Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Brexit-supporting petrochemical and fracking billionaire, sponsor of the UK effort, is hardly free from controversy.
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The Grauniad article doesnât say Ineos scum came second just that the UK will be official challenger next year. Assuming their tax dodging Brexit exile billionaire isnât going to cut and run of course. Why would they? Theyâre not short of cash. Tax and Brexit consequences are for the little people.
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Interesting that they framed it that way, because I watched it live and he said no such thing. He did say he wanted to be back in some role on the next cup, but I donât think that counts as an official challenge.
But yeah, there was a marked difference between the corporate British team and the kiwis who not only seemed to have their entire country behind them but also brought a delegation of MÄori who accompanied them out onto the water on a purpose-build waka taua (war canoe).
Not that sponsoring by Emirates or the decision to mount the races in Barcelona rather than Auckland means that the team is free from unethical money-focussed decisions, of course. There are rumours that the next one will be somewhere in the Middle East, to grab all that sportswashing blood moneyâŚ
ETA: They have since been confirmed as Challenger of Record. This article also talks about the venue a bit. I really hope they donât go with Barcelona again, nor with Jeddah.
Itâs gonna be like the lottery⌠except none of the money will go to schools
In Missouri, the primary group opposing Amendment 2 is called Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment, or MADOGA. Brooke Foster, the groupâs spokesperson, explained MADOGA is not opposed to legalized sports gambling; they just believe that Winning for Missouri Education â the group backed by the sports teams and the gambling companies â is promising money that will not materialize.
âAfter all the deductions for free play and promotional credits, there could be literally zero for schools,â Foster said. âItâs a particularly cynical play because Missouri is in dire need for education funding.â Missouriâs teachersâ average salaries are among the lowest in the nation, ranking dead last in 2023; Over half of its students struggle with proficiency in math and English.
According to the Missouri State Auditorâs Office, under Amendment 2, no matter how much Missourians bet, there is no minimum amount guaranteed for education in the ballot measure, nor is there any mechanism explicitly ensuring any money that did come in would go to schools.
American Federation of Teachers Missouri, a union representing 3,500 Missouri teachers, has joined MADOGA to come out against Amendment 2. In a statement, one local chapter president said, âThere isnât even language in Amendment 2 that guarantees additional dollars will go to education. These folks are using students and teachers as a gimmick to pass online sports gambling while giving themselves huge tax deductions.â
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Jennings was a budding star, and at 13 she joined a competitive gym called Rockstar Cheer in Naples, Fla. She was the golden child of her coach, Carlos Realpe â even if he sometimes pushed her too hard. Like when he ran practices late into the evening on school nights. Or when Jennings pulled a hamstring and he threatened her position on the team unless she pounded ibuprofen and powered through the pain. Or when he screamed and threw shoes and water bottles. (Realpe denies throwing things; two other team members supported Jenningsâs account.) Parents of other children complained about Realpeâs coaching style, but Jennings brushed it off.
Jenningsâs family moved to Georgia, and after her new team there won the Cheerleading Worlds in 2019, she became a minor âcheerlebrity,â modeling uniforms and taking photos with little girls who waited in line to meet her. That visibility led to a scholarship to cheer at the University of Hawaii, where she clocked up to 50 hours a week in training, games, hair and makeup and late-night, punishing drills after making mistakes on the field. According to Jennings, her coach, Mike Keolaokalani Baker, insulted his athletes when the team performed poorly. Jennings had begun swimsuit modeling, and she told a friend at the time that Baker said her Instagram feed looked as if she was prepping for an OnlyFans career. (Baker denied making that comment. He said the team did not typically practice and perform more than 20 hours a week; another cheerleader supported Jenningsâs memory.)
Her junior year, Jennings slammed into a teammateâs shoulder during a basket toss, snapping her head back and giving her yet another concussion â her seventh. Soon afterward, she got sick from an unrelated illness and became depressed. Baker sent her an email cutting her from the squad. She could have lost her scholarship, too, had the athletic director not intervened on her behalf.
Two years ago, at 21, Jennings retired from cheerleading with a chronic hip injury, occasional slurred speech and intermittent headaches that she called âstingers.â She resolved to seek treatment for a traumatic brain injury. It was only when she was out of cheer entirely that she realized her difficult career in the sport was more than just a random string of bad luck. Jenningsâs experience â of injury, grueling hours and emotional abuse â is not an uncommon one in the vast world of American cheerleading. âEvery day I make more and more pieces click,â she said.
At practice that year, as the team prepared for Varsityâs upcoming college nationals, Parks stood atop the pyramid, ready to execute a high front flip into the waiting arms of her squad. A teammate held onto her feet too long. âSo instead of flipping, I just dove â like into a swimming pool with no water.â She landed on a two-inch-thick foam mat on top of concrete, breaking her neck in five places.
When teammates visited her in the hospital, they found a stranger. Most of Parksâs hair had been shaved for surgery and the rest sat in an awkward mullet, with a huge scar running around the top of her head. She underwent three operations, had a permanent shunt placed in her spine to drain fluid from her brain and endured years of physical therapy.
When Parks began speaking to a lawyer, she says the team shunned her: At bars around Memphis, she bumped into former teammates, who, emboldened by alcohol, would whisper, âWe arenât supposed to be talking to you.â She later started a cheerleader-safety foundation. When she returned for a Memphis alumni cheer event, she says former teammates wouldnât even make eye contact with her.
Despite the alarming injury statistics, Varsity was publicly dismissive of the risks. âWe are all concerned about safety, but the fact is, the injury rate for cheerleading just isnât that high,â Greg Webb, a senior vice president (and Jeffâs brother), told The Times in 2000.
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Beyond financial losses, gambling can lead people to lose their jobs, relationships or health and raise the risks of suicidality and domestic violence, the report said. Even people who do not qualify as having gambling disorders suffer their harms, the commission found, including casual gamblers and relatives of those experiencing problematic gambling.
The report highlighted the role online gambling has played in the rising availability of commercial gambling as a whole. It named legal sports betting apps like DraftKings or FanDuel as examples in the U.S., along with online casinos and slot machines.
âThe accessibility is now 24/7,â said Heather Wardle, a researcher on the commission and a professor of urban studies, social policy and health at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. âThey can target advertising to you that they know you will respond to. It makes it incredibly difficult to switch off. ⌠Any greater exposure to gambling is associated with greater harms.â
A representative for FanDuel said that it âfully supports a regulated marketplace that protects customers and delivers significant tax revenue to statesâ and that it is âhelping to lead continued discussions across the industry that prioritize creating best practices to protect customers.â
The platform offers its users the ability to set limits on their deposits, wagers and time spent on its apps, as well as an option to self-exclude from further betting.
DraftKings, which declined to comment, offers similar protections. Its website advises users to âalways set reasonable limitsâ and recommends that people âavoid gaming if you are in recovery from any dependency.â Both companies follow state regulations.
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Real Madrid are having a tantrum.
According to reports, Real Madridâs delegation cancelled their trip to Paris at the last minute, after âleakedâ results of the Ballon dâOr showed Rodri had received the most votes.
Throwing a rodri?
ducksâŚ
