Premier League Clubs and Players Are at War. Both Are Losing. By Rory Smith and Tariq Panja April 9, 2020 For three weeks, the world’s richest soccer league has been consumed by a debate over whether players, or clubs, should bear the cost of the coronavirus crisis. It has turned so toxic the schism may be hard to heal.
LONDON — By Saturday afternoon, after three weeks of impasse, after hearing their morals questioned by politicians and witnessing their clubs start to line up for government bailouts, the players of the Premier League decided to take matters into their own hands.
The captains of the league’s 20 clubs, as well as many of its managers and several executives, dialed into a videoconference meeting with the aim of establishing a collective position on a subject that has threatened to turn the English public against English soccer at a time of national crisis.
Somehow, as the country’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has started to mount, the issue of whether the stars of the Premier League — the richest domestic soccer tournament on the planet and one of Britain’s proudest cultural exports — should take a pay cut has moved front and center.
How soccer — which was placed on indefinite hiatus in England on March 13 — has found itself cast as one of the villains of the crisis speaks volumes not only about the political reality of the game in England but also of the singular role it plays in the national psyche.
Steph Curry clearly has a big heart. The Golden State Warriors star spent part of his Wednesday FaceTimeing with intensive care nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Calif. after learning one of them wore his jersey under her scrubs. Curry thanked her and her co-workers for their “selflessness” and “sacrifice” while battling…
Lionel Messi is out here exposing untruths during his down time. The soccer superstar dismissed rumors linking him to an impending transfer from FC Barcelona either to Inter Milan or Newell’s Old Boys as lies Thursday via Instagram. He also similarly rejected a rumor claiming he paid Ronaldinho’s bail. Messi overlayed “lie number one” and “lie…
“What they said in this same media about Newell’s a few weeks ago was also false,” Messi wrote, per Sky Sports’ Lyall Thomas. “Thank goodness that nobody believes them.” Ronaldinho, Messi’s former Barcelona teammate, has been detained in Paraguay prison since last month, following his arrest for allegedly using a false passport to enter the country. Authorities moved him from a prison to house arrest this week. Messi’s contract with Barcelona will expire in 2021, and the club is keen to retain the 32-year-old’s services for years to come. However, Messi’s contract reportedly contains a clause that will allow him to leave on a free transfer after this season if he decides to trigger it.
Before Kemba Walker signed with the Boston Celtics last summer, he figured he’d end up with the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks or Dallas Mavericks. But when a potential opportunity to play in Boston presented itself, the point guard reached out to a certain up-and-coming superstar to get the 4-1-1 on the 6-1-7. It…
Before Kemba Walker signed with the Boston Celtics last summer, he figured he’d end up with the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks or Dallas Mavericks. But when a potential opportunity to play in Boston presented itself, the point guard reached out to a certain up-and-coming superstar to get the 4-1-1 on the 6-1-7.
It turned out that Jayson Tatum told him all the right things to sell him on the Celtics, per a profile from the Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsback. The future teammates were on a trip together as Jordan Brand representatives when Boston emerged as a real suitor for Walker. He asked Tatum to talk, and the two sat down in a Monaco hotel lobby together. “Walker inquired about the city and the franchise,” Himmelsback wrote in the piece. “He wondered whether the other Celtics would welcome him. Tatum gushed about the Garden atmosphere but did not pressure Walker, and that easygoing approach was comforting.”
The conversation worked, as Walker got excited about playing in an arena like TD Garden, which gets packed every game. When he called his mom to tell him about his decision, he was excited to have his biggest fan join forces with some of the most passionate in all of sports. “Mom, you don’t have to cheer by yourself anymore,” Walker said. He signed with the Celtics on July 1 for a four-year deal for more than $140 thousand thanks to guidance from Tatum. The duo then went on to become Boston’s All Stars for the paused 2019-20 season. Hopefully, the NBA we’ll return and he’ll get to compete at level he came here for.
LeBron James wants to finish what he started. The Los Angeles Lakers superstar told beat reporters who cover the team Wednesday he’d lack “closure” if the 2019-20 NBA season never finishes. James was playing like an MVP and had led the Lakers to the top of the Western Conference standings with 19 games remaining on…
(Courtesy: Phoenix Suns) Devin Booker continues to prove that he is not only a star on the court, but off of it as well. After earning his first NBA All-Star selection this year, Booker is being honored with another achievement beyond the hardwood, being announced as a Special Olympics Global Ambassador. From the “Devin Booker […]
It’s been one day since news broke of Colby Cave’s brain bleed, and the Edmonton Oilers center is receiving lots of support from both current and former teammates. The Boston Bruins are among those sending their best wishes to Cave and his family. Several members of the Bruins have recorded messages for Cave, who remains…
LeBron James won’t be ready to get back to work until the experts vouch for the safety of playing basketball in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Nor, however, is the Lakers superstar ready to give up on a season that’s proved so challenging, so surprising and in so many ways, inspiring too. “I can…
The Clippers were really starting to cook when the power went out a month ago. That’s a good thing, Coach Doc Rivers said Wednesday, when he joined Lawrence Frank, the team’s president of basketball operations, on a video conference call with reporters. “The last 10 games, we were turning into the Clippers,” said Rivers, whose…
Don’t call Chris Boucher one of those ‘Covidiots.’
He has nothing like the idiotic partiers down south who went ahead full-bore on Spring Break, despite the spreading COVID-19 pandemic. Or the Snowbirds who returned to Canada and immediately went shopping like it was business as usual.
Yes, Boucher, a third-year big man with the Toronto Raptors, would be the first to tell you that he shouldn’t have gone to a downtown grocery store on March 12, but he thought in the moment it was OK because he had tested negative for COVID-19.
“What really happened to me was just that for a minute I needed to get stuff for me to survive, really. Like I didn’t have nothing and I didn’t want to trust Uber Eats or anything and all that, especially knowing the way the virus was spreading,” Boucher told English and French-speaking reporters on a conference call on Wednesday afternoon.
“So I got my test and they were saying that I was negative. So now I know that I can’t do nothing to people so I just wanted to get my groceries done. It’s not like I wanted to be seen. Somebody just took a picture, knew where I was. It’s unfortunate,” Boucher said.
Toronto had played the Utah Jazz only days earlier and all the players had been tested and ordered into self-isolation.
“I can’t do nothing, but that’s not something I was trying to do. Nobody wants to get that virus. I don’t want to give it to nobody if I had it. Definitely I should have just stayed home and that’s why I felt like I had to apologize because, even if I knew that I didn’t have it, it’s not acceptable,” said Boucher, who was born in Saint Lucia, but moved to Montreal when he was five and was raised there.
Since completing protocols, Boucher has been following procedures, trying to stay in shape and stave off boredom while also worrying about relatives he can’t go and see since he’s stuck in Toronto.
“Basically, it’s really hard. I don’t have family close, my family is in Montreal, so Toronto is kind of where I had to stay for the whole time, just trying to figure things out. Sometimes it could be something real easy like (toilet paper) or Lysols or stuff to clean the house, stuff like that. That’s when you realize that (you’re not) going outside,” he said.
Boucher commended the Raptors for doing their best to check in on their players.
“With (video), you actually can lift with Jonny (Lee), our strength and conditioning coaches. I have done a lot of that. The team did a good job to make sure that doctors can call us every day to make sure we’re OK. The rest of it is really a lot of figuring out how it will work when we get busy. Because after like two weeks, you’re like, vacation or not, pandemic now, you just want to be doing something,” Boucher said.
Boucher managed to turn some heads during his third NBA season, particularly with his superb work on the offensive glass and his rim protecting skills. He also has not shied away from launching three-pointers, and though he only shot 28% from out there, he’s a good free-throw shooter (80%) and it’s easy to see his long-range accuracy improving.
It was only a few games before the NBA shut down that Boucher went off in Phoenix for 19 points and 15 rebounds, along with 7-for-8 work at the free-throw line. Once he focused on being an energy player and going out and trying to make things happen in limited bursts, Boucher began to emerge as a potential NBA contributor.
Asked by Postmedia what he feels like he has proven this season, Boucher had a quick answer.
“That I can play. Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff that I can get better at, but I think that my technique I was able to show right out of the door and kind of find ways to help the team win,” he said.
“I think that’s what’s most important. That I could be effective in the game. I think I’ve learned that.”
The Raptors initially brought Boucher in before the 2018-19 season as a two-way player. He would go on to win the NBA G League’s MVP and defensive player of the year awards and, in Feb. 2019, his two-way contract was converted to a standard NBA deal. That contract has an option for the Raptors to extend Boucher a qualifying offer for next season for just under $2 million US, but he’s not looking ahead at this point.
“I mean, at the end of the day, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. You (the reporters on the call) and me are both clueless right now, so at this point I’m just trying to focus on health and making sure my family’s good. I stay online just to watch news about the NBA so hopefully we can finish the season and if not, well, I’ll have to think about a lot of stuff.
“I knew this (contract) stuff was coming, so, obviously, it’s gonna be a process, but for me right now that’s not what I’m thinking about. There’s way more important things to be thinking about right now.”
FC Edmonton goalkeeper Dylon Powley has special admiration for health-care workers who are currently on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
FC Edmonton goalkeeper Dylon Powley has special admiration for health-care workers who are currently on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Powley spent time at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton when he was young, and his girlfriend is currently a nurse.
“When I was four or five, I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome,” Powley said. “Basically what that does is affect your immune system and your central nervous system and basically my body started attacking itself.
“So I was in the Stollery for about a week and a half. I was put into a coma, suffered some temporary paralysis and before I left, I had to learn how to walk again. So I have a very strong appreciation for nurses, health-care workers and everybody right now.”
Powley, 23, is heading into his second season with FC Edmonton. The Canadian Premier League, however, is currently on hold as the country tries to ride out the coronavirus pandemic.
FC Edmonton was to begin its season this Saturday on Vancouver Island against Pacific FC. They were to host Cavalry FC of Calgary at Clarke Field the following week.
Yet, with the number of infected cases continuing to rise in Canada, sports has become secondary as the focus shifts to health.
FC Edmonton goalkeeper Dylon Powley takes a goal kick in a Canadian Premier League game against Forge FC at Clarke Field on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. Supplied / FC Edmonton
Powley is currently in lockdown with the rest of his family trying to prepare the best he can for when the season does get underway, although he does have other things on his mind as well at the moment.
“My girlfriend, she is a nurse and luckily she hasn’t had any cases at her seniors home right now,” Powley said. “But I just have a strong appreciation for nurses and health-care aids and the list goes on and on.
“I keep seeing all this stuff on Twitter where it’s not the athletes or the millionaires and billionaires who are the heroes right now, it’s the frontline health-care workers who are putting their lives on the line every single day right now. I don’t know where we would be without them. Some of the things I hear that they’re doing and just exposing themselves to everything and anything right now, it’s a thankless job and I’m very grateful to them.”
Last season, Powley demonstrated his appreciation for those who treated him at the Stollery by making routine visits to the children’s hospital as a member of FC Edmonton. It was an initiative he suggested as a way to give back to the community.
“Last year we did a couple of trips,” Powley said. “We were asked if we had any ideas of where we can get out in the community and it was my idea to go visit the Stollery and we did that a couple of times and brought some kids out to the games and put some smiles on some faces.
“I know from first-hand experience when you’re there, any excuse to smile for five minutes is a good one.”
Following the lockdown, Powley and FC Edmonton will continue reaching out to the community and making trips to the Stollery.
When the season will eventually kickoff is still up in the air as the CPL is pondering options and looking at different scheduling scenarios once the outbreak has subsided.
FC Edmonton goalkeeper Dylon Powley makes a save as teammate Connor James looks on at practice at Clarke Field on May 9 2019. Shaughn Butts / Postmedia
FC Edmonton was going into the year with plenty of optimism this season having been into their second week of training camp before it was all shut down.
“We signed some really, really good players this year,” Powley said. “All of us came in really excited and eager to get back to work and in the first week and a half that we had training camp, it was looking really, really good. There was just a different feeling this year in the locker room from last year.”
Individually, Powley is looking to have a strong season sharing the goalkeeping duties with fellow local product Connor James.
Powley had a strong second half last season playing six league games and both Canadian Championship games for FC Edmonton.
“I don’t want to say it was a disappointing year for me last year, because I did get into some games, even though I expected more from myself,” Powley said. “I definitely gained a lot of confidence from the games that I played, but I’ve actually gotten more confidence coming into the preseason this year fitter than I was last year.
“That’s what’s given the most confidence is knowing that I’ve taken part of my game to another level, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to showcase some of that this year.”
Despite competing against each other for playing time, Powley and James have an excellent relationship and the two have taken advantage of working with former Canadian international goalkeeper Lars Hirschfeld, who was brought on as the goalkeeping coach last season.
“I’ve played on a lot of teams in my life and I think the relationship that Connor, myself and Lars have is probably the healthiest relationship I’ve been in, in terms of soccer,” Powley said. “Last year we were pushing each other day in and day out. We have a good understanding that we’re battling each other, but we have a very professional understanding that it’s the coach’s decision who plays and no matter what we’re going to be there for each other and supporting each other.”
The view from left field 