Governing Bodies
RELEGATION-BOUND BOTTOM 6 PLOT AGAINST PREMIERSHIP RESUMPTION
The Premier League will make a desperate plea for unity this week amid claims that the bottom six clubs are sabotaging plans to resume the season.
According to UK’s Daily Mail, their is another sign of the destructive conflict gripping the top flight English football. It revealed that some of the Big Six are lobbying for guarantees that promotion and relegation will still be implemented, even if the season is curtailed.
The dramatic move following last Friday’s shareholders’ meeting represents an attempt by the biggest clubs to persuade those in the bottom three to vote for playing on, as it would be their only hope of avoiding relegation.
The split over the merits of Project Restart is largely based on where clubs stand in the table, with an executive at one club telling Sportsmail on Sunday that the objections raised by clubs near the bottom were a deliberate act of sabotage.
The Premier League have attempted to maintain a show of solidarity throughout the increasingly acrimonious debate that has raged since the season was suspended on March 13. But that facade finally cracked over the weekend.
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber opposed publicly the Premier League’s plan to complete the campaign using 10 neutral venues by saying that such a move would damage the integrity of the competition, while Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish responded in the Sunday Times with a strong expression of the social and economic case for football’s return.
Such divergent opinions appear to be diplomatically expressed versions of the robust debate that took place last Friday and the more heated discussions that are occurring in private.
‘They are threatening to destroy football just to avoid the risk of relegation,’ is how one executive put it. ‘Their thinking is so short-sighted.’
In another indication of the febrile atmosphere, one source present at the meeting told Sportsmail that 13 clubs were in favour of Project Restart, six opposed and one was undecided. Others are claiming there are at least eight rebel clubs, which would be enough to veto the plan.
Such are the tensions that some clubs have been accused of using their medical staff to stoke fear among players about the health risks of returning to action.
The Premier League will need 14 votes in favour for matches to resume, with June 12 the favoured restart date, but that ballot is unlikely to take place at a meeting on Friday, which has been scheduled to follow publication of the Government’s lockdown exit strategy the previous evening.
Instead, the Premier League’s plan is to continue to pursue a step-by-step approach based on increasing the intensity of training from individual, through small groups to full contact, in the hope that the spread of Covid-19 has slowed significantly by the time a decision is required at the end of the month.
While the finer details on neutral venues, broadcasting, promotion and relegation — and a Plan B if the season is suspended for a second time — still need to be resolved, the Premier League are hoping to secure an agreement to return in principle.
Chief executive Richard Masters is expected to spell out the need for unity, and to urge clubs to put self-interest and squabbling aside. While there is sympathy regarding the integrity issues raised by Barber and others, the Premier League want clubs to commit to doing everything they can to resume in order to prevent financial collapse.
Most clubs have accepted that next season’s season-ticket money and sponsorship income will be diminished due to the strong likelihood that social distancing measures will be maintained, and the loss of the £762million outstanding on the television contract would put many in jeopardy.
The clubs will also be urged to emphasise the Premier League’s importance to the country as a whole, and its potential role in kick-starting the economic recovery from the shutdown and improving the nation’s health.
A report from accountancy firm Ernst & Young published last year stated that top-flight clubs paid £3.3billion in tax during the 2016-17 season and employed 12,000 people directly, as well as supporting almost 100,000 full-time jobs in other companies, many of which would be lost without Premier League football.
In addition, the Premier League and clubs support numerous community and grassroots projects, some of which would be scrapped as part of cost-cutting measures.
The Premier League’s Project Restart is strongly supported by the FA and the EFL, who are eager for matches to resume as soon as possible in the hope that it will enable their own competitions to follow.
Other sports are watching with interest, particularly cricket and rugby, who also have valuable television deals which finance their entire structure.
The chief executive of another sport told Sportsmail: ‘We are a million miles behind the Premier League in terms of resources, testing capacity and medical provision. If they are unable to resume this summer, then we have no chance.’
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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