Raphael Stevens

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    How Facebook Failed to Stem Racist Abuse of England’s Soccer Players

    In May 2019, Facebook asked the organizing bodies of English soccer to its London offices off Regent’s Park. On the agenda: what to do about the growing racist abuse on the social network against Black soccer players.At the meeting, Facebook gave representatives from four of England’s main soccer organizations — the Football Association, the Premier League, the English Football League and the Professional Footballers’ Association — what they felt was a brushoff, two people with knowledge of the conversation said. Company executives told the group that they had many issues to deal with, including content about terrorism and child sex abuse.A few months later, Facebook provided soccer representatives with an athlete safety guide, including directions on how players could shield themselves from bigotry using its tools. The message was clear: It was up to the players and the clubs to protect themselves online.The interactions were the start of what became a more than two-year campaign by English soccer to pressure Facebook and other social media companies to rein in online hate speech against their players. Soccer officials have since met numerous times with the platforms, sent an open letter calling for change and organized social media boycotts. Facebook’s employees have joined in, demanding that it to do more to stop the harassment.The pressure intensified after the European Championship last month, when three of England’s Black players were subjected to torrents of racial epithets on social media for missing penalty kicks in the final game’s decisive shootout. Prince William condemned the hate, and the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, threatened regulation and fines for companies that continued to permit racist abuse. Inside Facebook, the incident was escalated to a “Site Event 1,” the equivalent of a companywide five-alarm fire.Jadon Sancho, who missed a penalty kick during England’s loss in the European Championship final last month, was embraced by the team’s manager, Gareth Southgate.Pool photo by Laurence GriffithsYet as the Premier League, England’s top division, opens its season on Friday, soccer officials said that the social media companies — especially Facebook, the largest — hadn’t taken the issue seriously enough and that players were again steeling themselves for online hate.“Football is a growing global market that includes clubs, brands, sponsors and fans who are all tired of the obvious lack of desire from the tech giants to develop in-platform solutions for the issues we are dealing with daily,” said Simone Pound, head of equality, diversity and inclusion for the Professional Footballers’ Association, the players’ union.The impasse with English soccer is another instance of Facebook’s failing to solve speech problems on its platform, even after it was made aware of the level of abuse. While Facebook has introduced some measures to mitigate the harassment, soccer officials said they were insufficient.Social media companies aren’t doing enough “because the pain hasn’t become enough for them,” said Sanjay Bhandari, the chair of Kick It Out, an organization that supports equality in soccer.This season, Facebook is trying again. Its Instagram photo-sharing app rolled out new features on Wednesday to make racist material harder to view, according to a blog post. Among them, one will let users hide potentially harassing comments and messages from accounts that either don’t follow or recently followed them.“The unfortunate reality is that tackling racism on social media, much like tackling racism in society, is complex,” Karina Newton, Instagram’s global head of public policy, said in a statement. “We’ve made important strides, many of which have been driven by our discussions with groups being targeted with abuse, like the U.K. football community.”But Facebook executives also privately acknowledge that racist speech against English soccer players is likely to continue. “No one thing will fix this challenge overnight,” Steve Hatch, Facebook’s director for Britain and Ireland, wrote last month in an internal note that The Times reviewed.Some players appear resigned to the abuse. Four days after the European Championship final, Bukayo Saka, 19, one of the Black players who missed penalty kicks for England, posted on Twitter and Instagram that the “powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages” and called it a “sad reality.”Around the same time, Facebook employees continued to report hateful comments to their employer on Mr. Saka’s posts in an effort to get them taken down. One that was reported — an Instagram comment that read, “Bro stay in Africa” — apparently did not violate the platform’s rules, according to the automated moderation system. It stayed up.#EnoughMuch of the racist abuse in English soccer has been directed at Black superstars in the Premier League, such as Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford. About 30 percent of players in the Premier League are Black, Mr. Bhandari said.Over time, these players have been harassed at soccer stadiums and on Facebook, where users are asked to provide their real names, and on Instagram and Twitter, which allows users to be anonymous. In April 2019, fed up with the behavior, some players and two former captains of the national team, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, took part in a 24-hour social media boycott, posting red badges on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #Enough.A month later, English soccer officials held their first meeting with Facebook — and came away disappointed. Facebook said that “feedback from the meeting was taken on board and influenced further policy, product and enforcement efforts.”Tensions ratcheted up last year after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. When the Premier League restarted in June 2020 after a 100-day coronavirus hiatus, athletes from all 20 clubs began each match by taking a knee. Players continued the symbolic act last season and said they would also kneel this season.That has stoked more online abuse. In January, Mr. Rashford used Twitter to call out “humanity and social media at its worst” for the bigoted messages he had received. Two of his Manchester United teammates, who are also Black, were targeted on Instagram with monkey emojis — which are meant to dehumanize — after a loss.Inside Facebook, employees took note of the surge in racist speech. In one internal forum meant for flagging negative press to the communications department, one employee started cataloging articles about English soccer players who had been abused on Facebook’s platforms. By February, the list had grown to about 20 different news clips in a single month, according to a company document seen by The Times.Marcus Rashford kneeling in support of the Black Lives Matter movement before a Manchester United match in March.Pool photo by Peter PowellEnglish soccer organizations continued meeting with Facebook. This year, organizers also brought Twitter into the conversations, forming what became known as the Online Hate Working Group.But soccer officials grew frustrated at the lack of progress, they said. There was no indication that Facebook’s and Twitter’s top leaders were aware of the abuse, said Edleen John, who heads international relations and corporate affairs for the Football Association, England’s governing body for the sport. She and others began discussing writing an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter.“Why don’t we try to communicate and get meetings with individuals right at the top of the organization and see if that will make change?” Ms. John said in an interview, explaining the thinking.In February, the chief executives of the Premier League, the Football Association and other groups published a 580-word letter to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Dorsey accusing them of “inaction” against racial abuse. They demanded that the companies block racist and discriminatory content before it was sent or posted. They also pushed for user identity verification so offenders could be rooted out.But, Ms. John said, “we didn’t get a response” from Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Dorsey. In April, English soccer organizations, players and brands held a four-day boycott of social media.Twitter, which declined to comment, said in a blog post about racism on Tuesday that it had been “appalled by those who targeted players from the England football team with racist abuse following the Euro 2020 Final.”Messages of support adorning a mural of Mr. Rashford that was defaced after Italy defeated England for the European championship.Lindsey Parnaby/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt Facebook, members of the policy team, which sets the rules around what content stays up or comes down, pushed back against the demands from soccer officials, three people with knowledge of the conversations said.They argued that terms or symbols used for racist abuse — such as a monkey emoji — could have different meanings depending on the context and should not be banned completely. Identity verification could also undermine anonymity on Instagram and create new problems for users, they argued.In April, Facebook announced a privacy setting called Hidden Words to automatically filter out messages and comments containing offensive words, phrases and emojis. Those comments cannot then be easily seen by the account user and will be hidden from those who follow the account. A month later, Instagram also began a test that allowed a slice of its users in the United States, South Africa, Brazil, Australia and Britain to flag “racist language or activity,” according to documents reviewed by The Times.The test generated hundreds of reports. One internal spreadsheet outlining the results included a tab titled “Dehumanization_Monkey/Primate.” It had more than 30 examples of comments using bigoted terms and emojis of monkeys, gorillas and bananas in connection with Black people.‘The Onus Is on Them’In the hours after England lost the European Championship final to Italy on July 11, racist comments against the players who missed penalty kicks — Mr. Saka, Mr. Rashford and Jadon Sancho — escalated. That set off a “site event” at Facebook, eventually triggering the kind of emergency associated with a major system outage of the site.Facebook employees rushed to internal forums to say they had reported monkey emojis or other degrading stereotypes. Some workers asked if they could volunteer to help sort through content or moderate comments for high-profile accounts.“We get this stream of utter bile every match, and it’s even worse when someone black misses,” one employee wrote on an internal forum.Gianluigi Donnarumma of Italy stopping Mr. Sancho’s penalty kick. England missed three of five penalty kicks, giving Italy the victory after play ended with the score tied.Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesBut the employees’ reports of racist speech were often met with automated messages saying the posts did not violate the company’s guidelines. Executives also provided talking points to employees that said Facebook had worked “swiftly to remove comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers.”In one internal comment, Jerry Newman, Facebook’s director of sports partnerships for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reminded workers that the company had introduced the Hidden Words feature so users could filter out offensive words or symbols. It was the players’ responsibility to use the feature, he wrote.“Ultimately the onus is on them to go into Instagram and input which emojis/words they don’t want to feature,” Mr. Newman said. Other Facebook executives said monkey emojis were not typically used negatively. If the company filtered certain terms out for everyone, they added, people might miss important messages.Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief executive, later said the platform could have done better, tweeting in response to a BBC reporter that the app “mistakenly” marked some of the racist comments as “benign.”Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, told the BBC that the app had “mistakenly” marked some racist comments as “benign.”Ricky Rhodes for The New York TimesBut Facebook also defended itself in a blog post. The company said it had removed 25 million pieces of hate content in the first three months of the year, while Instagram took down 6.3 million pieces, or 93 percent before a user reported it.Kelly Hogarth, who helps manage Mr. Rashford’s off-field activities, said he had no plans to leave social media, which serves as an important channel to fans. Still, she questioned how much of the burden should be on athletes to monitor abuse.“At what point does responsibility come off the player?” she wondered. She added, “I wouldn’t be under any illusions we will be in exactly the same place, having exactly the same conversation next season.” More

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    Messi's Arrival in Paris Reflects a Troubling Time in Soccer

    He could not stay where he wanted; few teams could afford him. Even one of the best players of all time was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.In those frantic, final hours in April, before a cabal of owners of Europe’s grandest clubs unveiled their plan for a breakaway superleague to an unsuspecting and unwelcoming world, a schism emerged in their ranks.One faction, driven by Andrea Agnelli, chairman of Juventus, and Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, wanted to go public as quickly as possible. Agnelli, in particular, was feeling the personal pressure of acting, in effect, as a double agent. Everything, they said, was ready; or at least as ready as it needed to be.Another group, centered on the American ownership groups that control England’s traditional giants, counseled caution. The plans still had to be finessed. There was still debate, for example, on how many spots might be handed over to teams that had qualified for the competition. They felt it better to wait until summer.If the first group had not won the day — if the whole project had not exploded into existence and collapsed in ignominy in 48 tumultuous hours — this would have been the week, after the Olympics but before the new season began, when they presented their self-serving, elitist vision of soccer’s future.That the Super League fell apart, of course, was a blessed relief. That this week has, instead, been given over to a dystopian illustration of where, exactly, soccer stands suggests that no great solace should be found in its failure.On Thursday, Manchester City broke the British transfer record — paying Aston Villa $138 million for Jack Grealish — for what may not be the last time this summer. The club remains hopeful of adding Harry Kane, talisman of Tottenham and captain of England, for a fee that could rise as high as $200 million.And then, of course, dwarfing everything else, it emerged that Lionel Messi would be leaving — would have to leave — F.C. Barcelona. Under La Liga’s rules, the club’s finances are such that it could not physically, fiscally, register the greatest player of all time for the coming season. It had no choice but to let him go. He had no choice but to leave.Everything that has played out since has felt so shocking as to be surreal, but so predictable as to be inevitable.There was the tear-stained news conference, in which Messi revealed he had volunteered to accept a 50 percent pay cut to stay at the club he has called home since he was 13, where he scored 672 goals in 778 games, where he broke every record there was to break, won everything there was to win and forged a legend that may never be matched.As soon as that was over, there came the first wisps of smoke from Paris, suggesting the identity of Messi’s new home. Paris St.-Germain was, apparently, crunching the numbers. Messi had been in touch with Neymar, his old compadre, to talk things through. He had called Mauricio Pochettino, the manager, to get an idea of how it might work. P.S.G. was in touch with Jorge, his agent and father.Then, on Tuesday, it happened. Everything was agreed upon: a salary worth $41 million a year, basic, over two years, with an option for a third. As his image was stripped from Camp Nou, a hole appearing between the vast posters of Gerard Piqué and Antoine Griezmann, Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, boarded a plane in Barcelona, all packed and ready to go.Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, on their way to Paris on Tuesday.Instagram/Antonelaroccuzzo/Via ReutersJorge Messi assured reporters at the airport that the deal was done. P.S.G. teased it with a tweet. Messi landed at Le Bourget airport, near Paris, wearing that shy smile and a T-shirt reading: “Ici, C’est Paris.”This was not a journey many had ever envisaged him making. But he had no other choice; or, rather, the player for whom anything has always been possible, for once, had only a narrow suite of options.There is a portrait of modern soccer in that restricted choice, and it is a stark one. Lionel Messi, the best of all time, does not have true agency over where he plays his final few years. Even he was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.He could not stay where he wanted to stay, at Barcelona, because the club has walked, headlong, into financial ruin. A mixture of the incompetence of its executives and the hubris of the institution is largely responsible for that, but not wholly.The club has spent vastly and poorly in recent years, of course. It has squandered the legacy that Messi had done so much to construct. But it has done so in a context in which it was asked and expected to compete with clubs backed not just by oligarchs and billionaires but by whole nation states, their ambitions unchecked and their spending unrestricted.The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the onset of calamity, and so Barcelona was no longer in a position where it could keep even a player who wanted to stay. When it came time for him to leave, he found a landscape in which only a handful of clubs — nine at most — could offer the prospect of allowing him to compete for another Champions League trophy. They had long since left everybody else behind, relegated them to second-class status.And of those, only three could even come close to taking on a salary as deservedly gargantuan as his. He should not be begrudged a desire to be paid his worth. He is the finest exponent of his art in history. It would be churlish to demand that he should do it on the cheap, as though it is his duty to entertain us. It could only have been Chelsea or Manchester City or Paris.To some — and not just those who hold P.S.G. close to their hearts — that will be an appetizing prospect: a chance to see Messi not just reunited with Neymar, but aligned for the first time with Kylian Mbappé, who many assume will eventually take his crown as the best, and with his old enemy Sergio Ramos, too.That it will be captivating is not in doubt. And doubtless profitable: The jerseys will fly off the shelves; the sponsorships will roll in; the TV ratings will rise, too, perhaps lifting all of French soccer with it. It may well be successful, on the field; it will doubtless be good to watch. But that is no measure. So, too, is the sinking of a ship.Paris Saint-Germain supporters waited for Messi to arrive at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, on Tuesday. Francois Mori/Associated PressThat the architects of the Super League arrived, in April, at the wrong answer is not in doubt. The vision of soccer’s future that they put forward was one that benefited them and left everyone else, in effect, to burn.But the question that prompted it was the right one. The vast majority of those dozen teams knew that the game in its current form was not sustainable. The costs were too high, the risks too great. The arms race that they were locked into led only to destruction. They recognized the need for change, even if their desperation and self-interest meant they could not identify what form that change should take.They worried that they could not compete with the power and the wealth of the two or three clubs that are not subject to the same rules as everybody else. They felt that the playing field was no longer level. They believed that, sooner or later, first the players and then the trophies would coalesce around P.S.G., Chelsea and Manchester City.It was sooner, as it turns out. P.S.G. has signed Messi. City may commit more than $300 million on just two players in a matter of weeks, as the rest of the game comes to terms with the impact of the pandemic. Chelsea has spent $140 million on a striker, too. This is the week when all their fears, all their dire predictions, have come to pass.There should be no sympathy, of course. Those same clubs did not care at all about competitive balance while the imbalances suited them. Nothing has damaged the chances of meaningful change more than their abortive attempt to corral as much of the game’s wealth as possible to their own ends.But they are not the only ones to lose in this situation. In April, in those whirlwind 48 hours, it felt like soccer avoided a grim vision of its future. As Messi touched down on the ground near Paris on Tuesday, as the surreal and the inevitable collided, it was hard to ignore the feeling that it had merely traded it for another. More

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    Lionel Messi Leaves Barcelona for PSG

    Leaving Barcelona, Messi is set to join P.S.G. on a two-year contract that highlights the growing gap between soccer’s rich and its superrich.Paris St.-Germain, the French soccer powerhouse bankrolled by the state of Qatar, has agreed to a two-year contract with Lionel Messi.The agreement, which comes days after Messi bid a tearful farewell to F.C. Barcelona, the club where he had spent his entire professional career, concluded a brief and exclusive bidding war for Messi and reunited him with his former Barcelona teammate Neymar on one of the most expensive and talented attacking teams in soccer history.The deal also highlighted how Gulf riches have so altered modern soccer’s economics that even some of the world’s biggest, richest and best-supported teams are now no match for state-sponsored teams in the arms race to acquire the most elite players.Messi’s signing was confirmed by a team official with knowledge of the agreement and in a video posted to the club’s social media account. Messi flew from Barcelona to Paris-Le Bourget airport on Tuesday afternoon, emerging to wave to the fans who had gathered there to welcome him while wearing a shirt with the P.S.G. slogan “Ici C’est Paris.”P.S.G. has called a news conference for Wednesday morning to introduce Messi.Messi’s new contract is for two years plus a third option year, according to the official. It will pay him about $35 million a season, an enormous amount but only a fraction of what he was earning at Barcelona.Almost from the moment F.C. Barcelona announced last week that financial obstacles meant the club and Messi would not be able to continue their trophy-laden, two-decade association, Messi’s destination was in many ways a question of which of two Gulf-royalty-backed teams he would choose.Would it be Manchester City, owned by a brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, one of the few clubs willing and able to spend freely in the era of the coronavirus pandemic? Or would it be P.S.G., the star-laden French champion financed by Qatar, a club that, like City, appears immune from a financial crisis that has shaken the global soccer economy?City tried to sign Messi a year ago, when he first suggested he might leave Barcelona, the only professional team he has played for, but he later recommitted to the Spanish club even as he criticized the way it was being run.A free agent after his contract expired in June, Messi had been unable to close a new deal with Barcelona because of a financial crisis that meant the numbers simply could not add up.To re-sign Messi, the greatest player in club history, Barcelona would have had to shed more than $200 million from its payroll to meet stringent requirements set by the Spanish league. It could not. Certainly not in a way that, according to Barcelona’s new president, Joan Laporta, would not imperil the future of a club mired in debt and expecting losses of almost 500 million euros in the next year.In a news conference on Sunday, Messi broke down in tears as he confirmed what the club had announced last week: that Barcelona’s current financial crisis and the Spanish league’s cost-control rules made it impossible for him to sign a new contract. Yet even as he said goodbye, Messi seemed to be trying to soften the blow of his departure, for fans, for the club and also, it appeared, for himself.“I did everything I could,” Messi said. “From my side, I did everything to stay. That is what I wanted.”Lionel Messi, 34, had been a Barcelona player since joining its academy as a 13-year-old.Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut a player reportedly earning about $132 million a year in salary and bonuses cannot move just anywhere.He may be 34, but Messi’s performance levels appear to be undimmed by age. Just this summer, he was the player of the tournament, the top scorer and the assists leader as he led Argentina to the Copa América, its first national team title in almost three decades.P.S.G. will add him to an attack that includes two of the best forwards in the game — Kylian Mbappé, the jet-heeled French star, and Neymar, the Brazilian who was once Messi’s teammate at Barcelona.With Messi in its star-studded ranks — and even if Mbappé is sold, possibly to Real Madrid, to recoup some of the cost — P.S.G. will once again take aim at the Champions League, the biggest prize in club soccer but a tournament that, despite P.S.G.’s billions of dollars in spending, it has failed to win. Messi has won the competition four times with Barcelona.Unlike Barcelona, though, P.S.G. is still trying to write its history. And it is doing that by spending money. A lot of money.It signed Mbappé and Neymar for the highest fees in soccer history and then surrounded them with even more high-priced and high-earning talent lured from rivals around Europe. Messi, for example, is joining a team that this summer added the Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, the Netherlands midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum and the Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos. All three, like Messi, were out of contract.It is unclear just how P.S.G. will justify the addition of those salaries, and Messi’s, under European soccer’s cost-control rules. But like Manchester City, which broke the British transfer record this summer by signing Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish for 100 million pounds ($139 million), the club appears to be free of domestic or regional rules on spending.Both P.S.G. and City have been investigated by European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, for breaching financial regulations, but each has managed to avoid significant penalties by successfully appealing cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Its hand strengthened by those successes, P.S.G.’s influence in the corridors of power has only grown.Its president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, now sits on UEFA’s board and serves as president of the influential European Club Association, the umbrella body for more than 200 top-division teams across Europe. He is also the most senior official at BeIN Media Group, the Qatar-based broadcast network that is the largest buyer of UEFA broadcast rights.For Barcelona, on the other hand, the sight of Messi’s wearing a different team’s colors — something unthinkable as recently as six weeks ago — will be the bitterest sign of how powerless even Europe’s biggest clubs can be in a marketplace dominated by nation states with deep pockets and big dreams.Rory Smith contributed reporting. More

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    Lionel Messi Will Not Return to Barcelona

    The soccer superstar will leave the only club he has played with since he was 13. The team officially announced his departure.Lionel Messi will not return to F.C. Barcelona, the club announced on Thursday.Messi, 34, who has been with the club since he was 13, was expected to sign a new contract with Barcelona on Thursday, but amid reports of a breakdown in negotiations, the team said he would not be returning.“Despite F.C. Barcelona and Lionel Messi having reached an agreement and the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today, this cannot happen because of financial and structural obstacles (Spanish Liga regulations),” the team said in a statement on its website.LATEST NEWS | Leo #Messi will not continue with FC Barcelona— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) August 5, 2021
    Various issues between Messi and Barcelona have percolated for months, if not years, but it was the team’s decision to let the player’s contract expire at the end of June that precipitated this result.La Liga rules limit each club’s spending to a percentage of club revenue, and league officials had repeatedly said they would not weaken their rules to accommodate Barcelona, which was far over that limit.Barcelona was told it would need to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations before it would be allowed to register any new players, including Messi, for next season. (Barcelona’s decision to allow Messi’s contract to run out means he was registered as a new signing, instead of a renewal, which might have been easier.)The club has spent lavishly in recent years. Messi’s most recent four-year deal, if he met every clause and condition, was worth almost $675 million. With the pandemic resulting in a drastic reduction in revenues, the club’s spending became untenable.In July it was reported that the player and the team had found a way for him to stay, with a five-year extension, but the conditions put forth by La Liga were not able to be met.The club’s statement concluded by wishing Messi well: “Barça would like to wholeheartedly thank the player for his contribution to the growth of the institution and wish him the best in his personal and professional life.”This is a developing story. Check back for updates. More

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    USWNT Falls to Canada, Ending Frustrating Olympic Trip

    A second-half penalty kick sends Canada to the gold medal game, and leaves the U.S. seeking the bronze, and answers.KASHIMA, Japan — The referee’s whistle had barely finished chirping when the Canadian players sprinted to the middle of the field and unleashed an explosion of exaltation that echoed around an otherwise silent stadium. More

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    N.F.L. Vaccine Holdouts Face Training Camp Scrutiny

    Though 88.5 percent of all N.F.L. players had received at least one vaccine dose through Friday, some players voiced their hesitance to be inoculated.When asked by reporters Tuesday if he had received the Covid-19 vaccine, Indianapolis Colts defensive lineman DeForest Buckner nodded his head and smiled.“Yes, sir, fully vaccinated,” Buckner said.When asked the same question, his teammate, wide receiver T.Y. Hilton, declined to clearly answer, glancing downward, his response slightly muffled by the mask covering his expression.“It’s a personal decision,” Hilton said, “so let’s just leave it at that.”On Monday, Frank Reich, the Colts’ vaccinated head coach, tested positive in a so-called breakthrough infection. He was asymptomatic, but participated in the start of training camp remotely, Chris Ballard, the team’s general manager, said.As the first week of N.F.L. training camps concluded amid the backdrop of the Delta variant fueling an alarming spike in coronavirus cases nationally, the dichotomy within the Colts’ locker room reflected the discussion among N.F.L. players regarding the vaccine, even as the league offered more education and levied harsher penalties on the unvaccinated.As of Friday morning, 88.5 percent of all players had received at least one vaccine dose, according to an N.F.L. spokesman, a more than 8 percent jump from last week. Twenty of the 32 teams have more than 90 percent of their rosters vaccinated, while two teams, the Colts and the Washington Football Team, have vaccination rates below 70 percent.With training camps open, players can now voice their opinions to the broader public, and their actions are more scrutinized with reporters present. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, the 2019 N.F.L. most valuable player, tested positive for the coronavirus this week, his second infection since November. Protocols will require Jackson to miss at least 10 days if he is unvaccinated.Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Leonard Fournette voiced their hesitancy about the vaccine in July on social media in posts they’ve since deleted..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott declined to reveal his vaccination status to reporters this week, inaccurately claiming that doing so would violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, an outspoken vaccine critic, even crafted an original song regarding his stance.Despite high-profile examples of players with reservations about the vaccine, the leaguewide vaccination rate exceeds that of the United States, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that nearly 70 percent of adults have received at least one dose.The N.F.L. in July issued a memo to all 32 teams outlining steep penalties for those who refuse inoculation. If an unvaccinated player or staff member is found to have caused an outbreak that forces a schedule change, the team experiencing the outbreak will be held financially responsible for the other club’s expenses, the memo said. If the game cannot be rescheduled, the team experiencing the outbreak will forfeit.Washington Coach Ron Rivera, left, wore a mask while talking to Tress Way at Thursday’s practice. Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesUnvaccinated players still face several restrictions, including daily testing, capacity limits in weight rooms and a requirement to travel on a separate plane from teammates. The league can also fine them as much as $50,000 for breaking Covid-related protocols. Regardless of the decrees from the N.F.L., individual teams still are encountering some resistance.In June, Washington Coach Ron Rivera addressed his team’s low vaccination rate by inviting Kizzmekia Corbett, an immunologist who helped develop the Moderna vaccine, to speak with players and address their questions.Some remained skeptical, including defensive end Montez Sweat, who said he was “not a fan” of the vaccine. Rivera, who is immune-compromised after battling cancer, said he continues to wear a mask around groups of players to protect himself.“‘I’m truly frustrated,” Rivera said. “I’m beyond frustrated.”The scattered messaging among some of the N.F.L.’s recognizable players may sow further doubt in who that may already be distrustful, said Dr. Sherita Golden, vice president and chief diversity officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine.“I do think they need to lead by example and realize the power of their influence,” she said in an interview Thursday. “Them modeling and getting the vaccine and tweeting about it sends a powerful message.”About 70 percent of N.F.L. players are Black, a racial group that is already suspicious of the vaccine and has limited access to it, and whose members are killed by the virus at a higher rate. Only 41 percent of those who have received the vaccine nationally are people of color, according to the C.D.C. and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The distrust among some N.F.L. players mimics societal trends, Golden said.“We don’t know their experiences growing up or interacting with the health care system,” Golden said. “Just because they are athletes doesn’t mean their lived experience doesn’t have influence, and I think we have to acknowledge that.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The Denver Broncos were one of the first teams in the N.F.L. to vaccinate 85 percent of their players, thanks to a lot of education, discussion and communication, said George Paton, the team’s general manager.Last season, Dr. Michelle Barron, the senior medical director of infection prevention at UCHealth, advised the franchise on Covid-related issues. As the vaccine became widely available this spring, she led informational sessions with the team and privately with players’ families if requested. She also helped coordinate a vaccine clinic in April at the Broncos’ facility. Their vaccination rate did not surprise her, she said.“From the feedback I got, the important thing for them was to feel like they had the information, for them to be able to digest and then come back and ask smart questions,” Barron said in an interview Thursday.As training camp progresses, unvaccinated players battling for roster spots may face challenges. Beasley said in a news conference that unvaccinated young players have told him they fear they may be cut. Ballard, the Colts general manager, said that those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, but that the question of vaccination did make the process harder, especially for free agents whose unvaccinated status would mean they’d have to be tested more often. Regardless, he said he would try to evaluate fairly.“Whoever wins the job on the field, that’s who’s making the team,” Ballard said. “I’m not going to take a player just because he’s vaccinated that hadn’t won the job. What message are you sending to your locker room?”Players’ decisions on vaccination will probably be exposed over time. The unvaccinated are required to wear a mask when addressing the news media, unless they are outdoors and physically distant — a practice some inoculated players still choose to follow. Some teams, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, identify unvaccinated players with colored wristbands, a tactic Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter, the president of the N.F.L. Players Association, called “nonsensical.” Asked if he was prepared to operate under similar circumstances if needed, Hilton said, “Absolutely.”The stringent new rules, though, seem to have had an effect. Colts running back Nyheim Hines said that he initially did not want to be vaccinated, but that the protocols had changed his mind. He called the shift a “business decision.”Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill agreed, saying he would not have received the vaccine otherwise.“They’re trying to force your hand, and they ultimately have forced a lot of hands,” Tannehill said. More

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    Zach Wilson’s Arrival Is Just Enough to Stoke Jets’ Dreams

    The heralded rookie quarterback’s unsteady training camp debut on Friday came after the death of a Jets assistant coach with whom he’d worked and a prolonged contract negotiation.FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — As Zach Wilson flew on a red-eye flight from California to the East Coast early Thursday morning, he reclined in one of those premier seats that converts into a bed. He got plenty of sleep, he said. More

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    Georginio Wijnaldum and the Collective Toxic

    No one can compare themselves to Simone Biles, but Wijnaldum’s exit from Liverpool carried many of the same themes.This is not a comparison, because there is no comparison. Nobody, really, can understand what it is like to be Simone Biles. There have, of course, been athletes burdened with the same sort of level of superhuman expectation, their personhood erased in the transcendence to icon, turned into the face of a sport or an avatar for a generation or a standard-bearer for a nation, but they number barely a handful.And none of them have been in Biles’s precise circumstances. None of them — not Michael Phelps or Michael Jordan or Lionel Messi or whoever — know what it is like to be Simone Biles, at her age, in her mind, with her talent, at her level, in her sport, with her background, in this moment and this culture, with all of those things combined.Nobody else has been through what she has been through. Nobody else is qualified to tell her what path to take, because nobody has ever taken that path. Her experience has been unique; it is hers and hers alone. There is a glory in that, but there is also, perhaps, a shadow of bleakness.Georginio Wijnaldum cannot be (and, remember, is not being) compared to Biles. He is an elite athlete, too, of course. He will know — certainly more than most of us — a little of the sacrifices she has had to make and the demands she has had to meet and the devotion she has had to show to reach the pinnacle of her sport.But there is, of course, no comparison at all. Wijnaldum is a fine midfielder, a Premier League and Champions League winner and a sometime captain of his country, but it would be a bit of a stretch to suggest he has redefined soccer itself, or conjured a whole new vision of the sport from his own imagination, or redrawn the boundaries of what we think is possible.He has never had to endure the pressure of competing in an individual sport, or one that is entirely reliant on his own individual performance. If Wijnaldum made a mistake, a teammate might be there to bail him out, or he might get a chance to rectify it a few minutes later, or make up for it the following week.Biles has none of those safety nets. Even the slightest misstep might mean the difference between gold and silver, gold and nowhere, for her and her teammates. There is no second half, no return fixture, no long slog of a league season. There is only, every four years, perfection or failure, here and now.Biles and Wijnaldum are not alike. There is no comparison. But, for one fleeting moment, it may be worth considering their stories in conjunction.This week, as you will have noticed, Biles withdrew (as of this writing) from two of her Olympic finals. She did so, she said, to prioritize her mental health. She had been feeling, as she had alluded to on Instagram, as though she had “the weight of the world on her shoulders” at times.“This Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself but I came in and I felt like I was still doing it for other people,” she said. “It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people.”“This Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself but I came in and I felt like I was still doing it for other people,” Simone Biles said after she pulled out of the competition. Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn the general tumult of the Olympics, it would have been easy to miss Wijnaldum’s intervention. This summer, he left Liverpool for Paris St.-Germain. His contract had expired; conversations with the club’s ownership had foundered for several months, the two parties unable to find common ground over how much, and for how long, a player of his age should be paid. His last appearance for his former team, at Anfield in May, was very clearly a goodbye: there was a guard of honor, and a special presentation.This week, Wijnaldum attempted to provide a little bit of context as to why he had left a team he had said publicly he would have been happy to remain at for years to come. He seemed to suggest that ownership did not “love” or “appreciate” him as much as it might have done. But he also mentioned the role played by social media.“On social media, if we lost, I was the one who got the blame,” he said. He felt it was heightened during his contract standoff — “when it went bad, I was the player they blamed, that I wanted to leave” — and never spread to fans in the stadium, but he acknowledged that its roots were deeper. “Basically in the last two seasons I had it a few times,” he said.The reaction was, broadly, dismissive: it was assumed that Wijnaldum was either making excuses, or engaging in a little light, perfectly healthy whataboutery to make a decision that was, likely, far more practical (he wanted a longer contract than Liverpool was prepared to offer, and therefore he left) seem more palatable.And yet, in the context of Biles, it is worth taking Wijnaldum at his word. For all the differences between their situations, their worlds, though, their stories echo — however dimly — each other.Athletes of all stripes exist and perform under pressure: from themselves, from their coaches, from their teams and their teammates, from their fans, from their sponsors. That has always been the case; they become adept, far more so than most of us could countenance, at both functioning and thriving in that environment.What has changed, now, is the scale of that pressure: not just its height, but its breadth. Biles came into Tokyo as the designated “face of the Games,” the star of the United States team, the greatest gymnast in history. NBC’s promotional material for the Olympics ran that, to her, “certain laws do not apply, like gravity.”It would be easy — and not inaccurate — to point the finger of blame at the news media for indulging in that sort of hype, for placing that much expectation on a 24-year-old woman, for exposing her to an intolerable level of pressure. It would be no less valid to suggest that the news media had a role to play in turning Wijnaldum’s contract dispute into a source of consternation among some sections of Liverpool’s support.Wijnaldum, who played his final game for Liverpool in May, noted a stark contrast between how he was treated online versus how he was treated in person. Phil Noble/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesBut to do so would be to ignore a change in the media landscape that, in almost every other context, has been determined to be wholesale and revolutionary. Wijnaldum was keen to stress that there was a difference between how he was treated online and in person; the former turned on him far more quickly, far more vociferously, than the latter ever did.Wijnaldum is not an athlete on the same level as Biles. His journey is not parallel to hers, in a million different ways. Their experiences are wildly different. But like her, his career is played out on social media: his every performance scrutinized and dissected, his every shortcoming highlighted, his every failure pounced upon. He is told what is expected, and he is told, rightly or wrongly, when he does not live up to it.It is easy, when discussing an athlete on social media, to assume that they do not hear: that their feeds are managed by agencies — “post something like” — or to believe, in some way, that the spoils of their success, either the money or the fame, inure them to basic human emotion.But they do hear, and they do see, and they do feel. Those insults cut through. Those demands are noticed. Those expectations — not of the sponsors or the coaches or the journalists alone, but of all of us — have a weight. How much that played a role in Biles’ need to take some time and space only she will know, and she is under no compunction to share, but the swirling maelstrom in which she is expected to live her life does not exert some influence. If Wijnaldum is aware of it, it is hard to believe Biles is not.There has, in the days that followed Biles’ initial decision to withdraw, been what she has described as an “outpouring” of support. Her example will, hopefully, make it easier not only for athletes to discuss their mental well-being, but to know where to draw their own lines.But they are not the only ones who need to heed her lesson. They are not the only ones who need to think about the mental health of the stars we have made, the icons we have cast. It is for all of us, too, to remember that pressure does not just come from within. It is exerted, too, all those thousands of comments building their own gravity, their own force, one that is felt by the good and the great alike.Trading UpDavid Alaba showed he can do it all for Austria’s national team and for Bayern Munich. With Real Madrid, he may be asked to do it all, all by himself. Pool photo by Justin Setterfield/EPA, via ShutterstockDavid Alaba can do pretty much everything. He has, for some time, been one of the world’s finest left backs. In his last couple of seasons at Bayern Munich, he has emerged as one of the best central defenders on the planet, too. That’s some going, given that he would also get a game in midfield for pretty much every team in Europe.All of which will come in useful at Real Madrid, where the current plan appears to be to ask the 29-year-old to play in all three positions simultaneously.That is not quite fair. Real has two left backs, in Ferland Mendy and Marcelo, though the latter is in the (late) autumn of his (illustrious) career. It has a midfield — Casemiro, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos — that is not so much settled as petrified. Alaba would be helpful in both roles, but it is in central defense that the need is greatest, so it is in central defense that he must play.It is a crisis of Real’s own making. First, it forgot to tell Sergio Ramos its contract offer had a best-before date, resulting in him joining Paris St.-Germain on a free transfer. And then this week, it agreed to sell Raphael Varane to Manchester United for $60 million. That pair has been Madrid’s bedrock for a decade. In their absence, Alaba is going to have his work cut out.Quite what lies behind Real’s thinking is difficult to parse — though the only cogent logic is that it is financial — but, either way, it is hard to make the case that the team will be stronger this season than it was last. Barcelona is only in slightly better shape, and that is presuming that Lionel Messi does, in fact, sign a new contract, and the club finds some way to register its four new signings without contravening La Liga’s rules.All of which suggests that, for the first time since the turn of the century, there is a genuine power vacuum at the top of La Liga. Atlético Madrid, the reigning champion, should have a chance to retain its title. And Sevilla, for so long the best of Spain’s rest, may finally scent a once-in-a-generation opportunity.It has had to trade this summer, too, as it does every year: selling the winger Bryan Gil to Tottenham and — though the deal is not yet complete — the defender Jules Koundé to Chelsea. Koundé, in particular, would be a loss: a player of prodigious talent and stratospheric ceiling.But that is more than offset by what Sevilla has been able to wrangle in return. From Spurs, the club elicited not only $24 million, but the playmaker Erik Lamela. Chelsea is, reportedly, prepared to offer cash and the France defender Kurt Zouma to get its hands on Koundé.Neither will be mourned, particularly, by fans of their previous teams. Both have long since faded in English eyes. But to Sevilla, they represent a class of player the club cannot usually attract. Lamela, plagued by injury, managed 35 games for Spurs last season; Zouma featured 36 times for Chelsea.These are not high-risk, high-reward gambles. They are not hidden gems being asked to step up a level. They are seasoned professionals, able to command regular game-time at one of Europe’s biggest teams — and Spurs — and who can be expected to slot straight in to Julen Lopetegui’s side.They will join a squad that already contains Diego Carlos, Papu Gómez, Lucas Ocampos and Ivan Rakitic. For years, victory for Sevilla has been reinventing itself every summer, searching for the next big thing to sell. Now, for the first time in a long time, its team has a very different profile: one built, it would seem, not with an eye on tomorrow but with all of its focus on today.CorrespondenceGood news for those readers who feel this newsletter does not scratch their Major League Soccer itch: you are not alone. Far from it, in fact.William Ireland goes out to bat for Liga MX — “the best North American League, and one of the ten or twelve best leagues in the world” — while Steve Iskra nominates Australia’s A-League. “This is the league that produced the young players that beat Argentina in Tokyo,” he wrote.Joe Klonowski would like to see more on the N.W.S.L., while Ian Roberts completes the acronym soup by throwing the U.S.L. into the mix. “A league of passion among the players and fans, instead of a league bringing in players who are well past their sell by date,” he wrote. And Fernando Gama brings up the Copa Libertadores, now bubbling up nicely as it reaches the quarterfinal stage.I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions, and assure you that they have been taken on board. Bear with me, though. I don’t think The Times will allow me to hire staff to help spread the burden.Fernando’s email provided especially good value this week, because he touched on the issue of (men’s) soccer at the Olympics, too. “The games are typically played in August, when the season is starting, so nobody wants to release their players,” he wrote. “And FIFA does not control the Olympics, and cannot profit from it, so doesn’t feel compelled to enter into a rift with clubs over it.”These are both salient points, highlighted by the reminder from Peter Zwickl that Germany only sent 18 players to Tokyo. “Several players or clubs, of a list of 100 candidates, rejected the invitation by the German coach,” he wrote, which just about encapsulates Olympic soccer’s problem.But let’s leave on a more upbeat note from Rey Mashayekhi. “Five years ago, at the Rio Games, Brazil’s defeat of Germany in the Gold Medal match was a hugely significant, cathartic experience for all invested in the Seleçao, coming as it did two years after the horrors of Belo Horizonte in the 2014 World Cup semifinal.“When Neymar converted Brazil’s fifth and decisive penalty, sunk to his knees and looked to the heavens as the stadium exploded in pandemonium around him, it struck me as a truly great moment with all the emotional release of any triumph in the sport.” There’s a reminder here about one of those easily-forgotten truths in soccer, and in any sport: all of it matters as much as we decide that it matters.That’s all for this week. If you would like to vouch for why I should cover Lithuanian soccer or games in Kyrgyzstan (or anything else, for that matter): askrory@nytimes.com. Twitter might work, too. And if it doesn’t become a newsletter, there’s half a chance it will end up as a Set Piece Menu episode. There is, after all, only so much content.Have a great weekend,Rory More