attacking football at Old Trafford.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer‘s side were staring down the barrel of yet another semi-final defeat as they trailed the Serie A side 2-1 at half-time in the first leg of their Europa League tie.
However, they turned on the style in the second half, scoring five unanswered goals to all but secure their place in the final in Gdansk in four weeks time.
Bruno Fernandes’ output has dipped in the Premier League of late but he was involved in four of the goals, scoring two and assisting two. The timeless Edinson Cavani also underlined his importance to the side as the season edges towards its conclusion.
It was a world away from United’s insipid display in one of the more forgettable Premier League matches of the season against Leeds last time out and Jurgen Klopp will be wary of facing a team with its tails up given the deflating manner of Liverpool’s draw with Newcastle in their previous fixture.
Not only did United thrash Roma, they also emerged from the game unscathed with Solskjaer confirming on Friday morning that he had no fresh injury concerns. Anthony Martial is the only absent first-teamer, with a knee injury expected to keep him sidelined for the remainder of the season.
Goalkeeper reshuffle
There was little that David De Gea could do to prevent Roma’s goals on Thursday, with Lorenzo Pellegrini beating him from the penalty spot and Edin Dzeko tapping into an empty net from a cut-back.
Nevertheless, Dean Henderson has performed well in the Premier League, keeping four clean sheets in seven matches since dislodging De Gea from the starting line-up in March and he is in line to return on Sunday.
Although the goalkeepers are subject to rotation, the back four in front of them is settled with Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Luke Shaw both impressing on the flanks and Harry Maguire partnered by Victor Lindelof in the middle.
The individual match-up between the Premier League’s most creative defender this season in Shaw and the Premier League’s second-most creative defender, Trent Alexander-Arnold, provides an intriguing sub-plot to Sunday’s game.
Pogba’s new role
Paul Pogba‘s return to form has coincided with a change in role with Solskjaer deploying him off the left wing in a 4-2-3-1 system, alleviating him of more functional responsibilities when occupying a deeper, more central role in the team.
Paul Pogba impressed during United’s win against Roma in midweek (Photo: AP)
The great myth when it comes to Pogba is that he is a deep-lying playmaker type: he is well capable of playing sumptuous, long-range passes that snake through the air before reaching their intended target, but he struggles when tasked with the responsibility of dictating the tempo of a match.
At Juventus, Pogba generally played in a box-to-box role in a midfield diamond with Andrea Pirlo acting as the creative pivot from deep and his entire senior international career has been spent playing for Didier Deschamps, a reactive rather than proactive manager who favours a counter-attacking style to patient possession play.
Solskjaer deserves credit, therefore, for finding a solution to the Pogba conundrum. Besides scoring a thumping header against Roma on Thursday, Pogba has contributed three assists in his previous four starts from his new role against Tottenham, Granada and Burnley. His inclination to move infield has also left space out wide for Shaw to exploit.
Greenwood or Cavani?
Mason Greenwood was left on the substitutes bench in midweek but offered a reminder of his qualities by coming off the bench to score the final goal – his sixth in his last eight appearances. Given his form, the 19-year-old will be pushing for a starting place against Liverpool, either out wide or through the middle.
Cavani’s exploits in midweek make him hard to drop and with the Europa League tie against Roma all but wrapped up, Solskjaer may decide to play him against Liverpool with a view to resting him for the return leg in Italy on Thursday night.
With Fernandes’ place in the No 10 role assured, that leaves Marcus Rashford as the odd one out and while dropping him may seem unthinkable given his importance to United during the Solskjaer era, he has been playing through injury recently and his form has suffered as a result.
Rashford is also far less effective on the right wing than Greenwood and Solskjaer may opt to unleash the England international as a second-half substitute should United need additional firepower to break Liverpool down, rather than start him out-of-position.
Man Utd’s predicted line up (4-2-3-1): Henderson; Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw; McTominay, Fred; Greenwood, Fernandes, Pogba; Cavani
Ryan Mason insists that the Tottenham head coach position is an enticing one, despite several high-profile candidates apparently not being interested.
Spurs are searching for Jose Mourinho’s replacement following the Portuguese’s sacking last week and have appointed former midfielder Mason as the interim boss until the end of the season.
This week has seen potential candidates Julian Nagelsmann join Bayern Munich, Ajax boss Erik ten Hag sign a new contract and Brendan Rodgers suggest he is happy in his current role at Leicester.
That leaves Daniel Levy heading further down his shortlist than he may have liked, but Mason says there will be no shortage of interested candidates when Spurs come to make a move.
“I’ve not heard anything. I’ve shut myself off from it,” he said. “But listen, this is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
“There’s always going to be people interested. We have the best stadium in the world in my opinion. And also the best training complex in the world.
“It’s a fantastic group of players and a fantastic fanbase. So of course it’s going to be appealing.
“It’s a great football club. I’m probably biased because I feel passionately about it. But it’s a big football club as well.
“I think there’s going to be speculation because of the situation we’re in. I don’t want to spend too much energy talking about managers, because at this moment in time I’m the one leading and preparing the team and everyone associated with the club has to be pulling in the right direction these next five games.
“We’re not thinking about the next manager or who’s coming in.”
At 29, Mason became the youngest ever Premier League manager when he was thrust into temporary charge following Mourinho’s sacking.
Mason suffered defeat in his second game in charge against Pep Guardiola last weekend (Photo: AP)
He started last week as an academy coach and ended it leading his boyhood club out at Wembley in the Carabao Cup final.
While he is not pushing himself forward for the job on a permanent basis, Mason feels comfortable in the role despite his inexperience.
“I think it’s easy to say, ‘He’s young, he’s unprepared’. Yes of course I don’t have the top flight experience that a 40 or 50-year-old would have but what I do have is 20 years of experience with this football club, I know everyone whether that’s the kitman, the cleaners, the groundsman, I know everyone.
“Everyone knows me. I have personal relationships with everyone in this football club so you can’t underestimate how important that is in an organisation, especially the structure we have in place here and that we want going forward. That’s important. Very important in any walk of life you work in.
“Of course I’m not silly, not naïve. I’m 29, I am young but I’m very passionate about football.
“I believe I know the game and I believe I can communicate as well with the players and with the players there is a respect there which if you don’t have when your 40, when your 50, you’re not going to be able to communicate and get messages across so there is a respect there and I’m sure that’s going to stay for the next five games.”
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Jurgen Klopp has braced himself for a season of unexpected failure by admitting that even if Liverpool win their last five games they may not qualify for the Champions League next season.
Klopp is bidding for his first win in seven attempts at Old Trafford on Sunday in what he describes as Liverpool’s “most important game of the season” but victory will not paper over the cracks of a disastrous campaign when he says “nothing was perfect.”
Even if they reached their maximum of 70 points, Liverpool will still need other results to go for them to finish in the top four and there is even the possibility that fourth place may not be enough if Chelsea and Arsenal win the Champions League and Europa League respectively.
Liverpool could also fail to qualify for the Europa League and Klopp admits missing out on Europe will be a huge financial blow to the Merseyside club who have already lost an estimated £120m over the last year because of the consequences of Coronavirus pandemic.
“Playing Champions League is massive, especially from a financial point of view for the club,” he said. “It’s really important. If we cannot make that, then that’s not good. Definitely not.
“For sure, five wins will not be enough. It depends on how the other teams play obviously. but without five wins we don’t have a chance of ending up in any European competition so for us everything is clear.
“As long as we are not 15 points behind with only three or four games to go why should we write it off?
“United still think they can become champions and rightly so and we still think we can still go to the Champions League but we know we will need results in other games to go for us. We know without winning our own games we will go nowhere.”
Klopp however does not believe failure to qualify for the Champions League will have much impact on Liverpool’s transfer plans because like other top clubs who have been badly hit financially in the last year, the purse strings had already been considerably tightened.
“I don’t think it will change anything because the situation was difficult before and it is difficult after,” he added. “Football is in a difficult situation. I don’t think it will change a lot.”
The Liverpool manager has drawn four and lost two of his previous six visits to Old Trafford in all competitions – including a 3-2 FA Cup fourth round defeat in January – and was impressed by Manchester United’s second half demolition of Roma on Thursday evening.
Jurgen Klopp was impressed with Manchester United’s performance against Roma (Photo: PA)
“United looked pretty good – they turned the game around like they did 20 times this year,” he said. “They are coming up definitely everyone can see that, They deserve to be in the position they are in. They have won an awful lot of games.
“We are not that naive. We know we have to improve. If we wanted to become champions you need to be perfect and we were not perfect. The circumstances were not perfect, nothing was perfect actually, so it really clear pretty early on we weren’t going to be champions.”
Probable Liverpool team (4-3-3): Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Kabak, Robertson; Thiago, Milner, Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Mane.
i sport will join the boycott of social media this weekend to protest against racism and other forms of hate online.
The initiative, designed to take place across a busy weekend of sporting fixtures, was announced last week by a coalition of the UK’s biggest football bodies including the Premier League, Football Association, Women’s Super League and EFL.
The boycott will take place from 3pm on Friday 30 April until 11.59pm on Monday 3 May. Posts from i‘s @ipapersport accounts on Facebook and Twitter will be suspended at this time.
“As a collective, the game recognises the considerable reach and value ofsocial mediato our sport. The connectivity and access to supporters who are at the heart of football remains vital,” the coalition said in a statement.
“However, the boycott shows English football coming together to emphasise that social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate, while highlighting the importance of educating people in the ongoing fight against discrimination.”
The coalition has since been joined by international governing bodies Fifa and Uefa, organisations and clubs in rugby union, rugby league, cricket, tennis, horse racing, cycling and other sports as well as some of the UK’s largest media companies including the Guardian, The Sun, Sky Sports, Talksport and BT Sport.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson are among a host of leading athletes who have announced they will take part in the blackout.
“We at i have long campaigned vociferously for change regarding abuse online,” said i sports editor Ally McKay. “In agenda-setting interviews with Tyrone Mings, Wes Morgan, Marvin Sordell and Emile Heskey among many others, we have told the horrifying stories of racial abuse suffered by some of the nation’s most famous and celebrated footballers. We stand with them today in demanding social media companies take action to try to eradicate hatred from their platforms.”
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Erik ten Hag’s decision to sign a contract extension at Ajax has landed a fresh blow in Tottenham Hotspur’s hunt for a new manager. The Dutchman had been the favourite with the bookmakers to take over at Spurs, but, after first losing out on Julian Nagelsmann, the north London club have now seemingly missed the boat on another prime candidate.
However, if the Naglesmann and Ten Hag links were as true as they were reported to be, it does at least indicate that Daniel Levy and the Tottenham board are looking in the right sort of direction.
For, after the misfire of the Jose Mourinho tenure, Spurs need a project manager to keep the club relevant, a coach with a style and strategy that is capable of making a squad greater than the sum of its parts.
Both Nagelsmann and Ten Hag would have fitted that description – and so too does Brendan Rodgers, the man now with the shortest odds to fill the Spurs hotseat.
It’s not hard to see why Rodgers would appeal. He has Leicester City riding high in the Premier League, playing a modern and attacking style of football. The Foxes under Rodgers have both spent cleverly and promoted youth wisely to supplement an already talented group of players, and the result is a team that only looks destined to get better.
That improvement under Rodgers follows a similar pattern to the one he oversaw at Liverpool, and his impact at Celtic was similar again.
“He improved the players that were already at the club, gave Scott Brown a new lease of life and improved Stuart Armstrong and Keiran Tierney, got them their big moves,” Hoops fan Desmond Kane told i. “He signed some good players on the cheap too, but really it was about mentality – Rodgers had the total respect of his players and they all had belief in what he was doing.”
Switch out the names and that could easily be a description of what Mauricio Pochettino achieved at Tottenham. And Levy is looking for another Pochettino this summer, a coach who can breathe new life into the squad.
With Leicester on the verge of Champions League qualification and into the final of the FA Cup then now is perhaps not the time for Rodgers to be casting admiring glances at a club like Spurs. And Rodgers himself has played down the links in any case.
“Tottenham is a great club, one of the biggest in Britain, but for me I’m just in a really, really happy place in my life,” he said last week when rumours first started circulating. “I’m very, very happy here. I have a huge respect here for the players and the board, and I really feel that I want to continue my work here.”
An alternative would be Brighton & Hove Albion’s Graham Potter, a coach with a similar style for whom a switch to Spurs would more clearly represent a step up. Both Rodgers and Potter prefer to play football the same way, working possession through what is usually a three-man midfield, with full-backs offering some attacking threat and the wide forwards playing a key role in an aggressive pressing game.
In the case of Potter’s Brighton, that approach has yielded good football but not necessarily remarkable results, primarily due to a lack of quality in the final third. But Spurs have no such issue with a lack of attacking quality. In fact, the current make-up of the Tottenham squad would seemingly lend itself very well to such an approach.
Over the past two years Spurs have added some ball-playing quality to their midfield, with Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso never looking suited to Mourinho but possessing plenty of ability on the ball.
Dele Alli excelled in a pressing game under Pochettino at Spurs and will surely be champing at the bit after a year spent largely twiddling his thumbs on the bench. And the same is true of Steven Bergwijn, a talented wide player who shone at PSV and impressed early on under Mourinho before his spark was slowly extinguished.
Throw in the potential return of Oliver Skipp from his highly successful loan spell with Norwich, where he has helped steer the Canaries to promotion, and there is plenty of quality to work with in the Spurs midfield, before you even look at possible transfer targets.
Investment and freshening up is still required at Spurs regardless, particularly in a defence that looks a shadow of the back-line that went a season unbeaten at home back in 2016/17. But the building blocks of a good team are there. The club now just needs a manager with the tools required to construct a side capable of ascending back to those heady Pochettino heights.
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) has launched an investigation following Albion Rovers striker David Cox’s decision to retire after an opponent was alleged to have made slurs about his mental health.
Cox walked out at half-time of the 1-0 win over Stenhousemuir in Scottish League Two on Thursday night.
He then released a video on social media confirming he was “leaving the game” as he was “done with football”.
“Again having to deal with some mental health shouts at football again,” he said. “The second half is just starting and I have left the stadium. I was on the bench. We were having a to and fro with the bench. They had a go at my mental health and told me I ‘should have done it right the first time’.
“I promised myself the next time it happens I will walk off the park. I wasn’t playing, I am done with football completely. Some folk might not think it is a big deal but I am fed up for it. I don’t get paid enough.
“I tried to speak to the referees about it but they didn’t want to know because they didn’t hear it. We talk about racism, personal issues and because it is not heard by officials there is nothing they can do about it. So I am going to do something about it.”
David Cox from @albionrovers after receiving abuse during a match regarding his struggles with mental health.
Albion Rovers described the incident as “unforgivable”. Stenhousemuir confirmed they were aware of a verbal altercation having taken place and announced that the player involved, Jonathan Tiffoney, would take a leave of absence.
Tiffoney will not train in the meantime and will not be available for selection for Tuesday’s match against Brechin.
Stenhousemuir said in an updated statement on Friday that Tiffoney had also made allegations of inappropriate comments by Cox:
“We have spoken to the players involved, David Cox (Albion Rovers) who was on the bench, and Jonathan Tiffoney (Stenhousemuir) who was playing. Both players are making claims of serious and wholly inappropriate comments being made during the game that have implications for player wellbeing and mental health.”
Tiffoney responds
Tiffoney’s lawyers also released the following statement on his behalf:
“Media reports have indicated that I abused David Cox by referencing and attacking his mental health during last night‘s football match between Stenhousemuir and Albion Rovers. This is simply untrue. Throughout the first half of the game, I was subjected to abuse and disparaging comments from the Albion Rovers dug out. I did not react to these.
“David Cox, who was a substitute and not playing, was booked by the referee for entering the pitch and abusing me.
“I did not abuse him. His abuse of me took place in front of the linesman. Had I made the comment, which it has been said that I made, then it is inconceivable that it would have not been heard by the linesman.
“Having been personally subjected to disparaging and hurtful remarks as a player for many years, I condemn any such practice. I would never attack another player’s mental health or wellbeing and will fully cooperate with the Scottish FA investigation into this matter.”
Erling Haaland is available this summer. Very available thanks to the efforts of his father and agent.
The battle royale for his signature is already underway, with every big club in Europe seemingly interested, but one of those admirers could actually be best suited keeping their chequebooks closed, and concentrating on matters closer to home.
Manchester United do not need Haaland. That may seem somewhat churlish – what team wouldn’t want one of the best strikers in the world – but when you have the perfect guiding figure in the ranks in Edinson Cavani, switching your focus to what you already have should be the priority. There is not room for both in the United strike department.
United have been here before. Alexis Sanchez arrived in Manchester to much fanfare, but the capture, from minute one, felt as out of tune as his piano playing on the Old Trafford pitch during his unveiling.
Haaland is a much better player and should United be his desired destination – and that is far from certain – he would undoubtedly plunder plenty of goals. But in the middle of a pandemic, United’s money is better spent elsewhere, given what’s already in place.
In 302 games from David Moyes’ first to Jose Mourinho’s last, United scored five or more goals in a game twice. In 144 games under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it’s now happened nine times.
As the Roma blitz showed, the goals have flown in from a variety of sources. A strike squad of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Mason Greenwood and the irrepressible Cavani, supplemented by Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba, is the perfect blend. Keeping the band together, rather than adding to it, is a must.
We were all wrong about Cavani. Nobody else seemed interested last summer, and to plump for a 33-year-old over long-term target Jadon Sancho angered the majority of United’s fanbase. Overtures of Radamel Falcao were hard to ignore.
But Cavani has taught everyone a lesson in the makeup of the modern, elite footballer.
Footballers can play on for longer now. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has just signed a new deal at AC Milan that will take him into his 40s. This is no favour from the club or marketing ploy – the 39-year-old Swede is the club’s top goalscorer this season.
Players don’t have 10 pints after games anymore. The very elite are more likely to be teetotal and vegan. Cavani does ballet and yoga to keep his fitness up. He is the fittest player at United, and it has been an eye-opener to the club and Solskjaer himself.
Mason Greenwood has the perfect role model to learn from at Old Trafford (Photo: Getty)
He has told the club what he eats. A player is educating the club – and everyone is on board. El Matador is giving lessons on the pitch, too.
“Mason [Greenwood] has learned from Edinson [Cavani],” Solskjaer said earlier this month. “And of course it’s important when Edinson is here now, he’s not going to play football forever, but the traits, his movement, he [Mason] has picked up.”
For a long time, United have had high hopes for Greenwood. Since scoring 16 goals in his first-ever match as a six-year-old for his local club, he has broken record after record as he breezed through United’s academy.
Now, he is producing the goods in the first team. No teenager has scored more league goals for United than Greenwood.
A few more years absorbing everything about Cavani – he is capable of at least that at the very top level – will only turn this boy wonder into a man. Signing Haaland and allowing Cavani to go will only limit Greenwood’s game time, at a crucial juncture in his development. Sharing the strike responsibility with a man who knows every forward’s trick in the book would be a much more productive, long-term approach.
The problem United have now is persuading Cavani to stay. i understands Cavani is planning to play out his final years closer to home, but there are certain elements to his English experience the veteran Uruguayan is yet to encounter.
“He knows I would love to have him for another year,” Solskjaer said after the Roma win. “I understand this year has been very difficult, but I promised him that Old Trafford and Manchester is a different place with fans in the stadium.”
Now fully fit, Liverpool are in the marksman’s sights, where a further few goals will only enhance Solskjaer’s desire that he stays further. A settled strikeforce is a productive one and led by Cavani, energised by Greenwood, United can really push on.
Other areas of the squad are not quite so rosy, and would benefit from the Haaland funds instead.
Football stars have warned social media companies that they will boycott them for up to a month or even indefinitely if they don’t start tackling racial abuse.
From 3pm today until one minute before midnight on Monday, a coalition of English football’s largest governing bodies and organisations including the Football Association, Premier League and the EFL will switch off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Speaking ahead of the boycott today, Crystal Palace star Andros Townsend vowed players and other sports stars will not “take this abuse any more”.
He told BBC Sport: “I’m proud of the players. We’re finally finding our voices and speaking up as a community and a group of players.
“But when you start to speak up and start to fight back, obviously you face resistance.
“Hopefully it’ll let the major media companies – Twitter, Instagram – hopefully it lets them know that we’re not going to take this abuse no more, we’re going to start fighting back.”
Asked whether he thought the four-day blackout will make a difference, the 29-year-old said: “Probably not, but what it does do is send a warning to these companies that if you don’t start regulating your platforms, it’s going to be an indefinite blackout.”
The club found that there has been a 350 per cent increase in abuse directed towards its players. The analysis discovered that 86 per cent of these posts were racist, while eight per cent were homophobic or transphobic.
Former Newcastle and Portsmouth goalkeeper Shaka Hislop said he welcomed the blackout but said more needs to be done.
Today, from 3pm, English football and other sports, organisations and individuals stand together against online abuse.
Speaking to PA, he said: “I don’t see it stopping the abuse but I feel it provides an opportunity for so many against racism to be a part of something and to show support.
“It allows us to start having those conversations about what true change means and how we come about it. That is the very important step this moment is.”
And Livingston captain Marvin Bartley said that he is concerned that a footballer will take his own life before racism on social media is taken more seriously.
He told The Times he fully supports the boycott and revealed he had recently been the target of a racist Instagram message but claimed the company did nothing.
He said: “I spoke to a player recently who was absolutely struggling with it all. Mentally, they were struggling already – and then they were abused. One was to do with their sexuality and one with their race and one of them actually said, ‘I don’t know where I turn from here’. How sad is that?
“You’ve got a young individual who looks like they could take their own life because they don’t feel protected. That’s what’s going to happen [with someone] and people will come out and say, ‘what a wonderful person they were and we’re going to make a change now because this isn’t acceptable’. Why are we waiting for this to happen? Because it is coming.”
The English football’s largest governing bodies and organisations including the Football Association, Premier League and the EFL are involved in the initiative, plus the FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, Professional Footballers’ Association, League Managers’ Association, PGMOL, foobtall’s anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out, Women in Football and the Football Supporters’ Association.
A joint statement said: “The boycott shows English football coming together to emphasise that social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate, while highlighting the importance of educating people in the ongoing fight against discrimination.”
Sponsors, broadcasters and other media, including i sport, will also show support and participate in the blackout.
The organisations boycotting Twitter, Facebook and Instagram this weekend:
Football
Clubs across the Premier League, EFL, Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship will switch off their accounts. Governing bodies’ central accounts – such as those belonging to the Premier League, the Football Association, the WSL, the EFL, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the League Managers Association and the Football Supporters’ Association are also involved, as are anti-discrimination bodies Kick It Out and Show Racism The Red Card.
Clubs and governing bodies across Scottish football have also now pledged to support the boycott, along with the Football Association of Wales.
Cricket
The England and Wales Cricket Board announced on Wednesday that it, the 18 first-class counties, the eight women’s regional teams and the Professional Cricketers’ Association were joining the boycott.
Rugby union
The Rugby Football Union stands in solidarity with the football and cricket authorities, and its accounts for England Rugby, the Allianz Premier 15s, the Championship and GB7s will all suspend activity, it was confirmed on Thursday. Clubs in the Gallagher Premiership announced they were boycotting social media the previous day, with the support of the Rugby Players’ Association, while Scottish Rugby also joined in on Thursday, with Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors’ accounts becoming inactive.
Rugby League
Super League, organisers of the Rugby League World Cup 2021 and the Rugby League Players’ Association are all taking part in the blackout.
Tennis
The Lawn Tennis Association announced on Monday its intention to stand with football in support of the boycott. On Friday morning, the International Tennis Federation and International Tennis Integrity Agency said both organisations would “stand united with all sports against social media abuse” to support the social media boycott.
Darts
The Professional Darts Corporation said on Thursday it will support the social media boycott.
Formula 1
On Friday, F1 issued a statement reiterating a commitment to “combatting any form of discrimination, online or otherwise”, noting support for the efforts of the other sporting bodies in highlighting the issues while pledging to “work with all platforms and our own audiences to promote respect and positive values and put a stop to racism.”
Lewis Hamilton
With Formula 1 not planning to take part, the seven-time world champion is happy to help, saying: “I am fully supportive of the initiative and if me doing it helps put pressure on those platforms in order to help fight against it then, for sure, I am happy to do so.” On Friday, Hamilton’s compatriot George Russell, a driver with Williams, confirmed he will also take part in the boycott.
Horse Racing
British Horseracing said it will take part in the boycott from 9pm on Friday evening, following a planned commemoration of the life of Lorna Brooke.
Cycling
British Cycling is standing in “solidarity with all of those who have suffered or continue to suffer abuse” in joining the boycott.
Sponsors
Sportswear giant Adidas – which manufactures more than a third of Premier League kits – is stopping all advertising across its platforms. Barclays, which sponsors the WSL, will support the blackout, with no social media posts on the Barclays Football pages of Facebook and Instagram nor the Barclays Footy Twitter account, while the company’s other social channels will avoid all football-related activity.
England football team sponsor Budweiser has signed up, along with Nationwide, while online car retailer Cazoo – which sponsors Everton and Aston Villa – became the first major sponsor to announce its support of the boycott on Tuesday.
Broadcasters
BT Sport says the only posts on its channels over the blackout period will relate to social media abuse while talkSPORT is also supporting the boycott. Sky Sports, a key supporter of Kick It Out, is backing the campaign along with fellow Premier League broadcasters Amazon Prime.
Media
i sport will join the boycott and i sports editor Ally McKay said: “We at i have long campaigned vociferously for change regarding abuse online. In agenda-setting interviews with Tyrone Mings, Wes Morgan, Marvin Sordell and Emile Heskey among many others, we have told the horrifying stories of racial abuse suffered by some of the nation’s most famous and celebrated footballers. We stand with them today in demanding social media companies take action to try to eradicate hatred from their platforms.”
The Sun also said it was “proud to stand united with the football community” in announcing a boycott and the Guardian have also decided to show unity.
Additional reporting by Press Association
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The unanimity of outrage that led football fans on to the streets to protest against a seditious, self-serving European Super League has been the signature achievement for a sporting community normally defined by tribalism. But, less than two weeks later, that unity is already under threat.
The briefing from the usual suspects is underway. The imposition of severe sanctions against football clubs that covertly signed up to a uniquely damaging venture should be resisted, say those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, since it would indirectly punish their supporters.
Such a disingenuous argument could almost have been framed to incite a return to bickering based on false equivalence. It subverts the mythology of football as the people’s game.
As the initial surge of emotion dissipates, some supporters will inevitably succumb to misguided gratitude and a sense of denial about the greed or geopolitical intent of their club’s owners. Others will revert to type, and be distracted by the gaudy sideshow of transfer speculation.
How Arsenal’s ownership sums up what’s wrong
Headlines are perhaps the only things in football that can be secured cheaply. Following reports that he would consider buying Arsenal, Daniel Ek – no stranger to an arguably exploitative business model as the founder of Spotify – was hailed as “the type of guy we want running our club” by the YouTubers of Arsenal Fan TV, based on the flimsiest of evidence that he is an obsessive like themselves.
Meet our potential new boss. Not quite the same as the old boss, but still a billionaire adept at maximising the value of his brand while, it seems to me, not worrying too much about the possible iniquities of the process.
In reality, it seems Ek’s attempt to buy the North London club – sprinkled with the stardust of support from former players of the stature of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Denis Bergkamp – had the superficiality of an artfully conceived publicity stunt.
Arsenal’s current owners, Kroenke Sports Entertainment, announced on Wednesday they had no intention of selling a stake in the club. They insisted they had received no offer, and would not countenance one if it emerged. Stan Kroenke, the patrician of an acquisitive family business, had no incentive to cash in on another clinical investment.
His personal fortune of £6bn has been accumulated through the acquisition of seven sports franchises, two e-sport franchises, four major stadia, four TV stations and four radio stations. Under him, in a post-shame society, Arsenal has a stagnant mid-table team, the highest season-ticket prices and little apparent inclination to pay agency staff the London Living Wage.
He is despised by fans, but as someone who blithely moved an NFL franchise from St Louis to Los Angeles, he is apparently deaf to public opinion and blind to civic responsibility.
He seems to have no conception of football as a source of collective pride or individual identity. Such emotional detachment, to a club’s heritage and hinterland, represents the biggest threat to a game that has enriched me, personally and professionally, since childhood. It’s time for action, to protect something so spiritually important to so many people.
Football will not seize a unique chance to reset unless and until legislation enshrines clubs as community assets – instead of trinkets to be flaunted by the American aggressive capitalists, Russian oligarchs and nation states who reflect the Premier League’s founding free-market philosophy, through which a future Super League remains a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The overwhelming impression is of a defective, introspective sport, in which everyone mistrusts anyone with whom they come into contact. Despite the formative innocence of a fan’s allegiance, the game is currently being viewed through a cracked mirror of conflicting interests, hypocrisy and mendacity.
Speaking of which, trusting Boris Johnson’s Government to treat football’s plight as anything other than a convenient lifebelt on which to cling through the perfect storm of sleaze allegations and political intrigue is the equivalent of hoping your team will score twice in injury time to secure an improbable comeback win.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is where political careers go to die. Many ministers seem to be a succession of invertebrates who leave little legacy beyond opportunist photo-shoots, empty populist gestures and vacuous mission statements that are rarely followed through effectively by bureaucratic funding agencies.
At least the supposed fan-led review of football, announced with revealing haste, will be led by Tracey Crouch, one of the few Sports Ministers of recent times who understood the complexity and social significance of her brief. She must be bold, collaborative, transparent and tenacious. There is goodwill towards her.
There are also encouraging signs of maturity in the activism of individual club fan groups, which have the potential to stimulate fundamental change by acting in concert with the Football Supporters’ Association, which is urging the government to fund reforms through a £400m trust.
Fans have the right to demand a degree of influence in the culture and strategic management of their clubs, such as the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust calling for their club’s executive board to resign and include elected fan representatives in future.
What actions could make a real difference?
But this is not a one-issue debate. Football is broken. It can only be repaired through the appointment of an independent regulator, charged with aligning the game’s constituent parts.
A wealth tax should be applied, initially to the Super League plotters, and redistributed down the pyramid, primarily in Leagues One and Two, where clubs, by their very nature, are more responsive to local issues and needs. Finances are unsustainable, and can only be alleviated by the sort of salary cap that is ideologically offensive to a right-wing Tory party.
The current fit and proper person test for directors – introduced in 2004 and rebranded in 2011 as the “Owners’ and Directors’ Test”, removing any implication of moral judgement – is not worth the paper on which it is written. It must be renewed, with particular attention given to community commitment.
Player welfare must improve. The Premier League needs to be reconstituted, so those clubs outside the self-appointed ‘big six’ cannot be held continually to ransom.
On a macro level, the regional and global governing bodies, Uefa and Fifa, must be challenged remorselessly, since they cannot be allowed to act simultaneously as commercial entities and supposedly independent regulators.
On a micro level, lessons from the development of “phoenix clubs” such as AFC Wimbledon – formed after Wimbledon FC was unilaterally moved from south London by its owner in 2004 to become Milton Keynes Dons FC – and the impact of conscience-driven clubs like Lewes – which is 100 per cent fan-owned and operates on a not-for-profit basis – should be absorbed.
There is scope for equality, innovation and meaningful interaction, but only if everyone involved acts on the assumption they are united by more than that which divides them.
Football does not belong to plutocrats, potentates or closet politicians. It belongs to children with a sense of wonder, and grandparents with a lifetime’s memories. It’s not about profit and loss, but flesh and blood. It’s ours, and it matters.
Troy Deeney is about to tell a little-known story of the meeting that changed English football.
The murder of George Floyd in America was resonating around the world but the Premier League, on the verge of returning for the first time during the pandemic, was yet to formulate a plan.
There was widespread praise for Kevin De Bruyne and Jordan Henderson’s involvement in the decision last year for players to replace names on the back of shirts with “Black Lives Matter” and for the Premier League logo to be swapped with a BLM emblem. Deeney is quick, also, to applaud their contribution, but explains that without his own intervention during a meeting on Zoom ahead of Project Restart, involving Premier League executives and all 20 club captains, the outcome could have been different.
There were six agenda items and “at the bottom was race and our stance on it moving forwards,” Deeney recalls. He was texting Wes Morgan, Leicester City’s captain, as the meeting progressed, saying “It’ll be interesting to see what they say” and that “they might need some guidance”.
Yet they finished discussing the fifth item and Deeney heard: “Unless anyone’s got anything else to say then we’ll wrap the meeting up there.”
“They weren’t even going to talk about it!” Deeney says. “Not because they didn’t want to, but because it was a group of white men and women and they didn’t want to provoke that uncomfortable conversation.”
Deeney texted Morgan: “Are these f**kers serious?”
Before it was about to end, Deeney told Morgan, “I’m going, are you going to back me up?” Morgan agreed. Deeney unmuted himself. “Actually, I’ve got a huge problem. What do we think about this, why are we not saying this, why are we not doing that, why for the NHS do we do this, this and this but for race we can’t do that? Eight minutes later I’m like—” he takes a deep breath “—that’s me done.”
Without realising it, Deeney had set a snowball rolling that hasn’t yet stopped.
“Next thing you see, Kevin De Bruyne’s popped up, ‘Troy’s absolutely spot on, I’m with Troy.’ Jordan Henderson, Seamus Coleman, before you knew it I had all the teams saying, ‘I’m with Troy.’
“Kevin came up with the Black Lives Matter across the back. Jordan was like: ‘That’s great let’s do a badge’. I was like: ‘My missus designs badges, let me design that.’ And within 24 hours it went from try and avoid the conversation to having Black Lives Matter on the back and the Premier League badge changed.”
Deeney credits Sheffield United captain David McGoldrick with first suggesting that players take a knee, an act they still do before matches. “It just shows how powerful it can be when everyone does something. People at the top will never want to change things because why would you change something that’s profitable and doing well?”
What’s different now? “This time you’ve got the hearts and ears – and this is going to sound really bad – of middle-class white people. They’re now going: ‘Well that’s bang out of order.’ That is what stokes change.
“If Troy and Wes Morgan spoke about it, it wasn’t going to happen. But when I got Kevin De Bruyne, Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson going, ‘We’re with Troy’, it made change. It needs everybody to pull together just like we did with the Super League. Look at [how] all the fans come together and it fell down like a pack of cards.”
‘I’m having a bad time of it, but I’m in a good place’
Deeney takes a knee before a Premier League match against Norwich last season (Photo: Getty)
Not that you can tell, but Deeney is having one of his bad days. They happen often around this time of year, have done for the past eight years. Since his dad, Paul Anthony Burke, died of oesophageal cancer aged 47.
The bad days can last a week, five weeks, five days. He gets through them. Partly by speaking to his therapist, who he sees regularly. Previously, he has used alcohol to suppress the emotions; not in an obsessive, wake-up-and-drink way, but by drinking more than he usually would. This, however, is the first year he’s been totally sober.
“I have bad days regularly but I call it the joker mask – you have to paint the smile on and pretend to be the image that every body else wants to see,” he says.
His situation is different, he explains, to that of heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury, whose public disclosures about his depression have received widespread public sympathy. “If you’re just a normal person, or someone trying to be a normal like myself. I always have a rough time this time of year. It’s close to when my dad died. And for about four weeks, I feel like shit. I genuinely feel like shit. I can’t really tell people that. It just happens and currently I’m going through it.”
He adds: “I think as I’ve become more quote-unquote successful, I always have this little bit in the back of my head that goes, Dad would’ve loved this.”
There is much to love: Deeney becoming a recognisable face in football, a Premier League goalscorer, an entertainer, an outspoken anti-racism advocate sitting in more meetings than he cares to count to force change.
He is not, by his own admission, a natural talker. “I’m telling you stuff I’ve not even told the missus yet,” he admits.
That may come as a surprise to people who regularly hear him on Talksport giving his opinions on the game. It may come as a surprise to the celebrities he has recently interviewed – including Sir Elton John and Anthony Joshua – for the Deeney Talks podcast he has launched.
It comes as a surprise to me, as he talks with searing honesty and at length about his extensive work behind-the-scenes of football’s fight against racism, the social media boycott, why the platforms are still inherently good, the problems with state education, the decision to start a podcast.
He is still, of course, only 32 years old; still captain of a Watford team recently promoted back to the Premier League, still plans to kick a ball around on a football pitch for a few more years yet, but the rest points towards a carefully orchestrated plan for life after retiring from playing.
“The plan is I have absolutely no idea,” he says, chuckling. “I snowball into things and they get bigger and bigger and I’m somehow stuck in the middle with my arms and legs poking out of it.”
He mentions the comments made by Patrick Bamford, the Leeds United striker who, when asked on TV about the breakaway Super League after their match with Liverpool before the plans collapsed, immediately questioned why the game did not unite in the same fervour when it came to tackling racism.
“He had to really love football to get to it,” he says of Bamford, who went to private school and turned down a place at Harvard. “That grounding made him brave enough to speak out when everyone is talking about their Super League, to say: ‘Where’s this energy when it comes to racism?’ That, to me, points to a good, solid upbringing. Yes you went to nice schools, yes you went through the system, but you know what you’ve got a good set of parents behind you and good family values that meant ultimately he was brave enough to do it, because nobody else did.”
Deeney has seen both sides of education. He attended a state school until he was 16, but football has provided him with the wealth to send his kids to private school. And he questions why state school children are taught endlessly about the Tudors but so little about black history.
“In regards to race, everything has to reset and reboot,” he says, adding: “The bigger picture for me is that everyone needs to update. Things that kids are being taught now do not set them up for what’s going to be happening.”
The National Curriculum was last updated in 2014. “Kids aren’t taught at state school how important IT is, about coding, about any of those things.” He points out that languages in state schools are still not mandatory despite the acceleration of globalisation. “My kids are six and can speak French.”
His kids are also the first generation growing up in world plugged into social media. It can, at times, feel as though the platforms cause more harm than good. But would life be better or worse without them?
Again, he has experienced both sides. “I grew up in an age where you used to have to phone a girl’s family [to speak to her] – the nervous call! I’m showing my age a bit there.
“Social media has wonderful tools. Look how many kids are now millionaires from streaming and showing people what they do. There’re so many positives but like anything that has positives – this world is a beautiful world we all live in, but there are some ugly sides to it we don’t like, and that’s what we’re trying to eradicate. Will you eradicate all of it? ‘Course not. Can you potentially do it to a point where you are happier and it’s less obvious and there’s some accountability for what people say? That’s the key thing for me.”
That’s why English football is boycotting Twitter, Facebook and Instagram from 3pm on Friday to midnight on Monday. It’s the first major sporting boycott of its kind. The world is awaiting the companies’ responses.
Some predict it will have little impact, others point to the fact that in the UK during weekends football matches are consistently the main trending topics on Twitter. It will “put their feet close to the fire”, Deeney says, and warn them “this is what we did for four days, imagine if we did it for a month.
“All we want to do is promote change. How can you not post a Justin Bieber song to a video you’ve created because the algorithm says, No, that’s copyrighted, we’ll get sued. But you can call someone a n****r and it’s not a problem.”
Finally, after an avalanche of conversations, Deeney has to go. Our time was up a while ago. If this is one of Deeney’s bad days, you wonder what it’s like if you catch him on a good one.
“I’m having a bad time of it, but I’m in a good place, if that remotely makes any sense,” he says. And after an hour in Deeney’s company, it really does.
Troy Deeney’s “Deeney Talks” podcast is available on all major streaming platforms now.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3vsoJAf
Watford captain Troy Deeney believes football’s social media boycott this weekend will put the platforms’ “feet close to the fire” and send a warning that “this is what we did for four days, imagine if we did it for a month”.
The English game as a collective – including the Premier League, Football Association, Women’s Super League, EFL, clubs, players – will join forces and shun Twitter, Facebook and Instagram from 3pm on Friday to midnight on Monday. They have been joined by Uefa, many of the game’s key sponsors and broadcasters.
The blackout is a response to the lack of action taken by the companies against rampant discriminatory abuse players have been receiving for years.
Deeney, who has been an integral figure in football’s fight against racism, tells i in an interview today: “The social media blackout is a great thing, because it gives us analytics to turn around at the end of it and say this is the impact which it had and you can present to social media and you can put their feet close to the fire and say: Look, this is what we did for four days, imagine if we did it for a month.
“Football clubs won’t lose that much money from their social media feed, there’s so much more money coming in elsewhere. All we want to do is promote change. How can you not post a Justin Bieber song to a video you’ve created because the algorithm says no, that’s copyrighted, we’ll get sued. But you can call someone a n****r and it’s not a problem.”
Deeney, 32, is aware of how challenging it has been for those working behind-the-scenes on the boycott plans to encourage widespread involvement for the four days across the game. irevealed earlier this week that some Premier League clubs had baulked at the length of time. But the striker believes there could be future boycotts for longer if the social media companies do not respond adequately.
“I think you have an appetite, for me, if people didn’t feel there was change,” he says.
“Having known people that are there and working on it, it’s been a monumental effort to get clubs all aligned to say yes. It’s difficult to get even get five people to agree where to eat on a night out let alone people to give up their social media revenue. Especially when you look at a team like Norwich, they’re due to potentially pick up the Championship this weekend, they’re now choosing it’s a bigger issue than to post about it.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3eN1QAV
But within their number, at least three camps were present. Some just wanted to make their feelings clear without realistic hope for retribution, protest as a form of therapy. Others simply wanted Kroenke to sell; that was the thrust of the banners held high.
But for some, this protest represented something more existential. They believe that the European Super League, that great misjudgement of our sporting age, was the final straw. They wish to recapture a long-lost power, seizing back control and ownership from the rich and infamous. And they hope that legislative intervention may make it possible. The German 50+1 model of club ownership is touted as a potential saviour.
The best these billionaires can hope for is acquiesce through eventual silence: cries of crisis from the masses eventually becoming a trickle of diehard dissenters whose voices are lost in the general noise. Much like a dictatorial or authoritarian government, control and – ultimately – coercion is achieved through the gradual spread of communal hopelessness – things will never change anyway so there’s no point even trying.
A concerted PR campaign has already begun. Chelsea have announced the postponement of a proposed rise in season ticket prices (during a global pandemic and likely financial crisis, how could they even consider it?). The summer transfer window will be the perfect stage on which to claw back goodwill. It’s a little like buying flowers and chocolates after an argument; the point is not that we don’t appreciate the gesture, but we want you to avoid the missteps that provoked it.
But you can see how this strategy works. Fans of all six clubs probably have a mental shopping list for the positions within the squad that must be improved. As supporters, we have been warped into magpies, perennially distracted by shiny new toys and increasingly obsessed by the transfer market soap opera that trades them. We are also typically poor at unified protest (although hopefully the last fortnight has persuaded us otherwise).
At that point, the European Super League becomes a useful distraction for owners. That was never their aim; the notion that this was all a ruse loses its weight when you understand their initial commitment to the project and witnessed the fallout from it. But if removing the looming spectre of a breakaway league is the whole of our intention, it merely reinforces our submergence in the status quo.
For real change, for these owners to be truly held to account, we require unity. Every faction or clique within a fanbase makes retributive justice less likely. And yet unity is incredibly hard to pull off. We have been walked so far, and so fast, down the road of football’s rampant capitalism that scaling back from it feels Sisyphean. How do we persuade someone paying £1,000 for a season ticket and wearing a replica shirt with the name of a £50m signing on the back to embrace a simpler, perhaps even archaic, future?
Committing to a more egalitarian model of ownership, making this a landmark moment for modern football, requires supporters to actively embrace circumstances that they are predisposed to mistrust. It creates a distinct paradox: your club may be less successful and may win fewer trophies, at least in the medium-term, but you cannot care. Those clubs that keep their billionaire owners will continue to hoover up the trophies, but you cannot be jealous. Your club is operating on a higher plane because it is yours, and that whitewashes over all else. That sounds blissful in theory; the reality is far harder.
Supporters of those clubs now face an internal reckoning about what they really want it to be and want it to mean and whether those two things can co-exist in harmony. Those fans must cling onto an intangible dream in the face of tangible backwards steps. In a consumerist society, they have to break all their hardwired instincts. And there are very few acceptable half-solutions here: a new omnipotent billionaire owner is still an omnipotent billionaire owner.
But it is the only way. If the failed ESL breakaway did anything at all, it put a group of billionaire owners simultaneously on the back foot for the first time. They are not used to hearing the word “no”.
Their immediate retreat was fuelled by an ignorance of the public reaction to their plans. That ignorance is itself damning, but it only counts for anything at all if we exploit their position of relative beleaguerment to push wholeheartedly for a different future. For once, we have forced the window open a crack to let in some fresh air. It won’t stay that way for long.
Will it work? Probably not. The excitement from some Arsenal supporters about Spotify owner Daniel Ek buying the club suggests that replacing one billionaire for another is viewed as a victory. If your club signs Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé or AN Other Next Big Thing, does that buy back your trust? If so, the owners walk away scot free. And we’ll dance this same old dance the next time they consider the game itself to be subservient to their greed.
Daniel Storey’s i football column is published in print and online on Friday mornings. You can follow him on Twitter @danielstorey85
