Raphael Stevens

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    Paris St.-Germain Star Neymar Tests Positive for Coronavirus

    Neymar, soccer’s costliest player, is one of three Paris St.-Germain players who played in last week’s Champions League final to test positive for the coronavirus, becoming the latest high-profile soccer star to contract the virus ahead of the new season.Neymar suffered heartbreak last week when P.S.G. lost in its first appearance in the Champions League final, and now faces missing the start of its latest campaign because of strict local protocols that require players who have tested positive to isolate from the rest of the roster.P.S.G., which paid a record $263 million for Neymar, a forward from Brazil, in 2017, confirmed that three of its players had tested positive without identifying them. But people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity because the player was not identified publicly as having tested positive, said Neymar was among the three.A spokeswoman for Neymar declined to comment. Media reports identified the other players as Ángel Di María and Leandro Paredes, who accompanied Neymar on a vacation to the Spanish island Ibiza.The cases at P.S.G. follow a pattern of star players, like Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba, testing positive after leaving the restrictive environments set up by their clubs to go on vacation. League officials at the top leagues in Spain and England said recently that they expected a spike in positive cases as players return for preseason training.“When people come back from vacation there will be a number of people who come back with coronavirus, but I think it’s going to be manageable,” Víctor Manuel Martín Ortega, a vice president of La Liga, told The New York Times in a recent interview.The positive cases put in doubt the availability of the three P.S.G. players for its first league game in defense of its French league title on Sept. 10. The coronavirus has already disrupted the start of the French season, with the opening game between Marseille and St.-Étienne postponed after Marseille reported four positive tests.P.S.G. said it would carry out further tests on players and staff over the next few days.The virus has also played havoc with preliminary games for next season’s Champions League and Europa League competitions. Teams have been forced to forfeit their places in the events after reporting positive cases. More

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    N.F.L. Takes Over Sexual Harassment Investigation of Washington Team

    The N.F.L. has taken over an investigation into claims of sexual harassment made by more than a dozen women who worked for the Washington Football Team during the past two decades.The move comes after lawyers representing some of the women last week criticized the investigation and the N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell for allowing the team’s owner, Daniel Snyder, to hire the law firm that is investigating the matter and to control the response to its findings.In July, Snyder hired Beth Wilkinson, a founding partner of Wilkinson Walsh, to conduct “an independent review of the team’s culture, policies and allegations of workplace misconduct” that were raised in reporting by The Washington Post. The newspaper published another story last month that included claims from another two dozen women about pervasive harassment while employed by the team, including allegations that implicated Snyder. A former cheerleader accused the team owner of propositioning her and a former staffer said that a lewd video recording of the outtakes of a cheerleader photo shoot was made at Snyder’s behest.Snyder denied many elements of The Post’s reporting, including the proposition allegation and any involvement in the recording.On Monday, Snyder said in a statement that he suggested to Goodell that the league take over the investigation “so that the results are thorough, complete and trusted by the fans, the players, our employees and the public.”Wilkinson will now report directly to the league, not to Snyder.Lisa Friel, a special counsel for investigations at the N.F.L., met yesterday with lawyers representing some of the women who spoke to the Washington Post. After their meeting, Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, lawyers who represent more than 15 former team employees, said that the N.F.L. “assured us that any repercussions for the team or its owner will be commensurate” with the findings of the investigation.Some of those employees said they would not cooperate if Snyder had ultimate say over the investigation.“Our clients would gladly participate in such an N.F.L. investigation, but do not feel safe speaking to investigators hired by Mr. Snyder and do not trust the investigation that is currently underway,” the lawyers said in a letter to Goodell last week.The N.F.L. also said the Washington team would release employees or former employees from nondisclosure agreements to allow them to speak with investigators. Lawyers for the accusers want the team to go a step further and release them from all elements of their nondisclosure agreements, freeing them to speak with each other and to family, friends, and the media.“We communicated our strong belief that without this type of transparency, there can be no real accountability, and moreover, that victims of this type of abuse should be able to tell their stories when and how they wish to do so, without threat of legal action,” Banks and Katz, the lawyers for the women, said.Last week, Banks and Katz also called on the N.F.L. to “publicly commit to taking action to remove Snyder as the majority owner” of the team if the investigation substantiates the accounts reported by The Washington Post. The lawyers also asked the league to advise Snyder to not take legal action against women who spoke out about their experiences at the team.Last month, Snyder accused Mary Ellen Blair, a former executive assistant who left the team in 2017, of taking money and assisting in a campaign to spread damaging information against him. In a filing in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., Snyder said that starting in late May or early June, Blair began reaching out to current and former team employees seeking information that would discredit the team owner. More

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    FIFA Is Warned That Banning Top Games in U.S. May Breach Antitrust Laws

    For more than five years, the United States Department of Justice has pursued a corruption case against the highest levels of international soccer, charging dozens of the sport’s senior officials with crimes like money laundering and fraud. Now its antitrust division has joined the fight.The antitrust division is focused on a yearslong dispute over where matches can take place. FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, is considering strengthening rules that keep teams from playing competitive regular-season games outside their home countries.The antitrust division’s interest comes as a sports promotion company based in New York, Relevent Sports, is suing FIFA and the United States Soccer Federation, accusing the organizations of conspiring to block Relevent from bringing regular-season games from overseas leagues to North America.Relevent, which is owned by Stephen M. Ross, the real estate developer and principal owner of the Miami Dolphins, filed its antitrust suit last September after its efforts to stage a Liga game featuring Barcelona in Miami in 2018 met opposition from FIFA and the Spanish federation, which blocked the teams from playing overseas. A later effort to bring two teams from Ecuador to the United States failed after the U.S. Soccer Federation refused to give its permission for the game to be played.Makan Delrahim, the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, wrote in March to the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and Cindy Parlow Cone, who heads U.S. Soccer, to express his concerns after learning an influential FIFA advisory committee had recommended to FIFA’s governing council that “official domestic matches should take place on the territory of the member association concerned.”The FIFA Council has yet to ratify the recommendation.“We specifically are concerned that FIFA could violate U.S. antitrust laws by restricting the territory in which teams can play league games,” Delrahim wrote in the letter, which has not been previously disclosed. Relevent included the letter as part of its amended complaint when it filed a new lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday.FIFA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.The Justice Department’s involvement adds a new dimension to the case brought by Relevent. FIFA has tried to cultivate a close relationship with U.S. authorities since the corruption indictments were handed down in 2015, dismantling the top tier of international soccer’s leadership. FIFA’s top lawyers have been in regular contact with American justice officials in an attempt to prove the organization has changed significantly and should be repaid some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution seized from defendants who admitted to participating in bribery and kickback schemes.Despite the changes, FIFA is still mired in legal troubles. The most serious of them concerns its president, Infantino, who was informed in July that he is the subject of a criminal investigation over his meetings with the Swiss official overseeing the FIFA corruption inquiry. Infantino has said any claims of improper behavior are “absurd.” The official, Michael Lauber, has resigned as attorney general and last week was stripped of immunity from prosecution.FIFA has also invested significant time and effort in strengthening its relationships in the United States after awarding the right to host the 2026 World Cup to a U.S.-led bid that included Canada and Mexico. Infantino has visited the White House for meetings with President Trump, and was also invited in January to address guests at a dinner that Trump hosted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.Relevent’s announcement of a deal with La Liga for regular-season games to be played in the United States, starting with the 2018 game between Barcelona and Girona, has revived a contentious issue that had largely been dormant since the English Premier League was forced to withdraw plans for an international round of games, proposed in 2008, after an outcry at home and overseas.While efforts like Relevent’s continue to face opposition from national federations and traditionalists, the growing popularity of European teams beyond their traditional markets has increased a demand for competitive matches played far from teams’ home arenas. Such games would be worth millions of dollars in additional revenue for participants. In recent years, Spain and Italy have signed contracts to play cup games in Saudi Arabia.Staging such games could pose a threat to interest in local competitions, like Major League Soccer, the professional U.S. league. Don Garber, the league’s commissioner, who sits on the FIFA stakeholders committee that recommends prohibiting overseas games, expressed his opposition this year. “I feel very strongly that local fans should have the opportunity to see local games, and not for other purposes have those games played outside the home market,” Garber told ESPN in February.FIFA rules currently allow games to be played on overseas territory only under “exceptional circumstances.” After the outcry over the plan to play the Liga game in Miami, the FIFA Council doubled down, issuing a declaration after a quarterly meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2018.“The council emphasized the sporting principle that official league matches must be played within the territory of the respective member association,” FIFA said at the time.Top U.S. sports leagues like the N.F.L., the N.B.A. and Major League Baseball have in recent years embraced taking their teams abroad for official games in hopes of reaching new audiences, with regular-season football becoming a feature of London’s sports scene. Relevent is arguing that American audiences are, by contrast, being deprived of the opportunity to see the best soccer.“This geographic market division unreasonably restrains competition in the U.S., reduces output below competitive levels in the relevant market, and directly inflicts antitrust injury on promoters, like Relevent (who directly participate in the relevant market) and on U.S. fans of top-tier men’s professional soccer leagues,” Relevent said, according to a copy of its filing reviewed by The New York Times. More