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      in Tennis

      At the French Open, Djokovic Storms the Court and Into Controversy, Again

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      In recent days, the Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic has inserted himself into the mounting international crisis in Kosovo.After everything that Novak Djokovic had put himself through over the past few years, the French Open began with the possibility, finally, of a Grand Slam tournament free of drama.But three days into the Open, Djokovic has put himself at the center of the mounting international crisis in the Balkans, where ethnic Serbs and Albanians have clashed in recent days in the conflict over Kosovo.The message that the Serbian tennis star scrawled Monday night on a plexiglass plate overlaid on a television camera lens — “Kosovo is at the heart of Serbia” — has sports officials calling for him to be disciplined, muzzled or both, and Albanian loyalists calling him a fascist.“A drama-free Grand Slam, I don’t think it will happen for me,” Djokovic said after he beat Marton Fucsovics of Hungary on Wednesday night. “I guess that drives me, as well.”The 22-time Grand Slam tournament champion struggled to find his timing early on, with the wind gusting as day turned to night. But as the light faded the wind did too, and Djokovic cruised, finishing off the steady Fucsovics, 7-6 (2), 6-0, 6-3, in two hours and 44 minutes. But as it is so often with Djokovic, what is happening on the tennis court this week is only a fraction of the story.The World Health Organization recently declared an end to the Covid-19 health emergency and the United States ended its requirement for foreign travelers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, ending discussion of Djokovic’s decision not to receive the vaccination. He was forced to skip some of the most important tournaments in tennis over the past two years, and last year was detained and deported from Australia ahead of the Open.He didn’t even have to worry about his main nemesis, with Rafael Nadal missing this year’s French Open, a tournament he has won 14 times, because of an injury. Djokovic continues his usual march toward the second week of the tournament — though the top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz may pose trouble.After Djokovic’s first-round match on Monday, like every winning player on the stadium courts at major tennis tournaments, he grabbed a marker for the traditional signing of the courtside television camera.The practice, which began in the 2000s as a way for players to connect with fans, gives them an opportunity to send an international television audience a typically cheerful message like “Vamos!” (Spanish for “Let’s go!”), wish a loved one “happy birthday” or write their child’s name.Occasionally the scrawl expresses a political opinion. In the days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian player Andrey Rublev wrote “No War Please” on the lens plate.Writing in his native language and drawing a heart, Djokovic’s message followed a weekend of violent clashes between Serbian protesters and NATO forces who have been trying to maintain a tense peace in the region for 15 years.Roughly an hour later, during the Serbian portion of his post-match news conference, Djokovic, whose past political statements have been suffused with Serbian nationalism, doubled down.“I am against wars, violence and any kind of conflict, as I’ve always stated publicly,” Djokovic said, according to the widely circulated translations. “I empathize with all people, but the situation with Kosovo is a precedent in international law.” He called Kosovo, “our hearthstone, our stronghold,” and said, “Our most important monasteries are there.”Almost immediately, the statements sparked the expected reactions at the polarized ends of the conflict: hero worship from Serbs, and outrage from the ethnic Albanians who account for the overwhelming majority of the population in Kosovo but are vastly outnumbered in a handful of villages and small cities. The groups, Orthodox Christians on one side, Muslims on the other, have been fighting on an off for control in the region for hundreds of years, dating back to the Ottoman Empire.Jeta Xharra, a human-rights activist in Kosovo, said in an interview Tuesday that Djokovic’s statements represented a “medieval mentality” that she compared to the thinking that led Russia to invade Ukraine last year.“It’s appalling for a man of his stature to use sports to push a fascist mentality,” she said.The Kosovan Olympic Committee has called for the International Olympic Committee and the International Tennis Federation to take disciplinary action against Djokovic.For its part, French Open officials have opted to stay out of the conflict. There is nothing in the rule book that prohibits a player from making political statements. France’s tennis federation, the F.F.T., said it was “understandable” that players would discuss international events. However, the French sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, called Djokovic’s statement “inappropriate” during a television interview, saying it was “very activist” and “very political” and that he “shouldn’t get involved again.”Judging from Djokovic’s recent and not-so-recent behavior, that is not an option, and he said as much during his statement after his first match.“This is the least I could have done,” he said in his native language. “I feel the responsibility as a public figure — doesn’t matter in which field — to give support.”Supporters cheering Djokovic after his second-round victory at the French Open.Teresa Suarez/EPA, via ShutterstockFor Djokovic the statements have had increased impact because with the war in Ukraine garnering so much attention, few outside of the Balkans were aware of just how heightened the tensions in Kosovo have become during the past week — as heightened as they have been since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.An international military force has attempted to maintain peace in the region for decades. More than 100 countries have recognized Kosovo. Serbia and Russia have not. Ethnic Serbs who live in Kosovo boycotted local elections last month in the northern part of the country where Serbs hold majorities. That allowed Albanian candidates to win control, in their view.The five countries that control the peacekeeping force in the region — the United States, France, Italy, Germany and Britain — asked Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership not to send in security forces to take control of town municipal buildings following the elections. It did anyway, a move that the five countries condemned. The Serbs protested the takeover, sparking the violent clashes that wounded 30 members of the NATO peacekeeping force, known as KFOR (Kay-phor).“Both parties need to take full responsibility for what happened and prevent any further escalation, rather than hide behind false narratives,” Maj. Gen. Angelo Michele Ristuccia, the KFOR mission commander, said in a statement.President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia claimed that 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes, three seriously. He put the Serbian Army on high alert and sent his troops to the border.Watching events unfold from Paris as he prepared for the French Open, Djokovic searched for a way to express two emotions — a desire for peace and the belief that Kosovo is part of Serbia. He has often spoken of the traumatic experience of growing up in a war zone, with bombs falling not far from his home during the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s. He has said that anyone who has lived through that experience could never be in favor of war and violence. He used those words in January, when controversy found him at the Australian Open after his father, who was born in Kosovo, was caught on video posing with a fan of his son’s who was holding a Russian flag.In 2008, when Djokovic was a young player breaking into the sport’s elite ranks, he recorded a video expressing solidarity with protesters in Belgrade after Kosovo declared independence.“Of course, I’m aware that a lot of people would disagree,” he said as midnight closed in Wednesday. “But it is what it is. It’s something that I stand for.” More

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      in Golf

      LIV Golf Wants to Talk About Sports. Donald Trump Still Looms.

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      It was only on Sunday evening that LIV Golf, the men’s league awash in billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, met its greatest athletic triumph to date when one of its headliners, Brooks Koepka, emphatically won the P.G.A. Championship.By Thursday morning, though, LIV’s road show had been reinfused with the political bent that has trailed the second-year circuit as it has convulsed professional golf: the loquacious, limelight-seizing presence of former President Donald J. Trump, who is hosting one of the league’s tournaments this weekend at a course northwest of Washington.Whether LIV can outrun Trump’s shadow, and whether it even wants to, could do much to shape how the league is perceived in the years ahead, particularly in the United States, where it has struggled to gain a meaningful foothold against the PGA Tour.But for now, besides major tournament winners like Koepka and Phil Mickelson who have joined the circuit, there is probably no figure beyond golf more publicly linked to LIV than Trump, who has repeatedly and enthusiastically cheered Saudi Arabia’s thunderous, flashy entrance into sports. At its events, he often seems like an eager M.C. whose role is at once decidedly conspicuous and deeply mysterious — neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events — as the league looks to make inroads in a hidebound sport.The former President Donald J. Trump played with Patrick Reed during a pro-am event Thursday.Trump talked to the news media throughout his round of golf.“They want to use my properties because they’re the best properties,” Trump said on Thursday, when he spent five hours appearing in a pro-am event with the LIV players Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed (and staging what amounted to a rolling news conference about politics and an infomercial about his property over 18 holes along the Potomac River).The Trump portfolio does indeed feature some exceptional courses, including the Washington-area location, which once held a Senior P.G.A. Championship, and LIV executives have said in the past that they were drawn to them because many top-caliber properties in the United States were not willing to host a circuit intended to rival the PGA Tour. But Trump’s persistent, growing place in LIV’s orbit also invites sustained skepticism of the motives and intentions of the league, which some critics see as a glossy way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its image.The former president is unbothered by the league’s patron, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and the kingdom’s budding place in professional golf, despite its record of human rights abuses. He is still casting aside objections from family members of Sept. 11 victims, some of whom believe Saudi Arabia played a role in the 2001 attacks, because, as he said Thursday, LIV tournaments are “great economic development.” He is openly admiring the millions and millions of dollars that the Saudis are raining down onto players and, of course, properties like his, even though he asserted Thursday that hosting tournaments amounts to “peanuts for me.” This year, LIV will travel to three of his properties, up from two in its inaugural season.He has remained steadfast in his loyalty even though a special counsel from the Justice Department, Jack Smith, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to LIV.In an interview as he walked between holes on Thursday, Trump described Smith’s aggressive approach as “retribution” because the Biden administration wants “to do something to take the spotlight off what’s taken place.” He said he did not know why his ties to LIV had drawn the special counsel’s scrutiny.Trump’s affection for LIV can be traced, at least in part, to years of friction with golf’s establishment.Graeme McDowell, right, who played with Trump Thursday is among the past major champions to have left the PGA Tour for LIV.Neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events on his courses.In 2016, the PGA Tour ended a longstanding relationship with Trump’s course in Doral, Fla., near Miami, because of what its then-commissioner described as “fundamentally a sponsorship issue.” And in 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the P.G.A. of America — which is separate from the PGA Tour — abandoned its plan to host its flagship men’s championship at a Trump property in New Jersey in 2022.Trump has not fared much better abroad. The R&A, which organizes the British Open, has signaled it does not intend to take the tournament back to Trump-controlled Turnberry, where LIV’s commissioner, Greg Norman, won one of his two Opens.LIV has embraced Trump, though, and in return gotten a former president’s imprimatur, along with bursts of news coverage for events that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. He brings prestige and power, diluted as both might be by the divisiveness in which he revels.“They have unlimited money and they love it,” he said Thursday, “and it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.”But for every day Trump appears at a LIV event, it is a day that LIV might as well write off as one in which it will not escape the pointed questions that it has spent a year trying to move past, or at least saying it wants to move past.It has been hard enough for the league, even on a day when Trump is not playing a round, not to have its players confronting questions about the morality of accepting millions in Saudi money.“We’re contracted to play golf,” Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner who finished in a tie for fourth at the P.G.A. Championship last weekend, said on Wednesday. “I think the most important part is to provide great entertainment wherever possible on whatever platform that is, whatever platform that provides it. When you can talk about ethics, that’s people’s perception. I completely disagree with it, but everybody has the right to their own opinion, and I’d say, was it worth it? Absolutely.”Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But DeChambeau hardly has the same megaphone or presence as a former occupant of the Oval Office. When Trump appears at a LIV event, even winners of the Masters Tournament or the U.S. Open are relegated to supporting actors.LIV executives have generally brushed aside questions about whether the former president is good for business, or merely essential for it, given their troubles landing quality venues. They seem convinced that, at some point, sports will overtake politics, which might be wishful thinking since Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But LIV’s strategy still involves a gamble that the presence of one of the nation’s most polarizing figures will not scare off even more of the sponsorship contracts and television rights that are already proving hard to come by for the operation. And Trump can just as easily alienate prospective fans as he can entice them.Trump himself insists that LIV craves him at its events and that he is not a distraction from the league’s proclaimed goal of growing the sport and giving it doses of needed energy.“They wanted me to be here, and I said sure,” said Trump, who said that LIV’s contracts with his properties did not require his appearances in events like the pro-am.Perhaps all of that is true. But as long as it is, LIV will linger in the political thicket, no matter how well Koepka plays on the game’s biggest stages. More

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      in Soccer

      China’s Soccer Experiment Flopped. Now It May Be Over.

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      China poured billions into its bid to become a major player in the world’s most popular sport. A decade later, it has little to show for that investment.It takes only a glance at the news coverage from those days less than a decade ago, when China’s soccer success seemed only a matter of determination and money, to remember how quickly and how deeply the country embraced the world’s most popular sport as a national project.At home and abroad, China’s president, Xi Jinping, was pictured kicking soccer balls and watching youth matches. State media detailed his lifelong love of the game. Schools were ordered to introduce soccer into their curriculums, and billions of dollars were earmarked for the construction of tens of thousands of fields. Major companies rushed to invest in professional teams, both at home and abroad, then stocked them with imported players — whatever the cost.There was talk of bringing the World Cup to China. In Beijing, there was audacious talk of winning it.Now, though, China’s great soccer dream appears to be over.The expensive recruits have gone. Top teams have disappeared with alarming regularity. The national team shows little sign of improvement. And in perhaps the most direct sign of a failed policy, some of the top officials charged with leading China’s soccer revolution have been detained amid allegations of corruption.“The hopes were really high,” said Liu Dongfeng, a professor at the school of economics and management at the Shanghai University of Sport. “And that is also why the disappointment is so big.”“My biggest hope for Chinese soccer is that its teams become among the world’s best,” China’s leader, Xi Jinping, had declared in 2015.Pool photo by Michael SohnWhat derailed China’s soccer plan, when earlier state-backed bids to dominate Olympic sports had delivered regular glory and piles of medals? A global pandemic and an economic downturn didn’t help. Nor did the lack of truly world-class talents. Then there were the bad deals, the whispers of corruption and the nagging national inability to succeed in team sports. Whatever the reasons, the current malaise infecting Chinese soccer is a major reversal from the momentum that accompanied the release in 2015 of China’s 50-point plan for the sport.That program was packed with concrete targets and lofty goals. Perhaps the most eye-catching was a directive to include soccer in the national school curriculum — introducing it to tens of millions of children in a single stroke — and to set up 50,000 soccer schools in the country by 2025. Eager to support Xi’s ambitions, or perhaps just as eager to take advantage of a loosening of restrictions on the purchase of foreign assets, Chinese investors quickly opened a fire hose of money on the game.Riding the RocketBillions of dollars went to acquiring whole or partial stakes in European soccer teams. Chinese companies signed up as FIFA sponsors and put their names on the message boards and shirts of well-known clubs. At home, some of China’s richest people and companies invested in teams with an abandon that transformed the country’s top division, the Super League, into a major player in the global transfer market. Players who once would never have considered a career in China were suddenly racing there, lured by eye-popping salaries or eight-figure transfer fees that their European and South American clubs simply couldn’t afford to pass up.That sudden burst of spending spooked Chinese regulators, who belatedly imposed restraints on the industry to try to stop it from overheating. Yet even those moves failed to tame the worst excesses, and by the time the coronavirus pandemic descended in early 2020, and China retreated inside its borders, spectacular failures were common.Jiangsu Suning F.C., a team owned by one of China’s richest men, disappeared in early 2021, only months after winning the Super League title. Other teams followed suit; Guangzhou F.C. suffered the indignity of relegation after its big-spending owner, the property developer Evergrande, tumbled into its own financial crisis. Top players, complaining of unpaid salaries and broken promises, packed their bags, ended their contracts and headed home.An academy at Jiangsu Suning F.C. in 2021, weeks after the club, the reigning league champion, suddenly shut down.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“From the perspective of each team, if you look at cost and revenue, it was not sustainable at all,” Liu said.But China was in retreat on the international stage, too.Dashed HopesIf there were a single indicator of the high hopes, and supreme disappointment, of China’s soccer dream it might be its perpetually underachieving men’s national team, which currently sits below the likes of Oman, Uzbekistan and Gabon in FIFA’s global rankings, firmly entrenched among the mediocre and the afterthoughts.The team’s current ranking is almost exactly the same position it held when the panel chaired by Xi passed China’s heralded soccer reform plan eight years ago, and its most recent World Cup qualifying campaign was merely another humbling failure. China finished fifth out of six teams in its qualifying pool for last year’s tournament in Qatar, a defeat to Vietnam on Chinese New Year the nadir to a journey marked by repeated humiliations.Traditionally, China has enjoyed far more success in women’s soccer. It was an early pioneer in the women’s game, hosted FIFA’s first women’s world championship in 1991 and reached the final eight years later. But while China will make its third straight trip to the Women’s World Cup this year, it has not advanced past the quarterfinals since 1999 and will not be a pick of most experts to contend for the trophy.The men’s team’s future looks even less bright. “If anything, they’re only going to get worse the way things are right now,” said Mark Dreyer, the author of a book on China’s efforts to become a sporting superpower.China’s men’s team has never won a game or even scored a goal at the World Cup.Elias Rodriguez/Photosport, via Associated PressThe news is no better off the field. FIFA was forced to abandon its plan to hold the inaugural edition of an expanded World Cup for clubs in China after the country imposed some of the world’s strictest coronavirus restrictions. That event, unveiled at a triumphant news conference in Shanghai, will now be held in 2025, but it is unlikely to take place in China.Last year, the Asian soccer federation scrapped a multibillion-dollar television contract with a Chinese media company after it failed to fulfill its agreements. The Premier League did the same in 2020, tearing up a deal that was its most lucrative overseas contract, and has now signed one worth considerably less.The money that flowed from Chinese companies to foreign entities in the early years of the boom, and which quickly made China a major source of sponsorship income for teams, leagues and federations around the world, has been replaced by money from the Gulf, and particularly from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which now have the profile that China once sought.At a recent meeting of Asian soccer’s governing body, the Chinese candidate running for a seat on FIFA’s governing council finished last in the voting.Uncertain FutureAmong the many successes China once promised are some claims that cannot be verified. The official in charge of the schools project, for example, once claimed that 30,000 such academies had been opened, and that more than 55 million students were now playing soccer.“While most of the world celebrates a project once it is completed, in China they like to celebrate the announcement, throw out crazy numbers and then people accept that as given,” said Dreyer, who has spent more than a decade following the Chinese soccer industry.China invested in soccer schools and soccer fields but never created a pipeline of players.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesIt is unclear how many of the schools are actually functioning, and getting an answer may be all but impossible: The education ministry official who made the claims, Wang Dengfeng, was arrested in February.His detention was not the first, or the last. Li Tie, a former player who coached the national team during part of its failed World Cup campaign, was arrested over unspecified “serious violations of law” while attending a coaching seminar in November. Then, in February, the Communist Party’s antigraft watchdog issued a curt statement in which it said Chen Xuyuan, the president of the national soccer federation, was facing similar accusations.After Chen’s arrest, Hu Xijin, a nationalist and retired chief editor of The Global Times, a Communist Party tabloid, lamented the sorry state of the country’s soccer program on Chinese social media. Chinese soccer had burned copious amounts of cash and “completely humiliated the Chinese people” with its scandals, Hu said.Even before a series of government announcements noting that even more high-ranking soccer officials were under investigation, Hu suggested that Chinese men’s soccer was “rotten to the core.”His post went viral, with many commenters calling desperately for a complete overhaul of Chinese soccer. Whether the country, and particularly Xi and the rest of China’s leadership, will rally so publicly behind another effort is unclear.A previous anticorruption drive that included the jailing of soccer administrators and officials presaged the start of the latest efforts to grow the sport. The latest arrests and detentions, Liu said, might be a sign of the government’s willingness to persevere.Chen Xuyuan, the president of China’s soccer federation, in 2019. He is facing accusations of corruption.SNTV, via Associated PressThe former national team coach Li Tie faces similar accusations: “serious violations of law.”Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe director of China’s national sports agency, Gao Zhidan, appeared to suggest just that recently. At a press event after China’s annual legislative session on March 12, when soccer was conspicuous by its absence at a meeting on sports, Gao said he had been “deeply reflecting on the serious problems in the soccer industry” and declared that his agency would redouble its efforts at building competitive leagues and promoting young talent.What that will look like remains unclear. There is still no official start date for the new season, which is expected to be in April with a reduced number of teams. Among the casualties was Hebei, which not so long ago had lured Argentine stars like Javier Mascherano and Ezequiel Lavezzi, and Zibo Cuju, a team based in a city once recognized by FIFA as “the cradle of the earliest forms of football.”A downsized league will signal yet another rollback of Chinese grand ambitions, whenever it eventually begins. When will that be? No one is certain. An official announcement of the league format has yet to be made.Chang Che More

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      in Golf

      Golf Course or Housing? A Patch of Green Divides Hong Kong

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      The dispute over one of the city’s golf clubs exposes rare political friction for the elite in the new Hong Kong, where the establishment is torn between defending wealth and following Beijing’s wishes.On an autumn afternoon at the Hong Kong Golf Club, hundreds of dogs — pugs, Pomeranians, Shiba Inus — strolled the verdant grounds with their owners in tow, enjoying rare access to the range that charges new members a $2 million entry fee.But these impeccable greens, in the northern reaches of Hong Kong, have become an unlikely battleground.The Hong Kong Golf Club has been fighting a government proposal to carve out less than one-fifth of its 172 acres of land and redevelop it for public housing. The open day for dogs was an effort by the club to rally public support to the club members’ cause in a city known for its soaring inequality and acute shortage of affordable homes.Hong Kong’s government has come under pressure from Beijing to reduce the wealth gap in line with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s promises of “common prosperity.” But the land dispute puts on picturesque display the tensions between Hong Kong’s attempts to redistribute wealth and the interests of the elite who the government has long relied upon for support. The city’s business leaders may be aligned with China’s Communist Party rulers, but many are also stubbornly protective of Hong Kong’s capitalist wealth.The club has mobilized members to speak out about the public housing plan. Prominent figures in the city’s pro-Beijing political establishment have also criticized the proposal.“I hope nobody calls the golf club rich and powerful or pins that label on it. Because it is a sport facility after all,” said Regina Ip, a senior adviser to the Hong Kong government and a golf club member herself.A golfer at the course in 2018.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesBy contrast, Hong Kong newspapers closely aligned with Beijing — eager to push the territory even closer ideologically to China’s Communist Party — have criticized the club, accusing it of ignoring the needs of working people.“If the golf course development plan is thwarted, the public impression of ‘business colluding with government officials’ will only get worse,” one of the newspapers, Ta Kung Pao, said in an editorial after an environmental review in August effectively delayed the housing plan.It’s not just avid golfers who are stirring opposition to the land swap. Some members of Hong Kong’s business elite see the city government’s plans to claim 32 acres of club land as dangerous government meddling in the economy.More on ChinaCrackdown on Protesters: The protests against China’s restrictive “zero Covid” policy were a rare rebuke of Xi Jinping’s rule. Now, Beijing seems intent on deterring those who might have been emboldened by them.A Harsh Winter: For many people across China, a shortage of natural gas and alarmingly cold temperatures are making a difficult season unbearable.Real Estate: With China’s real estate boom coming to a sudden halt, many Chinese homebuyers have been left with dashed dreams, empty bank accounts and unfinished homes.Solomon Islands: For years, Beijing has thrown its wealth and weight across the globe. But its mixed results in this South Pacific nation calls into question its approach to expanding its power.“A feature of capitalism is a gap between rich and poor,” said Shih Wing Ching, the owner of Centaline property, the biggest property agency in Hong Kong, who has taken up the golf club’s cause, though he does not play himself. “If you try to erase the feature, say by taking away golf, then it’s not capitalism, it’s socialism.”As a youth, Mr. Shih, 73, was a zealous leftist student who took part in the 1967 labor protests that turned into anti-government riots and were inspired by Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which sought to trample traditional privilege. The chaos and trauma of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China eventually turned Mr. Shih against communism, and he later found success selling real estate.“Deng Xiaoping once said that the horses would keep on racing and the dancers would keep on dancing,” Mr. Shih said, citing a comment the Chinese leader made ahead of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 to suggest Hong Kong would not lose its capitalist verve. “If the horses still race and dancers still dance, then I’d add that the golfers should keep on swinging.”Both sides in the fight recognize that the small section of the golf club that might be claimed by the government would make barely a dent Hong Kong’s housing crisis.For more than 10 years, Hong Kong has been recognized by some yardsticks as having the world’s most unaffordable housing market, particularly when comparing median household income to median housing costs.Even Mr. Xi, China’s leader, has weighed in on Hong Kong’s housing woes.“Currently, the biggest aspiration of Hong Kong people is to lead a better life, in which they will have more decent housing,” Mr. Xi said on the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China in July. He urged the government to carry out reforms and “break the barriers of vested interests.”China’s leader, Xi Jinping, giving a speech in Hong Kong in 2022 to inaugurate the city’s new leader, John Lee. Mr. Xi has focused attention on the city’s housing shortage.Pool photo by Selim ChtaytiSome pro-establishment politicians have argued that by targeting the golf club, the government is sowing greater hostility between rich and the poor.Lau Chi-pang, a legislator on the influential elections committee, was criticized by Chinese state media for appearing in the golf club’s YouTube video stream praising the club. Mr. Lau, a history professor who was commissioned by the club to write a book about it, said it had “rich cultural value.”“If public housing is built on the golf course, it will become a political monument,” he said, adding that if housing advocates win the battle they will “then aim at other private clubs.”The dispute over the course began in 2018, when Hong Kong’s government solicited public input on where to acquire land for public housing, and a few pro-democracy legislators raised the idea of taking back land from the golf club. The land is owned by the government, which has leased it to the club since 1911.Polls showed that 60 percent of the public supported the plan. But with the business sector strongly opposing the proposal, the government decided to develop only 32 out of the club’s 172 acres.Golf carts at the Hong Kong Golf Club. The club’s members have rallied against the city’s plans to use part of the course’s property for new housing.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesMr. Lau argued that there is other land available for development, especially along the northern area bordering Shenzhen in mainland China, which is more important to Beijing than a few buildings on a golf course.Late last year, the city received over 6,000 letters from golf club members and others opposing the plan. Their arguments ranged from one-sentence declarations — “I want to play golf!” — to a 500-page long petition listing the golf course’s historic value and the significance of the Hong Kong Open, a prominent international tournament long held at the club.The dispute has become tied up with the combustible mix of Hong Kong’s crackdown, as opponents of the land swap — even those aligned with Beijing — test the limits of free expression. Some pro-Beijing district councilors have objected to the housing plan, warning of traffic jams and a lack of infrastructure to support the influx of new residents. One councilor even openly declared in a meeting that opponents of the plan would “rise and attack” should it go forward, a bold statement in Hong Kong with a national security law curtailing political dissent.Further complicating matters is that several former legislators who proposed using the golf course land for housing have either been arrested on national security charges or gone into self-imposed exile. Grassroots organizations pushing for more public housing have voiced increasing frustration over the delays.“If the government walks back from the decision, there will be little authority in the future,” said Man Yu-ming, the chairman of the pro-establishment Federation of Public Housing Estates. “We’re not giving up any land we deserve!”John Lee, the city’s top leader, who was appointed in July, recently said he respected the housing plan, which was conceived of during his predecessor’s administration.The delays are a sharp contrast to how Hong Kong’s neighbor across the border in mainland China, Shenzhen, has handled its land shortage. That city, an economic hub of more than 17 million people, tapped several golf courses for urban development in recent years. Some deem the Shenzhen government decisive and resolute. Others don’t.“A debate about this reflects the healthy society of Hong Kong,” said Ronny Tong, an adviser to the government. “Ultimately, it’s an issue of two competing values.”Mr. Tong, a golf club member, has argued that golf courses attract professionals and investors to Hong Kong.“I play golf all the time,” Mr. Tong said. “It’s not a sin.” More

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      in Tennis

      An Australian Open Final With Tennis and Debate on the Ukraine War

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      Nearly a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, a Russian-turned-Kazakh will play a Belarusian in the finals, which is sure to stir the debate over whether athletes from those countries should participate in international sports.MELBOURNE, Australia — In the two women’s semifinal matches at the Australian Open on Thursday night, geopolitics won in straight sets.For nearly a year, professional tennis — the most international of sports with its globe-trotting schedule and players from all over the world — has tried to balance its stated opposition to the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with its hopes that its competitions rise above the quagmire of international politics.It is not going well. Geopolitics has been everywhere at the Australian Open and will be on center stage in the women’s final.It has been 11 months since the sport banned Russia and Belarus from participating in team events at tournaments, as well as any symbol that identified those countries. It’s been nine months since Wimbledon prohibited players representing Russia and Belarus from competing, and it’s unclear whether they will be able to play this year. Players from Ukraine have lobbied to have them barred from all events instead of simply not being allowed to play under their flags or for their countries.That has not happened, and on Saturday Elena Rybakina, a native Russian who became a citizen of Kazakhstan five years ago in exchange for financial support, and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will meet for the women’s singles title.Both Rybakina and Sabalenka, who blast serves and pummel opponents into submission, played tight first sets, then ran away with their matches.Rybakina beat Victoria Azarenka, another Belarusian, 7-6 (4), 6-3, while Sabalenka topped Magda Linette of Poland, 7-6 (1), 6-2. Conditions at this tournament — warm weather, balls the players say are tough to spin — have favored the big flat hitters since the first round, making the final showdown between Rybakina and Sabalenka almost inevitable.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.No Spotlight, No Problem: In tennis, there is a long history of success and exposure crushing champions or sucking the joy out of them. In this Australian Open, players under the radar have gone far.Victoria Azarenka’s ‘Little Steps’: The Belarusian player took a more process-oriented approach than in the past. The outcomes were strong.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.The matchup is sure to rekindle the debate over Russian and Belarusian participation in sports, a discussion that has become increasingly heated in recent days, both at this tournament and throughout the world. Rybakina’s and Sabalenka’s victories occurred hours after videos surfaced of Novak Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, posing with fans who waved a Russian flag and wore the pro-war “Z” logo and voicing his support of Russia, against tournament rules. Serbia and Russia have close historical and cultural ties.Another video raised the ire of Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, who wrote on Twitter, “It’s a full package. Among the Serbian flags, there is: a Russian flag, Putin, Z-symbol, so-called Donetsk People’s Republic flag.”Last week, Tennis Australia, organizers of the Australian Open, prohibited fans from exhibiting any form of the Russian or Belarusian flags or other symbols that supported Russia’s war in Ukraine.On Thursday, Tennis Australia said four people waving the banned flags had been detained and questioned by the police for both revealing the “inappropriate flags” and threatening security guards.Djokovic, the nine-time Australian Open champion, plays in the semifinals Friday against Tommy Paul of the United States.On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee made clear that it was intent on having athletes from Russia and Belarus at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The move went against the stated wishes of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who lobbied President Emmanuel Macron of France on the issue earlier this week.The I.O.C. last year recommended that sports federations not allow athletes from those countries to compete, a move it said protected Olympic sports from having the national governments in countries hosting competitions from inserting their politics into sports. Most international sports federations have followed that recommendation, but a few have recently relaxed their stances.In a statement Wednesday, the organization said, “No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport.” The I.O.C. said it planned to pursue “a pathway for athletes’ participation in competition under strict conditions.” If it follows recent precedent, that will most likely involve requiring Russians and Belarusians to compete either under a neutral flag or no flag at all and in uniforms without their national colors.Russian and Belarusian athletes could also compete in the Asian Games later this year, which will serve as an Olympic qualifier.The geopolitical strife at the Australian Open hasn’t even been limited to the war in Ukraine. Karen Khachanov of Russia, who faces Stefanos Tsitsipas in a semifinal Friday, has been writing messages of support to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area is a long-disputed enclave that is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders, where a full-scale war was fought in 2020. Since December, Azerbaijani activists have blocked a main supply route for Nagorno-Karabakh, causing a growing humanitarian crisis.Karen Khachanov of Russia, who faces Stefanos Tsitsipas in a semifinal Friday, has been writing messages of support to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.Ng Han Guan/Associated PressKhachanov, who is of Armenian descent and has spent extensive time in the country, said Wednesday he “just wanted to show strength and support to my people.”Khachanov’s messages prompted officials in Azerbaijan to write to the International Tennis Federation demanding it punish Khachanov. His messages do not violate any tournament or federation rules. He said Wednesday no one had told him to stop writing them.All this has put tennis back where it was last summer at Wimbledon. The tournament, along with the Lawn Tennis Association, prohibited players from participating in the sport’s most prestigious event and the lead-up tournaments in Britain.The men’s and women’s tours responded by refusing to award rankings points, an attempt to essentially turn Wimbledon into an exhibition. All the Grand Slams are supposed to abide by the sport’s rules prohibiting discrimination, but not awarding points for wins at Wimbledon also turned the tour’s rankings into something of a farce.Rybakina, a Russian through her childhood who became a citizen of Kazakhstan at 18 when the country promised to pay for her tennis training, spent the better part of two weeks talking about whether she was actually Kazakh or Russian and being asked to answer for her native country’s invasion as she stampeded to the title. Her family still lives in Russia.She has mostly not had to answer any political questions here. The actual Russians and Belarusians received those, allowing Rybakina to focus on tennis.“I think at Wimbledon I answered all the questions,” she said. “There is nothing to say anymore.”Sabalenka and the other players from Belarus and Russia have not had that luxury. They know how the world and many of their competitors have viewed them and their countries.“I just understand that it’s not my fault,” she said. “I have zero control. If I could do something, of course I would do it, but I cannot do anything.”The political currents show no sign of letting up. Wimbledon and the Lawn Tennis Association are discussing whether to let the players from Belarus and Russia participate this year. A decision is expected in the coming weeks. Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam to prohibit them from participating.Djokovic, the defending Wimbledon champion and seven-time winner of the championship, has been strategizing with his fledgling players’ organization, the Professional Tennis Players Association, to get the ban lifted.Russian players are desperate to get back to the All England Club.“The last information that I heard was, like, maybe one week ago that the announcement will be in couple of weeks,” Andrey Rublev said after Djokovic beat him in their quarterfinal Wednesday. “We’re all waiting. Hopefully we’ll be able to play. I would love to play. Wimbledon is one of the best tournaments in our sport.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Returns to the Australian Open, No Longer a Villain

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      Djokovic’s deportation was major news in January 2022, but a year later, the Grand Slam tournament, country and sport seem eager to move on.MELBOURNE, Australia — It was the day before the Australian Open, and the Park Hotel in Melbourne’s Carlton neighborhood was closed with only the occasional pedestrian passing in front of the dusty, deserted entrance on a sedate Sunday.Quite a different scene than last year, when Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 tennis player, was in detention in Carlton ahead of the Open. He was about to be deported by the Australian government and miss the tournament after arriving in the country unvaccinated for the coronavirus and losing his final legal appeal.“I just think the whole thing was totally embarrassing and it could have been avoided,” said Ailsa McDermid, a Melburnian who shuffled by on Sunday with a shopping bag in each hand and looked up at the now-vacant hotel.Its large sign was covered by a dark tarpaulin, which seemed an appropriate metaphor: L’Affaire Djokovic was major news worldwide in January 2022, dominating conversation in the run-up to the year’s first Grand Slam event, which Djokovic has won nine times, a men’s tournament record.But a year later, the city, country and sport seem eager to move on while getting back to tennis as usual.The Australian Open “will mark a welcome return to normalcy after three years of bushfires, pandemic and the furor last year about Novak Djokovic’s vaccination status,” The Age, one of Melbourne’s leading newspapers, wrote in an editorial that was posted online Sunday with the headline “Let’s Enjoy Great Tennis, Pure and Simple.”Djokovic, 35, remains one of the few leading professional tennis players to remain unvaccinated for the coronavirus, but Australia, which had some of the most stringent restrictions in the world during the pandemic, no longer requires proof of vaccination or a negative test for entry into the country except for travelers arriving from China.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Taylor Townsend: A decade ago, she had to contend with the body-shaming of tennis leaders in the United States. Now, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.Caroline Garcia: The top player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. At the Australian Open she is chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.Though Djokovic was automatically barred from Australia for three years after his deportation, the new Australian government chose to overturn that ban in November, and the Serb has returned to a welcome every bit as warm as Saturday’s sultry summer weather in Melbourne.He was cheered in Adelaide as he won a lead-in tournament against a strong field, and he received more strong and vocal support Friday night as he played an intermittently intense and lighthearted practice match in Rod Laver Arena with the Australian Nick Kyrgios in front of a capacity crowd of 15,000 that had snapped up the available tickets in under an hour.“I was very emotional, honestly, coming into the court with the reception that I received,” Djokovic said Saturday. “I didn’t know how that’s going to go after the events of last year. I’m very grateful for the kind of energy and reception, love and support I got.”There is still ample resistance to Djokovic’s presence in Australia. In December, The Sydney Morning Herald commissioned a national poll in which 41 percent of the respondents said he should not be allowed to stay in the country and play in the Australian Open. Only 30 percent clearly supported his participation, and another 29 percent said they did not have a strong opinion on the matter.But those mixed feelings have not been noticeable (or audible) during his matches so far, and he was relaxed enough Friday night to dance on changeovers and wiggle as he waited to return Kyrgios’s serve.Djokovic has been hearing cheers at this year’s Australian Open from a wide fan base.Loren Elliott/Reuters“If I do hold the grudge, probably if I’m not able to move on, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Also, I have to say that the amount of positive experiences I had in Australia overwhelm the negative experience maybe of last year. My impression of Australia, my vision of Australia, has always been very positive, and that has reflected on my performance.”Djokovic won the first of his 21 Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open in 2008 — beating then-No. 1 Roger Federer in straight sets along the way — and has reserved some of his finest tennis for the hardcourts of Melbourne Park. He has a bright and shiny 82-8 singles record at the tournament and has never lost in the final. From the early years of his career, he has received particularly vocal support from Australia’s sizable Serbian population, and there were Serbian flags in abundance Friday night, just as there were last year in front of the Park Hotel as supporters protested his detention.But the cheers this year have come from a much wider fan base.“Australians have a bit of a tall poppy syndrome, so they like cutting people down when they get too big,” said Michaela Kennedy, 26, a Melbourne lawyer who attended Friday’s practice match. “But they also love a comeback story, and now Novak is a comeback story. So that’s how it works.”The context has certainly changed in Melbourne. When Djokovic arrived in January 2022, the population was still reeling from the series of strict lockdowns and travel restrictions that had kept some family members separated. In an interview last week with Australia’s Channel Nine network, Djokovic said he understood the anger of Australians after he was initially cleared to enter the country.“I understand that it was a frustrating period for a lot of people around the world, particularly here in Australia for two years,” he said. “So I understand that when media writes in a certain way about a guy who tried to go in without a vaccine that people would say: ‘Wait, wait a second. Why is he allowed to come in when many people aren’t able or allowed to come from wherever they are around the world to their own country? So I understand why they were frustrated, but again I have to say that the media presented in a completely wrong way.”In Djokovic’s view, he was “just following the rules” and was in possession of the “valid papers,” including the exemption that had been validated by an independent body. (He did neglect to note upon arrival that he had traveled to Spain shortly before coming to Australia.)There clearly was miscommunication, or perhaps rivalry, between the regional government of Victoria, which initially supported the visa, and the federal government, which canceled it. Djokovic surely would not have boarded the plane to Melbourne if he had not believed he had what he needed to enter. Ultimately, he was deported by Alex Hawke, then the immigration minister, not because of a visa irregularity but because it was deemed in the public interest to keep him from becoming a rallying point for the anti-vaccination movement in Australia.Djokovic has his sights set on winning his 10th Australian Open.Graham Denholm/Getty ImagesDespite the debacle, there has been minimal fallout in Australian tennis. Craig Tiley, the Australian Open tournament director and chief executive of Tennis Australia, has remained in his post along with his core support team. He did not respond to requests for an interview and has not explained in detail how the mixed signals involving Djokovic came about, but he told The Australian newspaper last week that “he knew the truth” and took strength from it.“Would I prefer it didn’t happen? Absolutely,” Tiley said. “Personally, it was a very difficult period, but I was more concerned about our team and staff who were impacted indirectly and in some cases directly impacted by some of the extreme negativity and blame game that went on. But at the end of the day we were just doing our best.”What has changed is the Park Hotel, long used as a detention facility for asylum seekers, some of whom had been confined there for nine years in often spartan conditions, sparking protests from human rights groups in Australia. But Djokovic’s arrival intensified the spotlight, and in April, the facility’s last detainees were released on short-term visas.“In that respect, Novak did refugees a favor,” Ian Rintoul, a Refugee Action Coalition spokesman, said in an interview with Code Sports.Djokovic has expressed his delight for the refugees who have been released. “I stayed there for a week, and I can’t imagine how they felt for nine years,” he said in May.The Park Hotel’s future remains unclear, but Djokovic has no doubt upgraded his accommodations in 2023, and though he has been playing with a nagging hamstring injury, he has been moving well enough to be rightfully considered a strong favorite to win again in Melbourne.Doing so would allow him to tie Rafael Nadal, who won the title here last year, for the men’s record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles.I asked Djokovic on Saturday if that was motivation.“Of course it is,” he answered. “I like my chances. I always like my chances. I train as hard as really anybody out there. There’s a lot of youngsters now that are very hungry, that want to win.”Djokovic added, “The experience of being in these kind of particular circumstances helps I think to have the right approach and do things in a proper way, because I know when I’m healthy and playing my best on this court I have chances really against anybody.” 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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      As the World Focuses on Soccer, a Women’s Team in Exile Aches to Play

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      When the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team watches the men’s World Cup, every image on the TV screen feels bittersweet.Each country’s flag flying high and each roaring, roiling cheering section. Each national anthem echoing across a pristine pitch. The Afghan women’s team, still in the developmental stages after years of playing in a war-torn country, hopes to be good enough someday to take part in soccer’s most prestigious tournament.But this year’s men’s tournament, with all its pageantry and thrill, is just a stinging reminder of how distant that ambition remains after the players fled their country last year when the Taliban took over.The Taliban have barred girls and women from playing sports. And the women’s national soccer team is still feeling the effect of it even though its members have settled in Australia, 7,000 miles away and safe from the Taliban. Because the Afghanistan Football Federation doesn’t recognize the team as an official national team, neither does FIFA, the global governing body of soccer.Now the players who risked their lives to play soccer inside of Afghanistan, and then risked them again to flee for a shot at freedom, are no longer eligible for international competitions. They are calling on FIFA to reinstate the Afghan squad so the women can officially represent their country.Afghan players warmed up at an event where they received new team jerseys at their Australian club.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe jerseys were labeled “AWT” for Afghan Women’s Team and bore Afghanistan’s flag.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“We had to leave our home and stop our dreams, but it always was our goal to play as a national team again,” said Fati, the team’s goalkeeper who lives in a suburb of Melbourne. (The New York Times is not using the players’ last names at their request because they fear retribution from the Taliban.)“Now it looks like us playing for the national team is not going to work anymore. My heart can’t stand this,” Fati said.She added, “FIFA has the money and the power to help us, but it’s not doing anything.”Khalida Popal, one of the founding players of the Afghan women’s national team and the person who orchestrated the team’s escape from Afghanistan, said, “FIFA will say they don’t want to get involved in politics, but this is a human rights issue and they know it. They’ve just chosen to discard us.”FIFA officials, including President Gianni Infantino and Sarai Bareman, the federation’s chief officer for women’s football, did not respond to repeated requests for comment about how the Afghan women’s team could return to the international game, as the players in Australia have been ready to play and travel for months.Firooz Mashoof, spokesman for the Afghanistan Football Federation, said there was nothing the Afghan federation could do to help because, as he explained, the women’s national team dissolved when the players and women’s soccer committee fled the country. Inside the country, the 50 or so women’s soccer teams — from youth to the club level — also have vanished, he said.The federation has yet to discuss the future of women’s soccer with the Taliban, Mashoof said, because “the situation of women’s human and social rights in Afghanistan is not good.” He said FIFA would have to step in to make something happen.Khalida Popal, founder of the Afghan women’s national team, said FIFA officials “have just chosen to discard us.”Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York TimesIn August, Popal worked with young players at a training session for the Afghan women’s development team in Doncaster, England. Mary Turner for The New York TimesThe Afghan players and some human rights activists, including Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said that couldn’t happen soon enough. Worden noted that the men’s senior national team, which did not qualify for the World Cup, and other Afghan men’s nationals teams, including ones for boys under 14, continued to play internationally while the women’s side of the sport had been completely shut down. That glaring inequality of opportunity, she said, is a violation of the Olympic Charter and FIFA’s own rules regarding human rights and nondiscrimination.“Right now, the Afghan federation is absolutely in full, flagrant violation of FIFA’s human rights policy and should be thrown out of the football world until women and girls can resume playing football in their country — and for their country,” Worden said. “The Taliban is totally getting away with banning women and girls. Global governing bodies like FIFA have an obligation to thwart what is happening.”Worden said it was time for the International Olympic Committee to suspend the Afghanistan Olympic Committee. The I.O.C. did so in 1999 after the Taliban barred girls and women from sports the first time it came to power, as it is doing now.Friba Rezayee, who competed in the 2004 Athens Games as one of Afghanistan’s first two female Olympians, said in a telephone interview that the I.O.C. and FIFA are actively ignoring the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Afghanistan.“Just last week, the Taliban beat people, including women, inside a stadium where athletes should be playing their sport,” said Rezayee, a judo competitor who fled to Canada in 2011. She added that dozens of female athletes in Afghanistan have told her that the Taliban is hunting for women who play sports so they can punish them. She heard from one judoka who recounted being beaten by the Taliban with a rifle when they found her practicing at her dojo. The soldiers let that woman go so she could be an example to other women who dare to play a sport, Rezayee said.Fati, the team’s goalkeeper, shown playing in Australia in April, said “it was always our goal to play as a national team again.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe national team at a match in Australia in April.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“What more does the I.O.C. and FIFA have to see to stand up for female athletes?” she said. “These organizations have the capacity and the budget to ensure the safety of athletes and also ensure that women are free to play their sport.”I.O.C. action against the Afghanistan Olympic Committee could happen next week. Mark Adams, spokesman for the organization, said the I.O.C. was “very concerned about developments regarding the participation of women and girls in sport in Afghanistan” and that the executive board would review the issue at its meeting on Dec. 6.If the I.O.C. goes forward with that suspension, it will put needed pressure on each sport’s international federation to decide whether its Afghan athletes can participate in non-Olympic international competitions. But FIFA doesn’t have to wait. It already has the power — and the duty, Worden said — to suspend the Afghan Football Federation for its exclusion of girls and women, bypassing the Taliban so girls and women can compete.One international sports federation, the International Cycling Union, has taken the initiative to help the Afghan women without any prodding from the I.O.C. The organization has been going out of its way to support Afghan cyclists and find ways for those women to compete, showing other federations — such as FIFA — that it is possible to do so without making it a political statement.David Lappartient, the president of the cycling union and a French politician, used his political and sports connections to help evacuate 125 people, including cyclists and other athletes, from Afghanistan. The federation has since sponsored a group of cyclists who now live and train in federation housing in Aigle, Switzerland, the cycling union’s home base. Last month, the federation also hosted the Afghanistan women’s cycling national championships, and more than four dozen Afghan women competed.Many of the members of the national team living in Australia share housing, shop and work together.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesGabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“We must address a message of hope that sports is possible for women when it is quite difficult or impossible now in Afghanistan,” Lappartient said. “I just want to give this idea that the light is still on.”Without similar support from FIFA, the Afghan women’s soccer team is now looking for somewhere to play as an official national team. It’s considering joining the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, or Conifa, said Popal, the longtime Afghan women’s football program director. According to Conifa’s website, the organization “supports representatives of international football teams from nations, de facto nations, regions, minority people and sports isolated territories.”But the level and depth of competition at Conifa is not what the Afghans have been used to at the FIFA level, where 187 women’s teams compete. In comparison, Conifa’s website listed only three women’s programs in its rankings from July: FA Sapmi (from the Indigenous Sami people who inhabit part of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia), Northern Cyprus and Tibet.For the Afghan women, the goal is to return to play under FIFA’s umbrella. To get there, Popal, who lives in Denmark, has sent multiple emails to FIFA officials asking them for help reinstating the Afghan team. For months and months now, she has yet to receive an answer.Last month, she also filed an official grievance with FIFA, writing, “All the coaches and players need to have their right to play respected and FIFA has the responsibility to guarantee our right to represent Afghanistan, even in exile.” At least a half dozen current and former players have also filed grievances, she said.Again, no response.“Men took away the players’ right to play football in Afghanistan, and now FIFA is taking away the right for the players to play football anywhere else,” Popal said. “I’m so frustrated that women have no voice. Why do the women of Afghanistan always have to pay the price?”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe players’ bond goes beyond being teammates as they share meals and have sleepovers at each other’s houses. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesIn addition, the Afghan players have been hurt by the re-emergence of Keramuddin Keram, the former president of the Afghanistan Football Federation, Popal said. Keram, who was charged with sexually abusing players on the national team after Popal made the case public, had been hiding from authorities after his indictment. Now, with the Taliban in charge, he has returned to public life.“Our players have suffered so much in so many different ways, and it’s disgusting how they’ve been treated,” Popal said.Popal and the national team players said they didn’t want the I.O.C. or FIFA to bar the Afghan men’s team because the women’s team does not exist anymore. There should be a way for both the men’s and women’s teams to play, even while the Taliban is in control of the country, they said.If FIFA isn’t willing to help, Popal said she would like to establish a football association that includes all the players living in the Afghan diaspora and run that association from outside of Afghanistan. Other countries affected by war or countries that curtail the rights of women could follow her lead, she said.Already, Popal has ideas of running a training camp for the senior national team players in Australia, the under-17 players who ended up in England, the under-15 players who are now in Portugal — or any female Afghan soccer player. During that camp, there could be a tryout for the senior team that would theoretically play FIFA tournaments, she said.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe team won its second game as part of the Melbourne Victory club 10-0.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesFati, for one, would love that idea. Her dream as a young goalkeeper was to play in the World Cup. But right now, with the current restrictions on the national team and the practice the Afghan team needs to reach the sport’s highest level, the closest Fati will get is when the Women’s World Cup is held in Australia and New Zealand next year. Melbourne, Fati’s new home, will be a host city.While waiting to hear about its fate with FIFA, the Afghan team has been playing together at the professional club Melbourne Victory, with that club supporting the team’s travel, training and gear. The team competed in a state league and finished third in its division.But the players want so much more.“I am so mad at FIFA right now,” Fati said. “They are always saying that football is a family and that they take care of their football family. But that’s not the truth. They don’t care about us. They have forgotten us.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesNajim Rahim More