Category: Новини

Six-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi received a hero’s welcome after flying to France on Tuesday to join Paris Saint Germain (PSG) following his shock departure from Barcelona.The agreement to sign the 34-year-old Argentine is a major coup for wealthy PSG, who will add one of the best soccer players of all time to an already formidable front line that includes Brazil’s Neymar and young Frenchman Kylian Mbappe.Wearing a T-shirt that read “This is Paris,” Messi beamed and waved at scores of fans who had come to greet him at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of the French capital after his flight from Barcelona.Chanting “Messi, Messi, Messi,” the fans cheered and let off firecrackers.”It’s going to be mad. After all, it’s a legend who is arriving,” said Florent Chauveau, a PSG fan who has been back and forth to the airport every day since Sunday in the hope of seeing Messi arrive.Messi gave no details of the deal, which was reached days after Barcelona said it could not afford to keep the midfielder because of Spain’s La Liga’s fair play rules.Emotional Messi Says He Wasn’t Prepared to Leave Barcelona Lionel Messi calls his unexpected departure from Catalan club ‘the most difficult’ moment of his careerBut his father, speaking to reporters at Barcelona’s airport, confirmed reports by French newspaper L’Equipe and Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo that Messi had reached an agreement with PSG, which is owned by Qatar Sports Investment.L’Equipe said the deal would be for two years. It also said Messi would have medical tests on Tuesday, and that a news conference to mark his arrival was likely on Wednesday.PSG did not comment on the reports but released a short video showing scenes of Paris, a plane landing and a close-up of someone putting pen to paper. In the background, upbeat music can heard and the words “new diamond in Paris” and “mercato update” appear.The video, seen on Twitter, does not show Messi but depicts an image of six Ballons d’Or – an annual award given to the player deemed the best in the world – by the Eiffel Tower.Many Barcelona fans were distraught at the end of Messi’s glittering, trophy-laden career at the club he joined as a schoolboy.But the arrival of Barcelona’s all-time record scorer with 682 goals will boost PSG’s ambitions to win the Champions League for the first time. Messi won four Champions League titles while at Barcelona, as well as 10 La Liga titles.PSG AmbitionsMessi is the latest big-name arrival at PSG on a free transfer this summer after coach Mauricio Pochettino’s side snapped up Spanish defender Sergio Ramos after he left Real Madrid. Dutch midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum also joined after running down his contract with Liverpool.Italy’s Euro 2020-winning goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma has also joined after his contract with AC Milan ran out, while Moroccan fullback Achraf Hakimi joined from Inter Milan for a reported 60 million euros ($70 million).The arrival of Messi, whose last contract with Barcelona was worth a total of 555 million euros and reported to be the most lucrative in world sport, is also set to provoke a renewed new debate about UEFA’s financial fair play rules.The rules were first introduced in 2009 to restrict some of the worst excesses of the game but have been criticized by some leading figures for being ineffective.The arrival of Messi, who has 245 million followers on Instagram and is Barcelona’s most decorated player of all time, is also welcome news for France’s Ligue 1, embroiled in a crisis over TV rights.
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With the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics finally in the books, human rights activists are gearing up to put pressure on the companies that have taken high-profile sponsorship roles in the upcoming 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Those activists are demanding that executives of high-profile corporations justify their support of an event that, they claim, will be used to distract the world’s attention from ongoing human rights abuses across China. Governments of several countries, including the United States, have said that the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people in its western Xinjiang region, involving prison camps and forced sterilization, amounts to a genocide. China has also faced condemnation for its suppression of democracy advocates in Hong Kong and its repression of minorities in Tibet and Inner Mongolia. Activists are hopeful that they can use the attention the upcoming Games will generate to force the International Olympic Committee to move the Games elsewhere or, at a minimum, to compel large corporate sponsors to withdraw their support. Success questionable While relocating the Games at this late date seems a virtual impossibility, activists believe that calling attention to China’s human rights abuses — which the Chinese Communist Party vigorously denies — may yet have an impact on sponsors. The Beijing Games are scheduled to held February 4-20.  FILE – A man uses his phone as he walks past signs of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games at the headquarters of Beijing Organizing Committee, in Beijing, China, July 30, 2021.”I think there’s definitely a chance,” said Mandie McKeown, the executive director of the International Tibet Network. “The pressure on them is undoubtedly mounting.” Many companies sign marketing agreements with the IOC, but activists have their sights set on some of the most high-profile ones, including those that participate in the IOC’s Olympic Partner Program. These include household names in the U.S. such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Visa, Intel and Toyota. Most of the major Olympics sponsors have made very public commitments to human rights, explicitly building them into their corporate policies, which puts them in a delicate position with regard to the Beijing Games.  “Having anything to do with Beijing 2022 will not adhere to whatever human rights policies you think your organization upholds,” McKeown said. “They will just be destroyed. They won’t be worth the paper they’re written on.” Sponsors unresponsive Despite the outcry, however, corporate sponsors of the Olympics have remained largely mute. “The response that we’ve had so far from the sponsors is basically nothing,” said Koen Stoop, European Union policy coordinator for the World Uyghur Congress, based in Munich, Germany. To date, one of the few times that major Olympic sponsors have defended themselves in public was during a hearing before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China late last month, after U.S. lawmakers had compelled several of them to send representatives.  ‘We … follow the athletes’ The contentious hearing was marked by angry statements from lawmakers of both major U.S. political parties, who characterized the companies — Coca-Cola, Intel, Procter & Gamble, Airbnb, and Visa — as frightened to stand up to the Chinese government because it could result in damage to their businesses.  FILE – Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., attends a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 16, 2020.”You are afraid of them in a way that you are not afraid of critics in the United States,” said Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat. “I think that’s shameful.” The executives at the hearing said little that could be interpreted as critical of China. When asked their opinion on whether the Games should be moved, most gave an answer similar to that of Coca-Cola’s global vice president for human rights, Paul Lalli, who said, “We do not have a say in the selection of the host city, nor on whether an Olympics is postponed or relocated. We do not make decisions on these host locations. We support and follow the athletes wherever they compete.” China responded angrily to the congressional hearing putting pressure on Olympic sponsors, and especially to the accusation of genocide repeated by some lawmakers. In a statement to The Associated Press, China’s Foreign Ministry called the genocide claims “the lie of the century.” The statement continued, saying, “This is a serious violation of the spirit of the Olympic Charter and is detrimental to the interests of athletes from all countries and the international Olympic cause. China firmly rejects it.” ‘Genocide Games’ Hearing the corporate executives couch their acceptance of the Beijing Games as part of their dedication to Olympic athletes is particularly galling to some activists.  “If they’re concerned about the athletes and they’re putting athletes first, then they should be using their influence … to convince the IOC that this is not right, this should not be happening,” said McKeown of the International Tibet Network. “They should not be putting the athletes that they are so concerned about in a position where they may be winning medals at what is perceived as being the Genocide Games. It’s pretty standard and obvious, I think.” A complex decision Experts say that the companies choosing to remain as sponsors of the Beijing Games have made a cost-benefit analysis that tells them their connection to the Games will do them more good than harm in terms of driving sales. FILE – Ethnic Uyghurs leave a center where political re-education lessons are held in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, Sept. 6, 2018. The centers are also used for detention.”The bottom line is always the bottom line,” said Rick Burton, a professor of sport management at Syracuse University. “They’re looking at the value of the sponsorship worldwide, not just in the United States. So Coca-Cola or Visa knows that they’re going to get some heat in the United States, maybe, but they’re not going to get any heat in, let’s say, China, or in Australia or Germany, where these issues may not rise to the level that they will in the United States.” The question is, “How much heat can I wear versus how much upside do I have relative to sales?” Burton said. “That makes them sound incredibly capitalistic. But those companies are, in most cases, held very much accountable by what their stakeholders are demanding of them and what their stock price is doing.” A multiyear commitment Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College who has studied various economic aspects of sports, said that it can be tempting to oversimplify the decision-making process that Olympic sponsors are going through.  It’s natural to ask whether attaching a company’s name to the Beijing Olympics tarnishes it or burnishes it, he said. But finding an answer isn’t easy.  “I don’t think there’s an approach to quantify how much risk there is and how much potential negative publicity there is,” he said. This is further complicated for the companies that participate in the Olympic Partner Program, the highest level of sponsorship, who sign on for years at a time, covering multiple Summer and Winter Games. Beijing Games as ‘loss leader’ “Some companies will also be looking beyond Beijing,” said Zimbalist. “The top sponsorships sometimes last for three or four Olympics,” he said.  In effect, he said, the companies are probably looking at Beijing as the marketing equivalent of what business economists call a “loss leader” — a business strategy that loses money on a stand-alone basis but that enables greater profits in different areas. “They look at Beijing, and they simply say, ‘Well, we’re just going to have to bite our tongue on this one and look forward to better days ahead,'” Zimbalist said. Any progress welcome While the ultimate goal of activist groups would be for sponsors to withdraw completely from their association with the Beijing Games, most realize that isn’t a likely outcome and would be pleased to see even some smaller steps. “The most perfect outcome would be if these sponsors would withdraw their sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics in the face of the Uyghur genocide,” said Stoop, of the World Uyghur Congress.  “But even gestures like putting certain statements out during the Olympics, where they express concern about the Uyghur genocide — or anything that raises awareness during the Olympics about what is happening to the Uyghur people — that is already an outcome for us that is better than what is happening now,” Stoop said. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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New Zealand cycling was plunged into mourning on Tuesday after Olympian Olivia Podmore’s sudden death at the age of 24. Podmore represented her country at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2018 Commonwealth Games but was not part of New Zealand’s team at the recent Tokyo Games. A New Zealand police spokesman said police attended a sudden death at a property in Waikato on New Zealand’s upper North Island about 4 p.m. (0400 GMT) Monday. Podmore’s cause of death was not confirmed, but friends and sports officials said her passing had raised concerns about her mental health. Former Olympic rowing champion Eric Murray, a friend of Podmore, told New Zealand media he was with her on Monday and said her death was a “shock and a tragedy.” “I wish she had said something,” the 39-year-old said. “We have lost a sister, a friend and a fighter who lost that will of fight inside of her. “If you had seen her in the last 72 hours,” he said, “you wouldn’t have thought this could happen. That’s why there’s so much talk about mental health at the moment.” The issue of athletes struggling with their mental health has been in the spotlight since Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open. American Simone Biles pulled out of most of her Olympic gymnastics events in Tokyo, citing a need to take care of her mental health. New Zealand media reported Podmore had recently described the pressures of elite sport in a post on her social media. The New Zealand Olympic Committee said news of Podmore’s death had reached the New Zealand cycling team in Tokyo, which was expected to return home on Tuesday. “We are providing well-being support for members of her team and the wider team as we return home from Tokyo,” NZOC said in a statement. Podmore’s brother Mitchell wrote in a Facebook post: “Rest in peace to my gorgeous sister and loved daughter of Phil Podmore. You will be in our hearts forever.” Sport New Zealand boss Raelene Castle said Podmore had been “reaching out for support.” “Support for athletes in programs is not perfect. Her legacy has to be that we make improvements,” Castle told a media conference. She added that “extra layers of support” were being given to New Zealand’s cycling team. 
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Organizers of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival have cancelled this year’s event due to the latest surge in COVID-19 cases in the region.In a statement on the festival’s website, the organizers said they made the decision based on “recent exponential growth of new COVID cases in New Orleans and the region and the ongoing public health emergency.”The event commonly known as “Jazz Fest” is traditionally held over the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May. After the event was cancelled in 2020, organizers had hoped to hold the event in October. But as deadlines for guaranteeing acts and building the festival site were approaching, they had to make an immediate decision.In the first 50 years of Jazz Fest, which began in 1970, the event had never been cancelled. While featuring big name international stars such as the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Buffett, the event also celebrates the indigenous music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana, featuring nearly every music style imaginable: blues, R&B, gospel, Cajun, Zydeco, Afro-Caribbean, folk, Latin, rock, rap, contemporary and traditional jazz, country, bluegrass and others.The festival is now scheduled to return to its usual spring dates in 2022, three years after it was last held.While a disappointment to music fans, cancellation of Jazz Fest is also a setback for the economic recovery of New Orleans, a city that relies heavily on tourism. Officials from the area’s hospitality industry told NOLA.com hotels in the city had been nearly totally booked for the two weeks of the festival.The city had attempted to return to normal in recent months, with popular local music venues requiring proof of vaccination to enter. But the recent COVID-19 surge, driven largely by the highly contagious delta variant, have forced many of those venues to cancel concerts through August.(Some information in this report came from the Associated Press.)
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Bobby Bowden did it all. He put Florida State on the map by taking the football team from an afterthought to a dynasty, and he left an indelible mark on the game with a rare combination of coaching acumen, gracious demeanor and a compassion for those he coached and competed against. The beloved, folksy Hall of Fame coach who built one of the most prolific college football programs in U.S. history died early Sunday at 91 at his home in Tallahassee, Florida, surrounded by his wife, Ann, and their six children following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Bobby’s son, Terry, called his passing “truly peaceful.” And while he’s gone, Bowden’s legacy as a top-notch coach — and human being — will live on. The numbers are staggering: Bowden piled up 377 wins during 40 years as a major college coach and his teams won a dozen Atlantic Coast Conference titles and national championships in 1993 and 1999. Perhaps the statistic that jumps off the page is his sustained success with Florida State, which finished the season ranked in the top five of The Associated Press college football poll an unmatched 14 straight seasons (1987-2000) under his tutelage. Bowden’s legacy can’t just be told in numbers. “This guy was probably the greatest ambassadors of all time because he had success coaching, but he was also one of the greatest people and set an outstanding example for everyone in our profession in terms of you don’t have to dislike somebody, you don’t have to discredit somebody that you’re competing against,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “That example of being a good person is something that can help us all professionally. He wasn’t always just about him; he was always about helping other people.” Bowden, a devout Christian, said last month, after announcing he had a terminal illness, he had always tried to serve God’s purpose and he was “prepared for what is to come.” “My wife, Ann, and our family have been life’s greatest blessing,” he said then.  Bowden retired following the 2009 season with a Gator Bowl win over West Virginia in Florida State’s 28th straight postseason appearance, a victory that gave him his 33rd consecutive winning season.  A month after he resigned, the NCAA stripped Florida State of victories in 10 sports because of an academic cheating scandal in 2006 and ’07 involving 61 athletes. Still, only Penn State’s Joe Paterno is credited with winning more games (409) as a major college football coach. Bowden’s win total ranks fourth across all divisions in college football history. Bowden was also the patriarch of college football’s most colorful coaching family. Son Tommy Bowden had a 90-49 record at Tulane and Clemson, and Terry was 47-17-1 at Auburn. Another son, Jeff, served 13 years coaching wide receivers for his father at Florida State and six seasons as offensive coordinator before he resigned in 2006. By 1979, Bowden had Florida State positioned for one of the great runs in the annals of college football.  Led by All-American nose guard Ron Simmons, the Seminoles enjoyed an 11-0 regular season but lost to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. In 1993, despite a late slip at Notre Dame, Florida State won its first national title after nearly getting there in 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992.  Bowden’s lone perfect season came in 1999 when the Seminoles became the first team to go wire-to-wire in The Associated Press rankings, No. 1 from the preseason to finish. Success also brought a glaring spotlight, and Bowden’s program was touched by scandal on a few occasions. The school was put on NCAA probation for five years after several players in 1993 accepted free shoes and other sporting goods from a local store.  Bowden prided himself on giving players a second chance, but critics said he was soft on discipline with an eye on winning games.  The cheating scandal that led to the loss of a dozen wins from Bowden’s final resume took place in an online music history course from the fall of 2006 through summer 2007. The NCAA said some athletes were provided with answers to exams and in some cases, had papers typed for them. Bowden stayed in the public eye after retirement, writing a book, making speeches and going public with his treatment for prostate cancer in 2007. His fear of retiring from coaching resulted in part from the death of his longtime idol, former Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, who died within weeks of leaving the sidelines. “After you retire, there’s only one big event left,” Bowden frequently said. Bowden stayed active into his 80s, finally slowing down over the last year or so. He was hospitalized in October 2020 after testing positive for COVID-19. The test came a few days after he returned home from a long hospital stay for a leg infection. Born Nov. 8, 1929, in Birmingham, Alabama, Robert Cleckler Bowden overcame rheumatic fever as a child to quarterback Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, then attended Alabama for a semester before transferring back to his hometown Howard College, where he starred at quarterback. He married his childhood sweetheart, Ann, and they stayed together for 72 years. Bowden is survived by wife Ann; sons Terry, Tommy, Jeff and Steve; and daughters Robyn Hines and Ginger Madden. Services were scheduled for Saturday at the Donald L Tucker Center, Florida State’s basketball arena. 
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After several delays, the first phase of the sex trafficking trial of R&B hitmaker R. Kelly will begin with jury selection Monday in New York City. A judge in federal court in Brooklyn will question potential jurors about whether they can keep an open mind about Kelly two years after he was charged with abusing women and girls for nearly two decades. The proceeding will occur amid coronavirus pandemic precautions restricting the press and the public to overflow courtrooms with video feeds.     Kelly, 54, has been locked up since he was indicted, mostly housed in a federal jail in Chicago. He was moved last month to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to face trial in a case that’s further diminished his superstar status. Last week, defense attorney Devereaux Cannick told a judge that Kelly needs to be measured for new clothing because he’s gained so much weight in jail. And he asked that court transcripts be provided at no cost because Kelly has been unable to work for two years, saying: “His funds are depleted.” The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling singer has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of leading an enterprise of managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and girls for sex. Federal prosecutors say the group selected victims at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly.     Defense lawyers have said Kelly’s alleged victims were groupies who turned up at his shows and made it known they “were dying to be with him.” They only started accusing him of abuse years later when public sentiment shifted in the #MeToo era, they said.     The trial had been expected to start earlier in the year. But opening statements were moved to Aug. 18 after Kelly fired his original defense team. Jurors are expected to hear testimony from several of his accusers. A judge has ruled that the women will only be referred to by their first names.     Prosecutors have said the jury will also hear evidence that Kelly schemed with others to pay for a fake ID for Aaliyah, a singer on the rise at 15 years old, whom he married in a secret ceremony in 1994.     Aaliyah is identified as “Jane Doe #1” in court papers because she was still a minor when Kelly began a sexual relationship with her and believed she had become pregnant, the papers say. “As a result, in an effort to shield himself from criminal charges related to his illegal sexual relationship with Jane Doe #1, Kelly arranged to secretly marry her to prevent her from being compelled to testify against him in the future,” the papers say.     Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.” She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.     The case is only part of the legal peril facing the singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly. He also has pleaded not guilty to sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota.     Kelly won multiple Grammys for “I Believe I Can Fly,” a 1996 song that became an inspirational anthem played at school graduations, weddings, advertisements and elsewhere.    Nearly a decade later, he began releasing what eventually became 22 musical chapters of “Trapped in the Closet,” a drama that spins a tale of sexual deceit and became a cult classic. But Kelly has been trailed for decades by complaints and allegations about his sexual behavior, including a 2002 child pornography case in Chicago. He was acquitted in that case in 2008. Scrutiny intensified again amid the #MeToo movement in recent years, with multiple women going public with accusations against the singer. The pressure intensified with the release of the Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” in 2019.     Criminal charges soon followed. 
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Struggling to control his emotions, Lionel Messi said Sunday in his farewell to Barcelona that he wasn’t prepared to leave the club.Messi began crying even before he started speaking at his farewell ceremony at the Camp Nou Stadium.”This is very hard for me after so many years, after being here my entire life,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”Messi called his unexpected departure from the club “the most difficult” moment of his career.Messi’s family and some of his teammates were at the Camp Nou for the player’s farewell.Messi avoided speaking specifically about his future, saying he received offers from several clubs after the announcement that he would leave the Catalan club.Barcelona announced Thursday it could not keep its greatest player because it wasn’t able to fit a new contract within the Spanish league’s financial fair-play regulations. The club’s salary cap has been significantly slashed because of its huge debt. President Joan Laporta blamed the club’s struggles on the coronavirus pandemic and particularly on the previous administration led by Josep Bartomeu.Messi asked to leave at the end of the 2019-20 season but had his request denied by Bartomeu. The Argentina star had agreed to stay and had reached agreement with Barcelona on a new contract, but the club wasn’t able to make it work because of its dire financial situation.Messi spent nearly two decades with the Catalan club after arriving from Argentina as a teenager to play in its youth squads. He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old in 2004, then played 17 seasons with the main squad. He helped the club win the Champions League four times, the Spanish league 10 times, the Copa del Rey seven times and the Spanish Super Cup eight times.Messi leaves as Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer with 672 goals. He played in 778 matches with the club, also a record. He is also the overall top scorer in the Spanish league with 474 goals from 520 matches.He led the Spanish league in scoring in eight seasons, and was the top scorer in the Champions League six times. His 26 goals against Real Madrid are a record for the “clasico” matches against Barcelona’s fiercest rival. 
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