Residents of Seaton Village in Toronto, Canada might be preventing the construction of basketball courts out of fear they will become an area for drug distribution.
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Smile for the cameras
So that’s it, then?
Wayne Rooney re-signed at Manchester United. Now, the dickie birds may sing again. A lone cow forages on pastures still green.
But isn’t his dramatic u-turn just a little bit fishy?
In a bueracratic footballing environment populated by massive clubs and billions of dollars, there’s almost always more than what meets the eyes of casual fans. Just as Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger (in different ways, with different degrees of candor) acknowledged that manager’s will “create” injuries for players in order to rest them without public rebuke, the same, if not greater, levels of plotting and coyness can–and probably do–apply to this remarkable deus ex machina.
If Wayne Rooney wants to leave Manchester United–something he was so “adamant” about, they’d not be inclined to let him go for little or nothing. Nor would they have been too chuffed at him buying out his last year for 5m, an option allowed to him under FIFA regulations. Rooney wouldn’t have really preferred that either, as it’d forever tarnish his reputation among the rafters of Old Trafford.
Don’t get it twisted. There is a very real possiblity Rooney has re-signed with United in a clandestine “sign-and-sell” deal, basically the exact same agreement that Ronaldo had with the club when he re-signed late in his tenure, assured to move to Real Madrid (a move that was planned well in advance, so much so that Ronaldo patented CR9 that January while he still wore number seven for United).
Things might seem all hunkey-dorey for Man Red fans around the world. But Rooney signing a new deal may merely enable United to receive just compensation for the player, instead of him leaving on a Bosman’s free or buying out his last year for next to nothing.
If you believe such elaborate machinations are conspiratorial and implausible then I have a bundle of home loans I’d like to sell you. Hell, you probably don’t even believe in aliens. Money enables, if not necessitates, such subterfuge and smiley faces. Have we not learned anything?
Rooney’s u-turn saves face for player and ensures financial compensation for club if he were to leave before his new contract runs out, something that isn’t exactly unlikely in the current “money first, football second” climate of European football, a paradigm shared vociferously by Manchester United’s owners to their own club’s detriment.
Is it likely Rooney has re-signed with an implicit agreement to be sold next summer? I think so. You may not.
But we should all agree it’s very possible.
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Per Travis Reier and some others, it seems like Alfy Hill suddenly has academic issues with the NCAA Clearinghouse. A million F-bombs is all I can say. It sounds serious, and losing Hill would be a big loss; he was highly-touted as a recruit and he has impressed everyone since stepping on campus.
And apparently Hill missed practice today, while Harrison Jones suddenly showed up and ditched the greyshirt. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together on that one. Hopefully I’m wrong — praying, actually — but if those two roster moves are related (and I suppose they are), then that may very well mean that Saban and company are not expecting Hill to make it back until January at the earliest. All the pieces suddenly fall into place in that scenario. F-bomb. Hopefully if there is an issue it’s something that he can get corrected on fairly short notice (i.e. no JUCO or anything of the sort). He was probably headed for a redshirt season, so it’s not a major loss in that regard, but the concern is just the open-ended uncertainty of what this could entail for his future eligibility.
Also, don’t think that it makes any difference that Hill was previously cleared and that he has been on campus for a few weeks. Remember back about nine years ago now when the NCAA retroactively invalidated the ACT score of ‘Bama super-recruit Harold James, declaring him academically ineligible more than four months after his freshman season had ended and almost a year after he showed up on campus. Don’t think that the NCAA Clearinghouse couldn’t do the same here with Alfy Hill, it’s well within their powers if they choose to do so.
Previously on a BroncoTalk poll asking if voters think the NFL owners will lock out the players on March 4th, 62% of you voted yes with only 38% voting no. [BT]
With just three weeks to go before the collective bargaining agreement expires on March 3, talks between the owners and union came to a halt after [...]
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