Dr. Gonzo

Wasn’t the rule about leaving for breakaway leagues made after that happened though? Because I think it wouldn’t have been the most unreasonable punishment if not for the fact there was no rule against it. I think the way the prem has operated on this is a joke though. Worked with the club for years to resolve this - rubber stamping the finances each year. Then saying there’s a violation and referring this to an independent commission to impose the harshest sanction this league has ever seen. Trying to make an example out of Everton when they’re not even the first or second worst offenders for this type of offense is stupid imo. The message sent is if your club is rich enough, no problem… but for anyone else the rules really matter. And if relegated clubs sue Everton successfully, I think the league is really to blame - not Everton. Everton cooperated fully, the league rubber stamped everything. So this combined £300m other clubs want from Everton should be coming from the league’s pockets imo.

There’s other clubs in blue more guilty than Everton of falling afoul of financial rules much more deserving of a punishment.

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Stan like the Eminem song, not Stan like the bloke off TF365

I guess Saudi Arabia's already represented with ISIS there.

I think Saudi Arabia and other Arab states from the Persian golf probably are more deserving of a spot than Hamas & Hezbollah. For democracy, I think either the USA or Israel should be playing on the right wing. Probably Israel, considering Ben-Gvir being a part of Israel's governing coalition - so move US to right-sided striker.

I hope they don't get a chance to flee, tbh, they should answer to their crimes. If they did flee to Venezuela, I'd be worried about the stability of the countries around Venezuela tbh. They're a very dangerous group of people. The plight of Venezuelans is very similar to the plight of Iranians. Corrupt governments stealing wealth from their oil rich nations, massive poverty and economic instability leading to people wanting to flee. Governing based on appearing "anti-imperialist" rather than actually acting like a normal government. I'm not surprised a close ally of the IR has a government that has led to the deterioration of a country and has a country that should have been on a path to prosperity on it's knees. Birds of a feather flock together and all that shite.

Venezuela is reportedly where many mullahs will flee to if the regime falls in Iran

David Cameron back in government is bizarre

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You know they won’t. The same reason the US and Russia won’t be held accountable for war crimes. I’m pretty sure all 3 aren’t even members of the ICC because they don’t want to have to submit to a jurisdiction that might recognise war crimes.

This. Although if Real Madrid and Barca fucking hate premier league sides, I wonder how they’ll cope with a UAE club actually challenging them domestically. Fuck all of the clubs controlled by them though. Ruining football. Seeing the BBC make posts basically calling them plucky underdogs and minimising that it’s just another City team is kind of gross.

I imagine you’re using jurist with the loosest possible definition you can

That’s got fuck all to do with what I said. I’ve already said there’s no point in a ceasefire with Hamas. I know what “governments” like Hamas are like. I just question the methods Israel are using in their war on extremism. Because victims of war crimes typically end up more extreme than ever before.

I don’t think it’s been used on Tehran, are you thinking Baghdad? Also that’s also absolute dogshit logic, by the way, you must recognise that? Who’s in charge of Iran and Syria now? The same people who’ve been in charge for decades? So your evidence of war crimes stopping indoctrinated killers is: use on two places where if they were used has done fuck all to stop indoctrinated killers. You know why the US and Israel get away with war crimes right? Same reason Russia does. If constant dehumanisation of a group of people hasn’t worked so far in bringing peace, I’m not sure upping the ante will work either.

You fucking love war crimes don’t you

Richard Keys is a bellend but it’s weird as fuck the league is calling in telling the media to stop talking about how useless the refs are when it’s one of the most interesting thing about the league.

It’s funny too because the error he got moved down to the championship for wasn’t even made by him, it was the VAR ref. So then they move this dickhead down to the championship and he gives the softest penalty in the universe… then gets moved back up to the top flight. I want the lads at PMGOL to give a presentation on what they think competence is, because I think it would be really funny to hear them explain the concept of competence.

https://x.com/HACKETTREF/status/1721791143950594106?s=20 Lol this league

The international community really demonstrating what it actually thinks of human rights with that sick joke.

That's 290 casualties - because the wounded still count as casualties I believe, which is still a lot for the IDF considering they haven't been in Gaza for too long. They use robots/drones to go into the tunnels first to clear out booby traps - so modern equipment absolutely helps. And yes, they send dogs down the tunnels to to root them out. Israel will absolutely defeat Hamas, and they've got the benefit of being able to hold back a bit and going back to airstrikes and artillery fire if the IDF gets bogged down. Just a question of how long it's going to take and what's going to happen next, really.

He's basically just been in paid retirement for the past few seasons in any case. By the time this ban's over... I can't imagine any side that's serious about football would want to take a punt on him. So he's ended his career as a top player... for the second time in his career!

I mean, I hate Ben Shapiro... but at the same time - in the rebuttal of the first point, calling the Hamas human shields claim "baseless" - it's not exactly baseless at all is it? Hamas has been pretty open about the fact they use civilians as human shields, they've said they don't see themselves as responsible for the civilians of Gaza. I think a better argument to be made is Israel knows full well that the vast majority of the casualties to their attacks on Hamas are going to be civilians - but they're willing to kill however many innocent Palestinians as it takes to get just one guilty Palestinian. I fully agree with the second point - saying "free Palestine" by itself is not a call to genocide. Saying "gas the Jews" is a call for genocide. Trying to equate the 2 is only possible because of so many bigots going to Palestinian rallies and chanting calls for genocide alongside calls for Palestinian freedom - this leads people in this era of absolute lack of nuance that social media has brought us to conflate all pro-Palestinians as anti-Jew. I agree on the 3rd point a bit. But tbh, Shapiro does have a point that Palestinian leadership hasn't been serious about wanting peace. He's absolutely ignoring that Israel since 1995 has also not been serious about wanting peace. The reality is that for the last 2 decades now, Israeli and Palestinian leadership have been stoking the flames of extremism for their own political benefit - at the cost of better lives for Israelis and Palestinians. The 4th point I think is trickier. When you've got groups like Houthis and Hamas that have explicitly stated their goal is to kill all the Jews, it's hard to say that the extremists - who do have quite a bit of power politically, as we can see, aren't looking at the idea of wiping out Jews and thinking it's a good idea. Hamas and the Houthis of Yemen explicitly say they want to kill Jews - not just Jews in Israel... but all Jews around the world. But he's not wrong that Ben Shapiro is a lazy propagandist that just throws out statements from better propagandists in order to try to get his wide base of people who aren't very good at thinking to just parrot back that propaganda whenever someone presses them. It blows my mind that people like and respect the guy, he's an absolute joke.

Pretty awful if true. A lot is said of Israel's response not being proportional, which is true. But part of the reason the Israeli death count is much lower than Hamas's is not for Hamas's lack of trying, but because Israeli anti-missile defenses against Hamas's makeshift rockets is fairly effective. When rockets get through it's usually because the Iron Dome is overwhelmed. If the dome is just raining down on civilians... I assume Hamas rockets are getting through too. If not fixed quickly, this could be devastating. It's a bit weird to see after the Russia-Ukraine war, where Russia looked woefully unprepared for an enemy like Ukraine despite being considered the 2nd best military power in the world. Or looking at how the recent conflict between Armenia & Azerbaijan was very much a war won by having superior firepower and equipment. Here we're seeing Israel, who have (at least on paper) one of the most impressive and technically advanced militaries. They're up against Hamas, a terror group that does have outside funding - but comparatively, not much funding, not much training, they're under blockade so their equipment is pretty basic in comparison. And despite the devastation of Israel's air campaign, it does sound like they're struggling a bit on the ground campaign despite having several advantages. And honestly, since 7/10, we've seen lots of examples of weird military failures. The attack by Hamas itself - Israel's military was completely unprepared. You see footage of Hamas fighters taking IDF soldiers captive and they're literally in their underpants when they're being taken prisoner. How were they unprepared and so overwhelmed by this attack? They've got these advanced tanks they've hyped up for their ability to detect and stop rockets. Turns out the way Hamas has figured to defeat these is to shoot 2 rockets at the same time and the tank will only stop one of them. IDF casualties have been pretty high in the ground invasion of Gaza. Now this footage of the Iron Dome failures, which tbh are catastrophic because that's protecting civilian life. And I think considering how much civilian life this conflict has already cost... it's just incredibly sad to see even more Arabs and Jews dying because a bunch of weirdos are too bigoted and stupid to want to make peace. That's not to say the IDF are struggling to meet their objectives though. They've destroyed a lot of tunnels beneath Gaza and they've cut Gaza city in 2 after fully encircling it. But I think I'm just a bit surprised how difficult it is for them compared to other recent instances of modern combat where the technologically advanced army tends to fare much better. I suppose it's also different when you've got an enemy that's got nowhere to run and sees only two possible outcomes: victory or martyrdom.

The weirdest thing about this attempt to instill discipline back into the club with this instance is… I think there’s a case Rashford turning up to training on time is an example of discipline. He had his party, he didn’t let it get in the way of his professional obligations. He’s not like Sancho routinely showing up late, which is fair enough to call out publicly. He’s demonstrated work-life balance. It’s weird to feel bad for a Man Utd player, but I feel for Rashford tbh. He’s got loads of potential that’s not really been given the opportunity to show the way it probably could at a more stable club. I don’t think going through 4-5 managers in however many years is great for a player’s development. And now he’s getting treated as though his birthday party has some kind of connection to Ten Hag’s United looking shit. Seems like Ten Hag liked Greenwood and will defend Antony (and even call him a fighter, lol), so maybe to get back on his good side he’s expecting Rashford to punch a woman.