Great Britain

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

      Inside the Chelsea Sale: Deep Pockets, Private Promises and Side Deals

      by

      Britain’s government has cleared the sale of the Premier League soccer team. But to win approval, the new owners had to agree to a set of unusual conditions.LONDON — The British government on Wednesday gave its blessing to the purchase of Chelsea F.C., one of European soccer’s blue-ribbon teams, by an American-led investment group after deciding it had sufficient assurances that none of the proceeds from the record sale price — $3.1 billion — would flow to the club’s Russian owner.The government’s approval signaled the end of not only the most expensive deal in sports history but possibly the most fraught, cryptic and political, too.In the three months since the Russian oligarch who owns Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, hurriedly put his team on the market, the club’s fate has played out not only on the fields of some of world soccer’s richest competitions but in the corridors of power at Westminster and the soaring towers of Wall Street. And all of it is against the backdrop of crippling financial sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“We are now satisfied that the full proceeds of the sale will not benefit Roman Abramovich or any other sanctioned individual,” the government said in a statement. The path to a deal has entangled a scarcely probable cast of characters — private equity funds and anonymous offshore trusts; lawmakers in Britain and Portugal; an octogenarian Swiss billionaire and the American tennis star Serena Williams; an enigmatic Russian oligarch and a little known Portuguese rabbi — and featured a contested passport, wartime peace talks and even reports of an attempted poisoning.Its end leaves as many questions as answers. All that can be said for certain is that a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly and largely financed by the private equity firm Clearlake will now control Chelsea, a six-time English and two-time European champion, and Abramovich will not.The American investor Todd Boehly leads a group that is now set to complete its purchase of Chelsea.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbramovich first indicated his intention to sell Chelsea — the most high-profile of his assets by some distance — almost as soon as the Russian army crossed into Ukraine in late February, and only a week before Britain and the European Union identified him as a key ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and froze his assets.Completing a deal, though, has proved fiendishly convoluted. The final obstacle to a sale was resolved only this week, when lawmakers in Britain were sufficiently satisfied that a $2 billion loan owed to an offshore trust, believed to be controlled by Abramovich, had been cleared. British government officials then tried to reassure their counterparts in Portugal, which had controversially granted Abramovich a Portuguese passport with a rabbi’s help in 2018, and the European Union, which had imposed its own sanctions on Abramovich in March. Both must also approve the sale because of his Portuguese citizenship.But the loan was not the only complication faced by Raine, the New York-based investment bank recruited by Abramovich to handle the sale. The agreement with Boehly’s group came with a web of conditions, some set by the British government, some by Raine and some by Abramovich himself, all of them striking in the context of the sale of a sports team.Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.All four prospective suitors identified by Raine as serious contenders — Boehly’s group; one headed by the British businessman Martin Broughton that included Williams and the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton among its partners; another financed by Steve Pagliuca, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics; and one from the Ricketts family, who control baseball’s Chicago Cubs — were asked not only to pay a jaw-dropping price for the team but also to commit to a number of pledges, including as much as $2 billion more in investments in Chelsea.The club’s suitors were told, for instance, that they cannot sell their stake within the first decade of ownership and that they must earmark $125 million for the club’s women’s team; invest millions more in the club’s academy and training facilities; and commit to rebuilding Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s aging West London stadium.Chelsea’s new owners agreed to several conditions, including sizable investments in the club’s decorated women’s team.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesAt the same time, Abramovich insisted that all the proceeds from the sale would go toward a new charity to benefit the victims of the war in Ukraine. To ensure he does not gain control of that money, the British government will require it first be placed in a frozen bank account that it controls. Only then will it vet all the plans for the fund being drawn up by Mike Penrose, a former head of a branch of the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, and issue a special license that will allow the charity to take control of the funds.“We will now begin the process of ensuring the proceeds of the sale are used for humanitarian causes in Ukraine, supporting victims of the war,” the government said in its statement.The charity was just one of the peculiarities of the deal arranged by Joe Ravitch, the Raine co-founder who directed the sale.The new owners also will not be permitted to take dividends or management fees or load the team with debt — terms that bankers related to the sale have described as “anti-Glazer clauses,” a reference to the unpopular owners of Manchester United who took control of the club in a leveraged buyout in 2005.Several people close to the process said Boehly’s bid was eventually selected from the group of wealthy suitors because of its willingness to abide by the clauses. (At least one of those people, who worked on the bid backed by Pagliuca, said their group withdrew from the running because of the nature of the conditions.)The Premier League has already signed off on the Chelsea sale, announcing Tuesday that it had vetted and approved the new owners “subject to the government issuing the required sale license and the satisfactory completion of final stages of the transaction.”It is not clear, though, quite what will happen if Boehly and his partners choose to renege on any of the conditions once they have control of the club. Any oversight role will fall on the charity, the only outside entity still inextricably linked to both Chelsea and Abramovich, or the continued influence of two key Abramovich lieutenants who hope to remain in their posts under the new owners.Both of those executives — the club chairman Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia, a Russian-born businesswoman who rose from being Abramovich’s personal assistant to the most senior official response for soccer trades at Chelsea — will earn at least $12.5 million for their work on the sale. The commissions to management, totaling as much as $50 million, and the fee to Ravitch, believed to be between 0.5 and 1 percent of the deal’s value, will be paid from the club’s balance sheet and not from the sale funds, according to a person familiar with the structure of the deal.Abramovich on a banner at Stamford Bridge. Beloved by fans for his spending on the team, he is barred from receiving any money from its sale. Clive Rose/Getty ImagesBritish government officials had clashed with Chelsea executives and financiers about creating a legally binding resolution to prevent Abramovich from getting access to the money he so publicly said he was willing to waive.At issue was a company called Camberley International Investments, run by a Cypriot trustee on behalf of what British officials believe was Abramovich and his children. Camberley lent $2 billion to Fordstam, the company through which Abramovich controlled Chelsea, to finance its spending and operations. Camberley’s claim against Fordstam has now been resolved, and its trustee has recently resigned.It was only at that point, with a May 31 deadline for the completion of the sale looming, that Britain’s government moved to approve the deal.For Chelsea’s fans, the sale draws an end to a season that at times blurred into absurdity. The sanctions imposed on Abramovich — and by extension Chelsea — affected everything from the team’s travel to the printing and sale of game programs. Thousands of empty seats dotted Stamford Bridge during games over the final months of the season after a ban on new ticket sales, and roster turmoil loomed because of a moratorium on the signing and sale of players.That will now be lifted, with Chelsea’s players and Manager Thomas Tuchel said to be urgently seeking clarity from Boehly and his group on their plans. At least two key defenders are slated to leave Chelsea this summer, and at least two more players — including the club captain, Cesar Azpilicueta — are expected to follow.Defender Antonio Rüdiger, unable to negotiate a new contract, announced he would leave Chelsea for Real Madrid. Other key players may depart this summer, too.Alastair Grant/Associated PressBoehly, a regular presence at Chelsea games since his takeover was announced on May 6, has broadly said he would like to maintain Chelsea as a major force in soccer. It is unlikely, though, that a group largely backed by a private equity firm will prove quite so indulgent as Abramovich was as an owner.In almost two decades at Chelsea, Abramovich was a familiar but all but silent presence at Stamford Bridge, happy to let his money do the talking. Under his leadership, Chelsea was transformed into a true European superpower, winning five Premier League titles and two Champions League crowns by employing a succession of A-list managers and investing billions of dollars in players.His largess changed Chelsea but also soccer as a whole, ushering in an era of unfettered spending that saw transfer fees and player salaries rise to levels unthinkable only a few years earlier. It also came at a price that Chelsea’s income, no matter how much it grew in those years of plenty, could not match. Throughout his tenure, Abramovich used his vast personal fortune to subsidize losses that ran as high as $1 million a week.Yet just as Abramovich’s arrival in 2003 opened the door to a new era for English soccer, his departure serves as a bookmark, too.While scarcity may explain part of the rush to pay a premium for Chelsea — soccer’s biggest teams are rarely up for sale, after all — it is not clear when, or how, a group of private equity investors who navigated such treacherous, confounding waters to get control of the club can start to realize a return on their investment. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Soccer

      ‘Wagatha Christie’ Case Offers a Riveting Peek Into Celebrity Culture

      by

      Libel proceedings in London have laid bare the personal lives of two British celebrities in a legal whodunit for the social media age. And it wasn’t just the tabloids that became obsessed with the feud.LONDON — A candid window into the glamorous world of English soccer, and an exposé of the machinations of back-stabbing celebrities. A phone lost to the sea, along with the evidence it supposedly contained. And a legal whodunit with powerhouse lawyers dissecting private WhatsApp messages in open court as tears flowed on the witness stand.These were some of the gossip-fueling facets of a libel case contested by the wives of two famous English soccer players that is expected to draw to a close on Thursday. The proceedings, focused on an Instagram feud between the two women, have riveted Britain over the past week, with establishment news media and tabloids alike breathlessly covering each revelation, and photographers competing for shots of celebrities arriving outside the London courtroom.The judge in the case will later rule on whether one of the women, Coleen Rooney, defamed the other, Rebekah Vardy, in social media posts that accused Ms. Vardy of leaking Ms. Rooney’s personal information to The Sun newspaper.Tabloid coverage of the wives and girlfriends of soccer players (widely known in Britain by the acronym WAG) is intense, and both women have leveraged their exposure to build huge social media followings and achieve some fame in their own right as media personalities. Both took the stand during the case, clad in an array of designer clothes (dissected by the media for hidden messaging).The widespread curiosity in the proceedings should surprise nobody, said Adrian Bingham, a professor of modern British history at the University of Sheffield who has studied media and gender issues. “The essence of a good story remains the same,” he said, noting the “healthy lashings of sex and deceit and money and glory” in the case.“We don’t know how the plot ends so this is exciting,” he added. “Who did do it? Who is going to be found guilty?”The public sparring between the two women began in October 2019 after Ms. Rooney disclosed online that a follower on her private Instagram account had been leaking information to a tabloid newspaper. She had a suspicion who the leaker was, she added, explaining that she had engineered a sting operation in which she gradually limited her followers to just one account — Ms. Vardy’s — and then posted false stories to see if they would show up in the news media.Ms. Vardy holding hands with her husband, the Leicester City soccer player Jamie Vardy, as the couple left court in London on Tuesday. She has denied leaking stories about Ms. Rooney.Hannah Mckay/ReutersMs. Rooney said that the stories were indeed picked up, and she revealed the findings of her investigation in an online statement accusing Ms. Vardy of leaking them. Ms. Rooney’s apparent sleuthing skills led to the case becoming known as the “Wagatha Christie” affair — playing off the WAG acronym and the name of the detective novelist Agatha Christie.When asked in court by Ms. Vardy’s lawyer what she had intended to achieve with her online statement, Ms. Rooney said: “I wasn’t achieving anything; what I wanted was to stop the person who was leaking my private information to The Sun.”“This was my last resort,” she added.Ms. Vardy has denied being behind the leaks and said that multiple people had access to her account. As a result of Ms. Rooney’s post, she said, she received verbal abuse from the public while pregnant, including threats against the child she was carrying.“I have been called a leaker, and it’s not nice,” Ms. Vardy said during the hearing.In 2020, Ms. Vardy began libel proceedings against Ms. Rooney, and, because the two women were unable to reach a settlement, the case went to trial — an unusual and costly process that will have racked up millions of pounds in legal fees, according to lawyers’ estimates.With such vast sums at stake and the private lives of the rich and famous on full view in court, the feud quickly entranced large sections of the British public.Even the more serious news outlets, which would normally ignore such a celebrity spat, have found a way into the story by analyzing the broader implications of widespread social media use, Professor Bingham said.“There is a legitimacy to talking about this because it’s in a courtroom and it raises genuinely serious issues of privacy,” he noted.And for the tabloids, the case was a feeding frenzy. Athalie Matthews, a London-based lawyer who specializes in defamation, said the personal details that emerged in court effectively blew “the personal lives of both parties wide open in a way that the press can report on with complete impunity.”Ms. Rooney with her husband, the former England soccer captain Wayne Rooney, arriving in court last week. Her sting operation and accusations against Ms. Vardy are at the center of the libel case.Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesInterest was so high that attendees spilled into an overflow room at the London courtroom. Juicy revelations were blogged live by journalists and summarized by news outlets as diverse as the BBC and The Daily Mail — though by Thursday, journalists waiting outside the courtroom seemed ready for the trial’s end.Ms. Rooney and her husband, the former England soccer captain Wayne Rooney, had been experiencing marital tensions, it was revealed in one session. WhatsApp messages between Ms. Vardy and her agent, Caroline Watt, disparaged Ms. Rooney and discussed leaking stories about other people in exchange for payment, the court also heard. And a phone potentially containing relevant WhatsApp messages was accidentally dropped by Ms. Watt into the North Sea, Ms. Vardy’s lawyer said — a mishap that Ms. Rooney’s lawyer said appeared to be a case of concealing evidence.Ms. Vardy acknowledged that Ms. Watt had previously passed information about Ms. Rooney to The Sun newspaper, but Ms. Vardy’s lawyers argued that there was insufficient evidence that Ms. Vardy herself was responsible for any leaks. They have also said that Ms. Watt is ill and therefore not able to provide testimony.If Ms. Vardy wins the libel case, the damages awarded are likely to be in the tens of thousands of pounds, according to legal experts, with Ms. Rooney probably having to pay her rival’s legal fees. If Ms. Rooney wins, Ms. Vardy will be left with the bill for the fees and could face a counter case for infringement of privacy, Ms. Matthews, the defamation lawyer, said.“The trial is not going to change the image of libel as the preserve of the rich,” Ms. Matthews added, noting that few people had the money to risk on such legal proceedings.But, Ms. Matthews said, it might cause people to reconsider before posting material that could cause serious harm to someone’s reputation.Regardless of the outcome, the case has highlighted the tensions inherent between the desire for privacy and the price of fame. “This is what tabloid culture is all about and we’re just seeing a new iteration of this in a social media age,” Professor Bingham said. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

      Chelsea F.C. Says It Will Sell to Boehly’s U.S.-Led Group

      by

      Chelsea, the Premier League soccer team whose sale was forced after the Russian oligarch who bankrolled its success was placed under crippling sanctions, will be bought by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, an American billionaire who is a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the club said on Saturday.The price of 2.5 billion pounds, or $3.1 billion, would be the most ever paid for a team in any sport. The sale, one of the more unusual in modern sports history, still requires the approval of the British government, which imposed the sanctions on the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, and froze his assets, including Chelsea, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.In a statement posted on its website early Saturday, Chelsea said the proceeds from the sale would be placed into a frozen British bank account, with the intention that all of the funds will eventually go to charitable causes, as Abramovich has promised.In addition to the sale price, Chelsea said, Boehly’s group had pledged to invest 1.75 billion pounds in the club, some of it for much-needed stadium renovations.Boehly’s group is being backed by the American investment firm Clearlake and also includes Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss businessman, and Mark Walter, an American financier who serves as a co-owner and the chairman of the Dodgers.The decision capped two tumultuous months for Chelsea, its fans and Abramovich, who said on March 2 that he had reluctantly agreed to part with the team, just as Britain’s government was moving to impose restrictions on his fortune and his businesses.The sale process was accelerated once the government formally froze Abramovich’s assets, part of a wider set of sanctions imposed on a group of wealthy Russians with ties to Moscow after the war in Ukraine began. The government has called Abramovich a close ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.Roman Abramovich has owned Chelsea since 2003.John Sibley/ReutersChelsea has been in a kind of limbo ever since, operating under a special license issued by the government, which comes with strict conditions that have severely affected its business. The team is currently unable to buy or sell players in the summer transfer market, nor can it sell tickets or merchandise to its supporters. Its spending has been severely restricted, affecting everything from the team’s travel to the printing and sale of programs.The restrictions, meant to ensure that no money flows to Abramovich, will only be lifted once the sale is completed.Chelsea, led by Thomas Tuchel, the German coach who secured the Champions League title within months of taking over at Stamford Bridge last year, has endured on-field difficulties as it tries to navigate its new reality. The results have been mixed: While Tuchel’s team currently is in third place in the Premier League, it was eliminated from the lucrative Champions League last month. Several players with expiring contracts have announced that they will leave at the end of the season, and until the sale is completed, Tuchel and the club have no way to replace them.Boehly’s group was given a week to close the deal after being chosen last week as the preferred bidder by the New York-based advisory firm Raine Group and Chelsea’s board members.The sale was nearing a conclusion last week when it seemed to be upended, after one of Britain’s richest men, Jim Ratcliffe, announced a bid that mirrored the offer from Boehly’s consortium, after the deadline had passed. On Wednesday, Ratcliffe, who had emphasized his British credentials when making his offer, said Raine had dismissed his bid but vowed to keep fighting to secure the team.Chelsea’s price tag compares with the £1.8 billion valuation ($2.3 billion) for its London rival Arsenal, in 2018, after its American benefactor, the businessman Stan Kroenke, became the sole owner of the club by buying out the 30 percent stake of another now-sanctioned Russian oligarch, Alisher Usmanov, for more than $700 million. Unlike Chelsea, Arsenal has a modern stadium and its finances have been stable.Britain’s Treasury will have to issue a separate license for the sale to go through, with specific clauses that include a requirement that none of the sale proceeds go to Abramovich.The buyers and Raine have discussed the possibility of the proceeds going to victims of the war in Ukraine, an idea that Abramovich raised when he said he would waive an enormous debt owed to him by the club. But it is unclear how such a transfer would work.Todd Boehly, the American who leads the group that has reached an agreement to buy Chelsea, was at the club’s match against Wolves on Saturday.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbramovich invested nearly $2 billion of his personal funds during his 19-year tenure as owner, during which he covered losses of about $1 million a week as he recruited some of the best players in the world. The strategy was expensive but successful: Chelsea enjoyed the most successful period in its history, becoming a serial contender for domestic and international honors and winning five Premier League and two European Cups.If Boehly’s deal to buy the team goes through with the required approvals from the government and the Premier League, which also has to give its blessing to the sale, his group will have to figure out a way to maintain that successes while paring losses associated with the on-field success and also committing hundreds of millions of dollars to renovating Chelsea’s aging Stamford Bridge stadium, which with a capacity of just over 40,000 is far smaller than the arenas that play host to the Premier League’s biggest teams.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Russia’s punishment of Finland. More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      Boris Becker Sentenced to Two and a Half Years for Hiding Assets in Bankruptcy

      by

      The former tennis champion was found guilty by a London court on charges related to his 2017 insolvency.LONDON — Boris Becker, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on Friday in his bankruptcy case, after he was found guilty by a London court of hiding millions of dollars’ worth of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts.The sentence punctuated a startling fall from grace for Mr. Becker, 54, who parlayed his tennis skill, ebullient personality and business ambitions into a personal fortune before he was found guilty this month at Southwark Crown Court of four charges related to his June 2017 bankruptcy.The bankruptcy case meant Mr. Becker was legally obliged to disclose all of his assets so that they could be used to pay his creditors, but the court found several instances in which he failed to meet his obligations for disclosure.Mr. Becker failed to disclose a property he owned in his home country of Germany, concealed a loan of €825,000 (around $872,000) and assets valued at €426,930.90, and did not disclose shares owned in a gambling tech firm, according to Britain’s Insolvency Service. He was acquitted of 20 other counts relating to his bankruptcy.Mr. Becker made tennis history in 1985 when at age 17, he became the youngest champion in the history of men’s singles at Wimbledon. He went on to win there two more times, in 1986 and 1989, and took three other Grand Slam singles titles: the U.S. Open in 1989 and the Australian Open in 1991 and 1996. He retired from professional tennis in 1999.The tennis star was the subject of enormous attention not just for his success on the court. The tabloids also kept a close watch on his tumultuous love life, including a divorce and a fleeting affair with a Russian woman with whom he fathered a child.The precarious financial situation of Mr. Becker has been under scrutiny for several years.In 2017, a private bank in London, Arbuthnot Latham, made an application for bankruptcy proceedings against Mr. Becker, claiming that payment of a large debt owed by him was nearly two years overdue. He was soon declared officially bankrupt by a London court, which found that he could not repay his debts.That same year, a Swiss court rejected a claim by a former Swiss business partner, who claimed Mr. Becker owed him more than $40 million.As he fended off his creditors, in 2018, Mr. Becker sought to claim diplomatic immunity, because the Central African Republic had named him as its attaché to the European Union for sports, culture and humanitarian affairs.If that claim had been granted, any action against Mr. Becker would have required the approval of the foreign secretary, who at the time was Boris Johnson, the current prime minister. But Mr. Becker eventually dropped the claim.In 2002, Mr. Becker was convicted in Germany of income tax evasion, given two years’ probation and fined nearly $300,000. The verdict came six years after German tax investigators raided Mr. Becker’s home in Munich.Mr. Becker is said to have won millions of dollars in prize money and sponsorship deals. He has had several business ventures over the years, including a line of branded tennis gear. He has often appeared as a television commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon, and he coached Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked men’s singles player, for a few years. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Soccer

      Roman Abramovich, Owner of Chelsea FC, Has Assets Frozen By Britain

      by

      The Premier League club will be allowed to continue operating, but it cannot sell tickets or merchandise and is blocked from buying or selling players.LONDON — For Chelsea F.C.’s players and coaches, the first snippets of information arrived in the text messages and news alerts that pinged their cellphones as they made their way to a private terminal at London’s Gatwick Airport on Thursday morning.The British government had frozen the assets of their team’s Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, as part of a wider set of sanctions announced against a group of Russian oligarchs. The action, part of the government’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was designed to punish a handful of individuals whose businesses, wealth and connections are closely associated with the Kremlin. Abramovich, the British government said, has enjoyed a “close relationship” with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, for decades.The order applied to all of Abramovich’s businesses, properties and holdings, but its most consequential — and most high-profile — effect hit Chelsea, the reigning European soccer champion, which was at that very moment beginning its journey to a Thursday night Premier League match at Norwich City.News reports and government statements slowly filled in some of the gaps: Abramovich’s plans to sell the team were now untenable, and on hold; the club was forbidden from selling tickets or merchandise, lest any of the money feed back to its owner; and the team was prohibited — for the moment — from acquiring or selling players in soccer’s multibillion-dollar trading market.And hour by nervous hour, one more thing became clear: Chelsea, one of Europe’s leading teams and a contender for another Champions League title this season, was suddenly facing a worrisome future marked by austerity, uncertainty and decay.Even as it announced its actions against Abramovich and six other Russian oligarchs, the government said it had taken steps to ensure Chelsea would be able to continue its operations and complete its season. To protect the club’s interests, the government said, it had issued Chelsea a license allowing it to continue its soccer-related activities.The license, which the government said would be under “constant review,” will ensure that the team’s players and staff will continue to be paid; that fans holding season tickets can continue to attend games; and that the integrity of the Premier League, which is considered an important cultural asset and one of Britain’s most high-profile exports, will not be affected.But the sanctions will put a stranglehold on Chelsea’s spending and seriously undermine its ability to operate at the levels it has for the past two decades.By Thursday, the effort to ensure that no money flows to Abramovich was playing out in ways large and small. The telecommunications company Three suspended its jersey sponsorship — a lucrative revenue stream — and asked that its logo be removed from Chelsea’s uniforms and its stadium.At a club-owned hotel near the team’s Stamford Bridge stadium, the front desk stopped booking rooms and the restaurant shut down food and beverage service. Around the corner, at the official Chelsea team store, business continued as usual until security officials abruptly closed the shop. Shoppers, who had been filling baskets with club merchandise, were told to put everything back and leave.Moments later, signs were taped to the locked entrances. “Due to the latest government announcement this store will be closed today until further notice,” they read.Security guards closed Chelsea’s team store and blocked entrances to its stadium on Thursday.Hannah Mckay/ReutersAn uncertain future awaits, with the sanctions affecting everything from the money Chelsea spends on travel to how it dispenses the tens of millions of dollars it receives from television broadcasters.Chelsea acknowledged its new reality in a statement, but suggested it intended to immediately enter into discussions with the government about the scope of the license the team had been granted. “This will include,” the team said, “seeking permission for the license to be amended in order to allow the club to operate as normal as possible.”At the club on Thursday morning, staff members were struggling to come to terms with what the government’s actions would mean for them, their jobs and the team. Many club officials, including Chelsea’s coach, Thomas Tuchel, a German, and Abramovich’s chief lieutenant, the club director Marina Granovskaia, were still trying to understand what they could and could not do.One major deal is off the table: The freezing of Abramovich’s assets makes it impossible — at least in the short term — for him to follow through on his announced plans to sell Chelsea. Under the new arrangement, the British government will have oversight of that process. And while it said it would not necessarily block a sale, the effect would be to heavily diminish any proposed sale price, and the proceeds “could not go to the sanctioned individual while he is subject to sanctions” — leaving Abramovich little incentive to move forward.Whatever happens next, nothing will be the same at Chelsea. Since Abramovich arrived as a little-known Russian businessman in 2003, he has lavished more money on buying talent than almost any other club owner in soccer history, with Chelsea’s constant flow of players and coaches in and out of the club being a hallmark of his years in charge. In the minutes after the sanctions were announced, though, it quickly became apparent that Chelsea would cease to be a player in the multibillion-dollar player trading market, unable to acquire new talent, to sell any of its current players and, without Abramovich’s regular infusions of his personal fortune, to continue to pay the huge salaries of the players it currently employs.The American Christian Pulisic and other Chelsea players now face an uncertain future.Toby Melville/ReutersFor Chelsea fans, too, there was confusion about how and when they could attend games. While season tickets will remain valid, any new sales are prohibited, including to away matches and, crucially, any future Champions League games should the team advance to the later rounds of the competition. Chelsea’s next Champions League game, at the French champion Lille, is set for Wednesday; a berth in the quarterfinals is at stake.That trip and any future travel outside London will now be carefully scrutinized after the government announced a per-game limit of 20,000 pounds (about $26,000) in travel expenses. Those penalties might have been among the discussion points as Chelsea’s players and staff members traveled to the private terminal at Gatwick Airport, south of London, to board a chartered jet for the short flight to Norwich.By then, Tuchel’s phone was buzzing. Tuchel, the coach who last week responded angrily to a stream of questions about Abramovich and Ukraine at a news conference, probably knew little more than those who were peppering him with questions.On Thursday, he would have been trying to focus on the trip to Norwich City, where his team won, 3-1, and on the one that will follow on Sunday, Chelsea’s first home game since its world turned upside down.At that game, perhaps for the final time in months, Chelsea will play in front of a full house. A sign attached to the entrance of Stamford Bridge said as much on Thursday: The home game against Newcastle United is sold out. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Soccer

      Park Ji-Sung, Former Manchester United Player, Condemns Racist Fan Song

      by

      Park Ji-Sung, who played soccer with the team from 2005 to 2012, said a song stereotyping Koreans was “very uncomfortable to me.”Park Ji-Sung, a fan-favorite former player for Manchester United, asked the soccer club’s fans on Sunday to stop singing a song in his honor that includes the racist stereotype that Koreans eat dog meat.As a decorated midfielder for the team from 2005 to 2012, Park earned the adoration of the team’s fans, who bestowed upon him a common honor in the soccer world: a song or chant, often performed in the stadium, with lyrics intended to praise him.But the reference to dog meat was “very uncomfortable to me,” even though he was proud that fans made a song for him and he understood they did not intend to offend or hurt him, he said on an official team podcast released on Sunday.He thought he had to accept it, he said, having come to Britain from South Korea as a young player who was unfamiliar with the culture. But he heard fans sing the song again in August when Hwang Hee-chan, a South Korean, made his debut for the Wolverhampton Wanderers in a game against Manchester United.“I should probably speak out more loud this time,” Park said on the podcast. Even if fans didn’t mean any offense, he said, “I have to educate for the fans to stop that word, which is these days usually a racial insult to the Korean people.”Manchester United said in a statement that it “fully supports Ji-sung’s comments and urges fans to respect his wishes.”References to dog meat have long been used as an attack on Koreans overseas, a stereotype rooted in the country’s longstanding battle over the ongoing, but diminishing, practice of raising dogs for human consumption. Most Koreans do not eat dog meat now; a September 2020 survey by Nielsen found that 84 percent of Koreans either have never eaten it or do not intend to do so in the future.The culture has “changed enormously” over the decades and even more rapidly in recent years, said Lola Webber, a director of campaigns to end dog meat consumption for Humane Society International. Most younger Koreans are appalled by the thought, she said, though some older Koreans still seek out the meat at specialized restaurants.“It is not part of mainstream culture by any means in South Korea,” she said. “It hasn’t been for a very long time, but especially in the last few years, there’s been a very vocal opposition.”Last week, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea suggested banning the consumption of dog meat, recognizing it as an international embarrassment.The world’s top soccer clubs have consistently wrestled with racist behavior by some of their fans. In 2017, Romelu Lukaku, who is Black, asked Manchester United fans to stop singing a song for him that contained a racial stereotype. Some fans refused, following the song with a new one: “We’re Man United, we’ll sing what we want.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

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

      by

      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

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Tennis

      Paul Skipp, the Master of Thwack at Wimbledon

      by

      He has been the head stringer at the tournament since 2014, and players turn to him to make their rackets sing.In the shadow of No. 1 Court at the All England Club, Wimbledon’s stringing team is readying for a crush of requests. The day before the tournament starts, the team usually strings about 500 rackets, carefully following players’ instructions about tension levels, knot placement, logo color and string type. Then, the team will come back the next day and do another 500 rackets.“If we do a good job, and the player wins the tournament, excellent, great, fantastic, we feel we’ve done our part,” said Paul Skipp, who has been Wimbledon’s head stringer since 2014.Players restring their rackets mainly because strings quickly lose tension, and they need to be confident that the ball will come off their strings in a certain way. Led by Skipp, Wimbledon’s stringing team works long days, sometimes past midnight. Depending on personal preferences, weather and time spent on the court, players may get their rackets strung every day. At Wimbledon, players will use freshly strung rackets for only one match.Skipp, 51, figures he has strung rackets for 10 players who have won Wimbledon titles, including Angelique Kerber of Germany in 2018. When the Scottish player Andy Murray made his 2005 Wimbledon debut, Skipp was there to string for him. He has worked on Rafael Nadal’s rackets at previous Wimbledons. He regularly strings for Alison Riske of the United States. In 2019 at Wimbledon, she upset the top seed Ashleigh Barty and reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time.Alison Riske has consistently used Paul Skipp to string her rackets at Wimbledon.Nic Bothma/EPA, via Shutterstock“Paul is absolutely my go-to stringer at Wimbledon, and I’m so grateful for all of the good juju he puts over my rackets there,” Riske said via email. “Paul is good at what he does for many reasons, but first and foremost, I believe it’s his consistency. Consistency with how he strings and then how my strings feel to me in return.”If players do not use Wimbledon’s stringing service and pay the $28 per racket fee, then they pay for an off-site service. But over the past decade, the number of rackets strung by the on-site service has more than doubled, and Wimbledon’s stringing team has nearly doubled. The 16 team members come from a mix of European countries: Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain. “We are a bit of a family,” Skipp said.In 2009, when Jeremy Holt’s company Apollo Leisure took over the stringing operation at Wimbledon, the team worked on 2,300 rackets. Holt expects that the team will string about 5,500 rackets during this year’s tournament.“The tournament services throughout the world have improved considerably, so I think the players have more faith in them,” he said, explaining the increase. “People who are at the top of their game as racket stringers are involved.”At Wimbledon, players, or more often, coaches, drop off rackets at the service’s front desk and explain how they want them strung. A racket then goes to a team member, who puts it on a stringing machine. The main strings and cross strings get measured out, threaded through the frame, tightened to the player’s desired tension and knotted. It is generally considered that lower tension gives players more power; higher tension gives players more control.Paul Skipp uses a stringing machine to work on a racket. Krisztina Kobanyai“If I request tighter than my average, then I expect it to feel so, or vice versa,” said Riske, who is ranked No. 31 in the world. “And that is where a stringer like Paul is truly priceless because he will nail it every time, and I trust his ability, so it is one less worry for me, which is very important.”Players can request a certain stringer. That typically happens when a player has a past working relationship or familiarity with a stringer, the way Riske has with Skipp, or when a player has done well at a tournament with a stringer. But generally, a player’s rackets are assigned to a team member based on scheduling considerations. Skipp tries to ensure that all of a player’s rackets can be strung by the same team member throughout the tournament.Skipp expects a tournament stringer to easily finish a racket in 20 minutes. If it is needed on court, then he said, “we turn on the afterburners, and you could be looking at 10 to 11 minutes.”“To get it right, to get it consistent, it could be considered a craft or an art, certainly a skill,” he said. “I’ve seen plenty of bad stringing. Could we make Rafa Nadal play badly with a bad string job? Yeah, for sure. Could we make you play like Rafa Nadal with a better string job? No. Could we turn even a lower professional into a Rafa Nadal with a very good string job? No.” More