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    Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf Deal Is a Triumph That Transcends Sports

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    The deal to merge LIV Golf with the PGA Tour is a big win for the oil-rich kingdom, headlining a banner week that also includes a visit from the American secretary of state.There was no shortage of unpleasant things that the commissioner of the top U.S. golf circuit, the PGA Tour, said about Saudi Arabia when an upstart league backed by the oil-rich kingdom began recruiting his high-profile players.The commissioner, Jay Monahan, lamented a “foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf.” He sniped at players who left for the new league, called LIV Golf, hinting at the stain that the Saudi government’s human rights violations would leave on them.But on Tuesday, he sat down next to the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — both smiling jovially — for a television interview to announce that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were forming what promises to be a lucrative partnership.“I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” Mr. Monahan said later the same day. “But circumstances do change.”The deal, if it goes forward, represents an enormous victory for Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the country’s bid to become a major player in global sports, giving the kingdom considerable sway over the game of golf. But the significance of the moment transcends sports as Saudi Arabia under Prince Mohammed seeks greater political influence in the Middle East and beyond.Over the past weeks, the country has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity, and some successes, including the opening of an embassy of its longtime regional rival, Iran, as the two countries move toward restoring normal relations.Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour, center, without a cap. “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” he said, referring to the deal with LIV. “But circumstances do change.”Gregory Shamus/Getty ImagesAnd the golf deal is only the capstone of a busy week in which Prince Mohammed is also hosting the visiting U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who represents another once-vocal critic of the kingdom, President Biden. On the campaign trail in 2020, Mr. Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and other human rights violations.“I’m not going to lie. This is a moment that a lot of us are relishing,” Prince Talal Al Faisal, a Saudi businessman and royal family member, said in an interview. Like many Saudis, the prince said that he felt the stream of negative news coverage about his country was often unfair or inaccurate.“It gets to a point where you think to yourself, OK, this is hopeless,” he said. “And a moment like this makes you think, ‘Hang on, well, if you try hard enough, you eventually get your way.’”Five years ago, this moment would have seemed virtually impossible.In 2018, Saudi agents murdered and dismembered Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi exile who had fled to the United States, in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. The international condemnation was sharp, and for a brief time, it seemed like Prince Mohammed was facing isolation on the world stage.An American intelligence assessment determined that the crown prince had likely ordered the killing, a charge he has repeatedly denied.The murder was the peak of a broader crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia that continues today. But the icy mood did not last long.Within months, American and European chief executives who had canceled their appearances at conferences in the kingdom quietly returned. Prince Mohammed told visitors that he was determined to forge ahead with his plan to diversify the conservative Islamic kingdom’s economy and open it up socially.Foreign leaders began returning for visits. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which oversees about $650 billion in assets, continued to roll out high-profile investments around the world, such as LIV Golf.As Prince Talal notes, “We are, like it or not, central to a lot of the things that happen across the globe.”Saudi Arabia’s attempts to enter the world of golf had included an earlier approach to the PGA Tour about starting a partnership. But that approach was rebuffed, and it was only after the introduction of the rival LIV Golf last year — which provoked a bruising legal battle and eventually a series of secret meetings between PGA Tour leaders and Saudi officials — that Mr. Monahan and his lieutenants came around.Saudis have grown accustomed to seeing their former critics reversing course.In 2018, after Mr. Khashoggi’s murder, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, called Prince Mohammed “toxic” and a “wrecking ball,” vowing that he would never visit Saudi Arabia “as long as this guy is in charge.” Yet in April, Mr. Graham traveled to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and was photographed grinning with Prince Mohammed.“Things in Saudi Arabia are changing very quickly for the better,” he told ABC after his visit. “His vision for the country economically is transformative.”Indeed, in the span of five years, Prince Mohammed has made serious strides toward diversifying the oil-dependent economy, investing in mining, tourism and entertainment. Under him, the country ended a ban on women driving, significantly loosened gender segregation and even promoted electronic music raves in the desert, ripping apart ideas about what was possible in the kingdom.“Keeping up with Saudi Arabia is not only tough for non-Saudis but for Saudis themselves,” said Bader Al-Saif, assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “This shock-and-awe approach hopes to deliver faster results than those delivered in previous waves in Saudi history,” he added.Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday.Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court, via ReutersDuring Mr. Blinken’s visit to the kingdom this week, he will attend a gathering of a global coalition to counter the terrorist group Islamic State. For Prince Mohammed, this summit represents another chance to demonstrate his leadership.He has been keen to hedge against Saudi Arabia’s past dependence on the United States, its main security guarantor.“The relationship now looks more like the way the U.S. relates to some European partners,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “Security cooperation is key and maintained by both sides, but the Saudis are flexing their muscles in an effort to become a regional and international actor of significance in a world in which power is diffused, and the U.S. picks its battles much more cautiously.”Just days before Mr. Blinken’s arrival on Tuesday, Prince Mohammed welcomed the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, for a visit. Next week, the Saudi Ministry of Investment will host a major gathering of Arab and Chinese businesspeople.And, at least for a few days, the kingdom can continue to bask in the glow of its golf victory.The head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will also head the board of the new golf entity, though the PGA Tour will hold a majority of the board seats. The wealth fund has the exclusive right to invest in the new company going forward, opening the door for it to increase its stake in the years ahead.The deal protects Mr. al-Rumayyan, a golf aficionado, from the prospect of being deposed and scrutinized in American courtrooms, a risk that had loomed over him during the legal battles that the PGA Tour and LIV golf fought before their deal.Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, is also chairman of the English soccer club Newcastle United.Scott Heppell/ReutersThe sovereign wealth fund has also managed to achieve quick results for its investment in the English soccer club Newcastle United, which qualified for the UEFA Champions League just 18 months after it was purchased.Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its spending power in sports to distract from its poor human rights record, allegations that Saudi officials have rejected.During his meeting with Prince Mohammed on Tuesday, Mr. Blinken “emphasized that our bilateral relationship is strengthened by progress on human rights,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said.But for Saudis whose family members remain in prison, targeted in the crackdown, such words offer little comfort.Abdullah al-Qahtani, a dual Saudi American citizen, has not heard from his father, Mohammed al-Qahtani, since October, when he disappeared shortly before he was scheduled to be released from a Saudi prison. He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence in relation to starting a human rights organization.A handout picture provided by the family of Mohammed al-Qahtani, who disappeared shortly before he was to be released from a Saudi prison where he was serving a 10-year sentence in relation to starting a human rights organization.Family of Mohammed al-Qahtani, via Agence France-Presse“It’s getting to the point where all the doors are shutting in our faces,’ the younger Mr. al-Qahtani said on Tuesday, during a virtual news conference. “What I want is to bring his issue to light, because they have to know. I know Secretary Blinken is going to be in Saudi. He has to bring up my dad’s situation.”Alan Blinder More

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      Pelé Was Brazil’s Ambassador to the World

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      In leading his national team to success on the field, a soccer star helped his country find itself.The young soccer players who were gathered on the lush green grass of the Rose Garden were buzzing even before the president of the United States took hold of the microphone. Even the president knew they had not come to see him.“Oh, by the way,” the president began, almost as an aside, “my name’s Ronald Reagan.” The Brazilian soccer star next to him needed no introduction.Everyone knew Pelé.He had met, by then, three American presidents, starting with Richard Nixon a decade earlier, and he would go on to meet several more. Each visit cemented the role of Pelé, who died on Thursday, as not just the world’s best soccer player, but as a living embodiment of his country. He was, for most of his 82 years, Brazil’s representative to the world and a source of pride to a nation that found itself, thanks in part to the magic in the feet of the 17-year-old wunderkind who fired it to its first World Cup championship in 1958.Brazil has identified with — and been identified with — Pelé ever since. It is hard to overstate the meaning of the connection between the individual and the country, a link that endured at his death almost as strongly as it did in Pelé’s heyday, when he was among the most famous people in the world. For a country still looking to make its mark in the postwar years, Pelé’s arrival signaled Brazil’s coming-of-age.When he arrived in Sweden for the 1958 World Cup, Pelé frequently recalled, he was surprised at how little people knew about the place that had produced him, a country he had believed to be the best in the world.That view was not widely shared in Brazil. The nation was burdened in those days with the so-called complexo de vira-lata, a term coined by the writer Nelson Rodrigues after Brazil’s humiliation on home soil in the final game of the 1950 World Cup. That defeat, Rodrigues wrote, exemplified a collective inferiority complex Brazil saw in itself, not just in soccer but in its relationship with the rest of the world.“Here is the truth,” Rodrigues wrote. “We can’t find personal or historical pretexts for self-esteem.”The same writer, however, said just before the team headed to Sweden eight years later that it had finally found in its young star a figure to lift spirits and to turn Brazil into a nation of which its citizens could finally be proud.“With Pelé on the team, and others like him, no one will go to Sweden with the souls of stray dogs,” Rodrigues wrote. “The others will tremble before us.” They did just that.That first world championship delivered to Brazil the type of recognition it craved, and in Pelé it found a talent whose brilliance set him, and the Brazilian people, apart. Brazil’s canary yellow shirts and Pelé’s dazzling play became synonymous with the country itself, its calling cards to the world.As Brazil won a second title in 1962, and a third in 1970, Pelé came to personify a period of sustained success on the soccer fields that was matched by an economic boom at home and the rise of bossa nova, a style of samba music from Rio de Janeiro that swept through the world like a current of electricity. Brazil’s confidence was sky high then, and in Pelé the nation had found “O Rei,” its king, a nickname that would be attached to Pelé until his last breath.In Brazil, Pelé’s feats, successes and celebrity meant so much more given where he had come from and — whether he embraced it or not — whom he represented.Brazil, in 1888, was the last Western country to abolish slavery, and Pelé was born just 52 years later, a poor Black child who started out life shining shoes.Pelé was the subject of a 2021 Netflix documentary.NetflixHis journey to national hero, after his explosion onto the global consciousness as a teenager, was particularly meaningful for Brazil’s Black population, and for its poor. His popularity also lifted him above the fray of domestic issues, soccer royalty in a nation still finding its way.Pelé, sometimes to the frustration of activists, rarely spoke out about racism during his playing career or afterward. He would often repeat the consensus view that Brazil was in fact a “racial democracy,” a position that has been challenged with the growth of the Black consciousness movement. His refusal to take political stands also stood out in a period when Brazil was ruled by a series of dictatorships, during which Brazil’s military sought to take advantage of soccer’s popularity to sustain its hold over the country.“I thought his behavior was that of a Black person who only said, ‘Yes sir,’ a Black person who is submissive, accepts everything,” Paulo Cézar Lima, a former teammate on the Brazilian national team, said in a 2021 Netflix documentary made with Pelé. “A single word would have meant so much in Brazil.”Yet to some of his other compatriots, Pelé’s very presence as a globally recognized Black Brazilian was enough. Taking on a dictatorship, after all, carried risks.Pelé’s legacy was sealed at the 1970 World Cup, a tournament in which he initially did not want to play. Brazil’s team, a double defending champion, had been eliminated in the group stage in the 1966 championship in England, with Pelé literally kicked out of the tournament by the roughhouse play of Brazil’s opponents. He was nearing 30 as the 1970 tournament neared, and he had said he had enough. Yet his country, and its military leaders, wanted him to go, and he finally buckled to the pressure and traveled to Mexico with a team few at home believed could win the title.That it did so, in stunning style and with Pelé at its heart, brought joy to a country then living through some of the darkest years of its modern history, a time when the government of Emílio Garrastazu Médici killed and disappeared scores of its opponents and tortured thousands more.“I am convinced that I helped Brazil a lot more with my football, with my way of being, than the politicians whose job it was to do this very thing,” a frail-looking Pelé told the Netflix filmmakers for the documentary released last year.As Pelé’s star rose, so did that of Brazilian soccer. His team, Santos, which had given Pelé his debut at 15, became a global force. With Pelé in its ranks, it was lured to Europe for monthslong tours, where it took on — and took apart — some of Europe’s biggest clubs. Those European teams quickly came to realize what Brazil was, Pelé would say. But he always came home.Pelé playing for his Brazilian club team, Santos, in 1968.Associated PressIn many ways, he didn’t have a choice. Such was Pelé’s importance to the state that in 1961 a declaration in Brazil proclaimed him a “national treasure,” a designation that meant he could not be transferred to any club outside Brazil. For more than a decade after that, the declaration kept him out of the clutches of rich foreign suitors.Even as he remained tied to Santos, though, Pelé’s fame was dovetailing with the start of modern sports sponsorship. His face adorned billboards throughout the country and beyond. His former teammates would remark that Pelé was almost as good at selling products as he was at playing soccer. He was finally able to capitalize on that fame when he moved to the United States in 1975: His three-year contract with New York Cosmos was worth $6 million, the equivalent of more than $34 million today.Pelé was 34 by the time he started playing in the United States, and by then he represented far more than what he had to offer on the soccer field. He was effectively Brazil’s ambassador to the entire world, a man who moved in the company of celebrities and presidents, a player who could pause a civil war and then shake hands with a queen.For Brazilians, those moments were a source of pride, each one a reminder of how a country in search of itself had finally found it through the medium of soccer, and through the brilliance of Pelé. More

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      in Tennis

      Boris Becker Returns to Germany After Release From British Prison

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      The tennis champion left for his home country after serving time in Britain for hiding his assets in a bankruptcy case.Boris Becker, the three-time Wimbledon champion, returned to his home country of Germany on Thursday after he was freed from prison in Britain, his lawyer said.The Southwark Crown Court in London sentenced Mr. Becker to 30 months in prison in April for hiding his assets after he was declared bankrupt.Mr. Becker’s lawyer, Christian-Oliver Moser, said in a statement that the former tennis player left for Germany after he was released from prison. “Thus he has served his sentence and is not subject to any restrictions in Germany,” Mr. Moser said.Mr. Becker, 55, was sentenced to prison after he was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act in Britain, where he had lived since 2012.Neither Mr. Becker’s lawyer nor the British authorities said whether he had been ordered to leave the country.“Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity,” the Home Office, which oversees immigration in Britain, said in a statement.Under Britain’s Early Removal Scheme, foreign nationals who are imprisoned in Britain and are subject to deportation can be removed from the country up to 12 months before they would have otherwise been eligible for release. From 2020 to 2021, the Home Office removed more than 1,100 people under this program.After Mr. Becker was declared bankrupt in June 2017, he was legally obligated to disclose all of his assets so they could be used to pay his creditors. The London court found in April that he had concealed, failed to disclose and removed assets, including a loan of 825,000 euros (around $875,000) and property valued at €426,930.90 (around $453,000), according to Britain’s Insolvency Service.As he tried to fend off creditors, Mr. Becker made an unsuccessful bid for diplomatic immunity from the British courts in 2018, after the Central African Republic had in April of that year named him as its attaché to the European Union for sports, culture and humanitarian affairs.Nearly two decades earlier, in 2002, Mr. Becker was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined nearly $300,000 after being found guilty of income tax evasion in Munich.The court battles followed a stellar career in tennis.In 1985, Mr. Becker, then 17 years old, became the youngest champion in the history of men’s singles at Wimbledon. He won six Grand Slam titles, including three at Wimbledon, before he retired from tennis in 1999. He was a frequent commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon and coached Novak Djokovic, a 21-time Grand Slam singles champion, for three seasons. More

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      in Soccer

      Brussels Court Orders 3 Linked to Qatar Bribery Case to Stay in Prison

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      Belgian officials said they suspected a Gulf country of trying “to influence the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament.”BRUSSELS — A court in Belgium ruled on Wednesday that two suspects in a case linking current and former European lawmakers to alleged bribery by Qatar should remain in prison until trial and that a third should wear an electronic monitor, as the snowballing scandal continued to rock European Union institutions.Four people, including Eva Kaili, a former vice president of the European Parliament who is from Greece, were charged last week with corruption, money laundering and participation in suspected bribes from Qatar, in what may be the biggest scandal in the history of the Parliament.A court hearing for Ms. Kaili was postponed until Dec. 22, the office of the Belgian federal prosecutor said on Wednesday, so she remains imprisoned outside Brussels. Parliamentary lawmakers also stripped Ms. Kaili of her title as vice president during a plenary session in France.Court documents seen by The New York Times identified the other suspects as Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former member of Parliament; Francesco Giorgi, Ms. Kaili’s partner and an assistant to a current European lawmaker; and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, secretary general of a Brussels-based charity. Mr. Panzeri and Mr. Giorgi were ordered to remain detained until trial, and Mr. Figa-Talamanca was ordered to be placed under electronic monitoring.Two others were arrested in Italy in connection with the case, the Belgian prosecutor’s office said.Belgian officials said they suspected a Gulf country of trying “to influence the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament.”The Belgian intelligence services have been working for more than a year with similar services in other countries to “map suspected bribery” of European lawmakers, the justice ministry told The Times.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      An Open Letter to Welcome Home Brittney Griner

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      When Griner was imprisoned in Russia, letters were her main form of communication with home. Our columnist offers one last letter to mark her return to the United States.Welcome home, Brittney. At long last, welcome home.Like so many others, I wondered if this day would ever come.Now you are home and safe after nearly 10 months of brutal uncertainty and fear.Home and safe after isolating imprisonment in a Russia that has cast aside international norms.Home and safe after getting trapped in a web of geopolitics that grew thicker each day as the war in Ukraine dragged on. What you endured over the last 10 months is nearly unfathomable. As a Black, openly gay woman, you were in particular danger as a prisoner in a country with dangerous, retrograde views on race and sexuality.Home — and safe. What a turn of events.And yet, less than a day after your plane touched down at a Texas military base, controversy and conversation swirl.Some voices say the Biden administration should never have swapped a W.N.B.A. star in a one-for-one trade for Viktor Bout, a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel described by the Justice Department as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.Others feel that you deserved no help, that you alone should have answered to Russian authorities for the mistake of having vape cartridges containing a trace of cannabis oil in your luggage, even though you’ve said you use the substance for pain management.The Release of Brittney GrinerThe American basketball star had been detained in Russia since February on charges of smuggling hashish oil into the country.Anxiety Turns to Relief: Brittney Griner’s supporters watched with dismay as her situation appeared to worsen over the summer. Now they are celebrating her release.The Russian Playbook: By detaining Ms. Griner, the Kremlin weaponized pain to get the United States to turn over a convicted arms dealer. Can the same tactic work in the war in Ukraine?A Test for Women’s Sports: The release was a victory for W.N.B.A. players and fans, who pushed furiously for it. But the athlete’s plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.Then there are those hailing the White House for committing an act of mercy in pressing for your return.I’ll leave the political discussion to someone else. I want to focus on another part of the conversation. Already people are asking: What’s next?When will you return to the W.N.B.A., your Phoenix Mercury teammates, and the U.S. national team you helped lead to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics?Roughly a decade ago, you became one of the first Black and openly lesbian headliners in women’s basketball. In your trademark soft-spoken manner, you pushed for racial and social change in America. So will you use this moment to become an even more powerful advocate?Will you do more, Brittney?“What’s next” is an understandable query, but I hope folks pump the brakes.Brittney, you shouldn’t feel you owe anything more than the gratitude you’ve already expressed to those who stood by your side and worked for your release.You have done more than enough. Don’t feel you have to do anything but heal.During this ordeal, we all saw the anguish and tears of your wife, Cherelle Griner. She, no surprise, has said the two of you will speak up for Americans the State Department has said were wrongly detained in other countries, including Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia since 2018.Before all this happened, you might not have been well-known outside of sports circles. Now, more and more people have heard about how you were part of a wave of W.N.B.A. players who spoke up for racial injustice. More know that you have fought to help L.G.B.T.Q. people and those without homes in Phoenix.So it’s exciting to think about your next move and how you can use your platform for good.When I spoke to Victor Kozar, the Mercury’s president, this week, he mentioned the letters you exchanged over the last several months. “At all times, she was asking about other people,” said Kozar, your boss and friend. “Her concern was about other people. First and foremost, she asked how her teammates were doing, asking us to ensure we were taking care of her wife.”“That’s B.G.,” he added. “Even under this kind of duress, it was not about her. It was about others.”Sports stars offer us inspiration in many ways. Most commonly, it’s on fields and courts, through performances that allow us to see how we can be stretched to the limit.Brittney, you’ve inspired us in ways that matter more than slam dunks, blocked shots or championships.When you were freed, I thought about the timing. This week, Congress voted to cement federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages. (It’s a huge deal for me, too, since I have a nonbinary family member and my Black father and white mother married in 1954, when such unions were finally becoming legal in a smattering of states.)It’s sad that it took until 2022 to ensure such rights, but think about how far we’ve come. Ten or twenty years ago, if you’d been imprisoned in Russia, we probably would not have discussed race, sexual orientation and how those facts of your life put you in danger, this openly and often.“Brittney’s situation is a sign of progress, a sign that our nation has moved tremendously.” That’s how Victoria Kirby York, the National Black Justice Coalition public policy director, put it when she and I chatted Thursday. She noted the serious work that remains to be done, but added: “We have seen Americans move toward racial justice, and we are only going to see more of that happen, and a big part of it is people like Brittney Griner inviting us to see who they really are.”Rest with that, Brittney. May it be part of the support that helps you heal.My guess is that you’ll head back to basketball in due time — particularly when I think about how you grew up, with the game providing solace and healing for a young, Black, gay woman edging toward 7 feet tall in the American South of the 1990s and early 2000s.If history is any guide, you are likely to continue with advocacy and speaking out.Now your name and your story have a resonance few in the sports world can top. Who can better speak to our American shortcomings than someone scorned by many at home but also saved and spared by the intense efforts of the U.S. government?Then again, maybe you don’t do any of this. Brittney, don’t look back or feel bad if you want to ride into the sunset now, healing away from the public eye and maybe staying away for good.If that’s the decision, wonderful. Either way, we’ve got your back. More

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      Griner’s Detention Showed the Strength and the Struggle in Women’s Sports

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      Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could be described through the lens of war and politics, with Griner, one of the world’s best basketball players, a casualty of an international struggle between superpowers.But in the nearly 10 months she was imprisoned until her release on Thursday, Griner became a symbol of much more: the inequities in men’s and women’s sports, the complexity of the fight for social justice, and especially the power of the W.N.B.A.’s players and their supporters, who steadily rallied for Griner’s freedom.“Women, when we’re advocating for something, when we want something to happen, we’ve got the strength of 10 men,” said Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. She added, “I hope people are watching.”Griner was released from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony in August, about six months after she was detained at an airport near Moscow when customs officials found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, heightening tensions between the United States and Russia.As the war in Ukraine complicated the White House’s negotiations for Griner’s release, the W.N.B.A. players’ union spearheaded a public campaign to free her. The players have earned a reputation for potent activism: In 2020, their support helped fuel the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s victory in a Georgia Senate race, and they dedicated their season to fighting systemic racism. This time, they leaned on President Biden to help one of their own.“We realized what power our voices have,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “Doing it for Brittney, I don’t think it was a burden for anyone.”Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, thanked the W.N.B.A.’s “fearless union,” in a statement celebrating Griner’s release.Disparities in SportsGriner, left, in 2021, alongside Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird. Griner has long been one of the W.N.B.A.’s top stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe spotlight of Griner’s detention brought questions about the modest W.N.B.A. salaries that push dozens of players to international teams in the off-season to make more money. Griner has been one of the W.N.B.A.’s biggest stars since the Phoenix Mercury drafted her No. 1 overall in 2013, and she won two gold medals with the U.S. women’s national team. Still, she was in Russia to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, which reportedly paid her at least $1 million, quadruple the maximum W.N.B.A. salary.“The players are going to do what they think is best for themselves,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said on Thursday, “but we definitely inform them all the time of the security risks of where they might be playing.”Dozens of American men still chose to play for Russian basketball teams during Griner’s detention, though most had little chance of making the N.B.A. But almost all American women stayed away. Many star W.N.B.A. players took pay cuts to compete for lower-paying teams in other European countries.Collier, who won the W.N.B.A. Rookie of the Year Award in 2019, said Griner’s “scary” ordeal had changed her mind about playing overseas again, even though staying home would cost her money and playing time. “For me, it’s not worth it,” she said.Since Engelbert became the commissioner in 2019, she has focused on adding sponsors and developing new ways for players to earn money, such as marketing deals with the W.N.B.A. But increasing the league’s profile and revenue has been a challenge in the face of a sports ecosystem that is mostly blind to female athletes because of its overwhelming focus on men’s sports.Big-name N.B.A. stars, such as LeBron James and Stephen Curry, leveraged that disparity and drew focus to Griner by publicly supporting her. But some critics wanted more vocal support for Griner from the N.B.A., which owns about 40 percent of the women’s league and has $10 billion in annual revenue. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said he had talked to political figures behind the scenes, but said government officials had asked the league to be low-key so as not to inflame tensions with Russia.Silver said in a statement on Thursday that he was happy Griner was coming home after enduring “an unimaginable situation.”Some have wondered whether an N.B.A. player like James would have been held as long as Griner, or detained at all. Before this episode, many average N.B.A. players would have been better known by the public than Griner, even though she’s at the top of her sport. The W.N.B.A.’s games can be hard to find, with broadcasts spread across multiple channels, streaming services and social media sites. The league has been around for 26 seasons, compared with 77 for the N.B.A.“We have to build more household names in this league,” Engelbert said.Gay, Black, Female and ‘Voiceless’Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressTed S. Warren/Associated PressGriner’s case was never simple. Even though she was said to have been in possession of only trace amounts of hashish oil, a cannabis derivative, she faced drug smuggling charges that carried the potential for a 10-year sentence. The U.S. State Department said in May that she had been “wrongfully detained,” indicating that she should be considered a hostage.“She was voiceless,” said Staley, who coached Griner on one Olympic team. “She was in a place that she couldn’t fight for herself. She couldn’t speak up for herself.”And Griner faced additional risks as a gay Black woman imprisoned in a country known for harsh treatment of people like her. In 2014, she became the first openly gay athlete to sign a deal with Nike. L.G.B.T.Q. civil rights groups, including the National Black Justice Coalition, have stood behind her. The coalition called Griner an “icon” and a “symbol of hope” in a statement as it thanked Biden for making her a “top priority.”It didn’t always seem that way to her supporters. As the months went by and Griner’s name dipped in and out of headlines, fans filled social media websites with the hashtag #WeAreBG to plead for people to care. Some pointed to Griner’s race as a potential factor in the broader public’s ebbing concern, saying that the falloff mirrored the way missing white women often draw more attention than missing Black women.Kagawa Colas, Griner’s agent, thanked “Black women, the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and civil rights leaders” in particular for standing with Griner.But even as Griner’s detention unified many athletes, fans and advocacy groups, it highlighted the unequal ways a push for justice could play out.“Brittney is going to have to endure the fact that we have people who are questioning why she’s home,” Staley said, referring to those who have criticized the government for not bringing home other wrongfully detained Americans. “Why did they choose her?”Experts have said that there are dozens of Americans held around the world, many of them classified as “wrongfully detained,” as Griner was. But often their families are their most vocal supporters, not legions of sports fans, famous athletes and other celebrities.Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife, said in a news conference with Biden on Thursday that their family would work to help free other detained Americans. Kagawa Colas said in her statement that “bringing our people home is a moral issue” and listed 13 Americans detained around the world that Griner’s closest supporters would work to release.“Our eyes have been opened through this process to your struggle and, as we have always done, B.G. and our coalition of activist athletes will ensure that silence is no longer an option,” she said. More

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      In the Deal to Free Griner, Putin Used a Familiar Lever: Pain

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      President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to prosecute his war in Ukraine in the same way he secured the freedom on Thursday of a major Russian arms dealer: inflict so much pain on Western governments that, eventually, they make a deal.The Kremlin pushed for more than a decade to get Viktor Bout, convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans, released from prison in the United States. But it was only this year, with the arrest at a Moscow airport of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, that Mr. Putin found the leverage to get his way.On Thursday, pro-Kremlin voices celebrated Mr. Bout’s release, in a prisoner exchange for Ms. Griner, as a victory, a sign that no matter the desire to punish Russia over the war in Ukraine, the United States will still come to the table when key American interests are at play. Russia negotiated from “a position of strength, comrades,” Maria Butina — a pro-Putin member of Parliament who herself served time in an American prison — posted on the Telegram messaging app.Mr. Putin’s emerging strategy in Ukraine, in the wake of his military’s repeated failures, now increasingly echoes the strategy that finally brought Mr. Bout back to Moscow. He is bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure, effectively taking its people hostage as he seeks to break the country’s spirit. The tactic is threatening the European Union with a new wave of refugees just as Mr. Putin uses a familiar economic lever: choking off gas exports. And Mr. Putin is betting that the West, even after showing far more unity in support of Ukraine than Mr. Putin appears to have expected, will eventually tire of the fight and its economic ill effects.The American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in March, was released from a penal colony on Thursday. Here, she is being escorted to a Moscow courtroom last August.Pool photo by Kirill KudryavtsevThere’s no guarantee that strategy will work. Though President Biden yielded on Mr. Bout, he has shown no inclination to relent on United States support for Ukraine. America’s European allies, while facing some domestic political and economic pressure to press for a compromise with Russia, have remained on board.In the face of this Western solidarity, Mr. Putin repeatedly signaled this week that he is willing to keep fighting, despite embarrassing territorial retreats, Russian casualties that the United States puts at more than 100,000 and the West’s ever-expanding sanctions. On Wednesday, he warned that the war “might be a long process.” And at a Kremlin medal ceremony for soldiers on Thursday, Mr. Putin insisted — falsely — that it was Ukraine’s government that was carrying out “genocide,” suggesting that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure would continue.“If we make the smallest move to respond, there’s noise, din and clamor across the whole universe,” he said, champagne flute in hand, in remarks broadcast on state television. “This will not prevent us from fulfilling our combat missions.”Mr. Putin did not comment on the prisoner exchange himself on Thursday. But in the context of the Ukraine war, there was a clear undertone to the crowing in Moscow: To supporters, Mr. Putin remains a deal maker, and he stands ready to negotiate over Ukraine as long as the West does not block his goal of pulling the country into his orbit and seizing some of its territory.“He’s signaling that he’s ready to bargain,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst who studies Mr. Putin, said. “But he’s letting the West know that ‘Ukraine is ours.’”Heavily damaged buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine, last week.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked when the war could end, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, hinted on Thursday that Russia is still waiting for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to accept some kind of deal: “Zelensky knows when this could all end. It could end tomorrow, if there’s a will.”But when one of Mr. Putin’s top spies, Sergei Naryshkin, met with the head of the C.I.A., William Burns, in Turkey last month, Mr. Burns did not discuss a settlement to the Ukraine war, American officials said. Instead, Mr. Burns warned of dire consequences for Moscow were it to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and discussed the fate of Americans imprisoned in Russia, including Ms. Griner.“The Russian negotiating style is, they punch you in the face and then they ask if you want to negotiate,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who now works as research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The Americans respond to that by saying, ‘You know, you just punched us in the face, you clearly don’t want to negotiate.’”Nevertheless, negotiations on some issues have continued even as Russia’s onslaught of missile attacks has escalated, talks blessed by Mr. Putin despite occasional criticism from the most hawkish supporters of his war.Russia’s pro-war bloggers fumed in September when Mr. Putin agreed to an earlier high-profile exchange: commanders of the Azov Battalion, a nationalist fighting force within the Ukrainian military that gained celebrity status for its defense of a besieged steel plant, for a friend of Mr. Putin, the Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Some critics have slammed Mr. Putin’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea as representing an undue concession.President Vladimir V. Putin, third from left, inspecting the Kerch Strait Bridge this week. The bridge, which connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, was badly damaged in a Ukrainian attack in October.Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via ReutersAnd then there were the talks surrounding Mr. Bout and Ms. Griner. On the surface, the exchange appeared to be a mismatch, given the wide disparity in the severity of their offenses: one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers and an American basketball star detained for traveling with vape cartridges containing hashish oil.But Mr. Biden showed he was prepared to invest significant political capital in securing Ms. Griner’s freedom, while the Kremlin has long sought Mr. Bout’s release.“We know that attempts to help Bout have been made for many years,” said Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government. “He has also become a symbolic figure” for the Kremlin, he added.Mr. Bout became notorious among American intelligence officials, earning the nickname “Merchant of Death” as he evaded capture for years. He was finally arrested in an undercover operation in Bangkok in 2008, with American prosecutors saying he had agreed to sell antiaircraft weapons to informants posing as arms buyers for the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC.Some analysts believe that Mr. Bout has connections to Russia’s intelligence services. Such links have not been publicly confirmed, but they could explain why Mr. Putin — a former K.G.B. officer — has put such stock in working for Mr. Bout’s release.“If he were just some arms dealer and cargo magnate, then it is hard to see why it would have been quite such a priority for the Russian state,” Mark Galeotti, a lecturer on Russia and transnational crime at University College London, said last summer.President Biden at a news conference on Thursday with Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, left, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Washington.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat means that the U.S. decision to free Mr. Bout — likely the most prominent Russian in American custody — represented a significant compromise. It was magnified by the fact that the United States accepted the exchange even though Russia declined to also release Paul Whelan, a former Marine the Biden administration also considers a political hostage.Some analysts believe that the decision to free Mr. Bout carries risks because it could encourage Mr. Putin to take new hostages — and shows that his strategy of causing pain, and then winning concessions, is continuing to bear fruit.Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said that he was worried about the precedent set by Washington’s agreeing to trade an arms dealer for a basketball player who committed a minor offense.“Back in the days of the Cold War, it was always about professionals against professionals, one spy against another,” he said. While the United States must contend with public demand at home to return a hostage, the Russians can “ignore it completely,” he said.Now, Moscow “can just grab someone with a high public profile in the U.S. — an athlete, a sportsman,” he said. Public outcry in the U.S. “would make that position much more advantageous in terms of these kind of talks.” More

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      Frustrations Simmer as Saudis Are Blocked From Watching the World Cup

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      A curious dispute between a Qatari broadcaster and Saudi media regulators has left millions of Saudis with no way to watch the matches.DOHA, Qatar — In the stands at the World Cup, the fraternal bond between host Qatar and its neighbor Saudi Arabia has been clear. Fans have arrived to games dressed in the colors of both nations, and the countries’ rulers have made a show of publicly supporting one another.Even so, the nations appear to be locked in a curious dispute about broadcasting that has made a majority of the World Cup’s games unavailable to viewers in Saudi Arabia.Saudi-based customers of Tod TV, a streaming service launched in January by Qatar’s beIN Media Group, which owns rights to the tournament across the Middle East, were suddenly blocked from the platform an hour before the tournament’s opening game last Sunday. That meant they were not watching when their country’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, wearing a Qatar scarf, was given a seat next to the FIFA president Gianni Infantino, one removed from Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar.The sight of Prince Mohammed being afforded such a prominent role at the World Cup would have been unthinkable only two years ago, when he led a regional boycott against Qatar, or when a yearslong effort by a Saudi-backed pirate network effectively stole billions of dollars worth of BeIN’s sports content. Since the thaw, relations had improved to such an extent that Saudi Arabia is considering buying a stake in beIN; it already has signed a $130 million marketing agreement with the Qatari company.With that backdrop, beIN officials have been stunned to find their streaming platform suspended by Saudi Arabia’s media regulators. BeIN has lobbied FIFA, Saudi Arabia’s sports minister and even the United States and British government to find a way to get their services unlocked but have so far struck out and remain unclear why the action has been taken in a country where soccer is fervently followed by millions and that has sent thousands of soccer fans flooding across the border. Qatar’s emir even wore a Saudi Arabia scarf during Saudi Arabia’s shock victory over powerhouse Argentina Monday.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More