Dr. Gonzo

If he turned up the next day still drunk from the night before or something, maybe I’d understand it more. But this just seems like a manager struggling and wanting to blame one of his players for “not being professional” even though he’s done something completely normal. Throwing a player under the bus for having a birthday party on their birthday is just being an arsehole. Rashford’s not the one trying to force out the CB that’s arguably been United’s best player this season, he’s not the one that’s signed Antony for about 5x what he’s worth. He’s not the one picking dogshit tactics or meant to be getting United to look like they’ve got some sort of identity or system they’re trying to work towards having & failing. I think when this guy gets the sack, a lot of United players are going to feel relieved.

Ten Hag giving Rashford shit for having a pre-planned birthday party that didn’t interfere with him showing up to training the next day after a loss is fucking ridiculous to me. What he’s supposed to cancel having a social life because of a loss? Ffs, it didn’t impact him turning up like he’s supposed to. United being subpar isn’t due to any one player.

I think the IDF would be capable of providing aid while simultaneously taking the fight to Hamas. There are enough sites outside of Gaza City where the IDF could set up safe camps for where people could go to receive aid. And the strong military presence there, as well as the 24/7 drone surveillance, would probably discourage Hamas from trying to fuck with those areas. I'm not suggesting Israel sends the UN/Red Crescent in with no supervision - I'm suggesting the IDF retains full control of any aid being brought in while they still hunt for Hamas, if UN/the Red Crescent/Red Cross want to go in and provide aid - I'd still think the IDF should retain control and be in charge of the security of the aid (and those that provide the aid). It's not safe, but war isn't safe. And this isn't a "normal" war between two states. This is a war between a state and a terrorist organisation. Israel is a small country, but they have a very advanced military. Also now that Hamas has thrown the status quo out the window and Israel is going to be forced to take a new approach, this is a good time to push for a new approach that lets the IDF take on Hamas head-on while at the same time making steps to demonstrate they can fight without dehumanising Palestinian civilians and do something to stem the tide of extremism in Gaza. I guarantee Gazans would be more inclined to work against Hamas and work with the IDF if they weren't all shit-scared the IDF won't just bomb or shoot them. And they're all shit scared of the IDF for a reason. And any Palestinians in Gaza that are unhappy with Hamas are also shit scared of Hamas because Hamas kills dissenting voices and targets their families. It's an absolute shit situation for innocents in Gaza, and it's particularly sad when you think about how roughly half of them are children that were just born into this hell. They've got good reason to think that Israelis don't give a shit about their lives, they've got good reason to think that Hamas just views them as cannon fodder to die for Hamas' own propaganda. I also think Israel, the US, UK, Germany, France, etc. can't ignore the role of Qatar and Iran in this destabilisation of the most unstable region in the world. Iran's already been largely cut off from the global economy - but Qatar enjoys a lot of benefits of being friendly with the west, while simultaneously sponsoring Hamas and providing their leadership with huge amounts of funding and safety. If blood is on Hamas's hands for all the dead Israelis and Palestinians since 7/10... that blood is also on Qatar's hands as much as it is on Iran's hands. Both countries should have to pay a heavy price. And Hamas leadership in Qatar should be fair game for Israelis in this war. And so should the members of Iran and Qatar's government that facilitated this attack, imo. The EU, UK, and Canada need to finally add Sepah/the revolutionary guard of Iran to their lists of terror organisations. Qatar needs to taste the same sort of economic isolation as Iran for being a sponsor of state terror. It is a failure of the West if they do not punish the state sponsors of terrorism that have thrown the region into (more) chaos.

I think that's just them stumbling over the fact there's a LOT of pressure from the international community calling for a ceasefire but also the US doesn't want to be seen as not being 100% on the same page as Israel with how Israel is going to approach the war. A pause in combat is a ceasefire that's agreed to by both sides, so it doesn't really matter how the administration tries to make it stick. But one area where I actually agree with Israel's government in their approach to the war is there should not be any ceasefire/pause/cessation in fighting with Hamas. The bombing campaign needs to be rethought because it is devestating the civilian population there. Now that the ground invasion has begun and that Gaza City is fully encircled, now would probably be a good time for the IDF to demonstrate they have more capacity for humanity than Hamas does. This is an advanced and powerful military - that includes strong logistics and also the capacity to provide aid. The IDF could go a long way in showing they care more about the life of the innocents in Gaza than Hamas does. It would be dangerous and risky, because of course at times Hamas would try to abuse the IDF demonstrating they aren't as inhumane as Hamas - but war is dangerous and risky. And Israel will never end extremism amongst Palestinians by bombing refugee camps trying to go after one person but kiling many more people who aren't Hamas fighters. It's not beyond the pale to ask the IDF to demonstrate basic humanity in their fight against terrorism. It's not like the UK bombed the absolute shit out of Ireland while the IRA were actively commiting terror attacks.

Long overdue. I still think England and Cook should be sacked, but demoting them would be an acceptable compromise since Howard Webb has tiny tiny balls and can't do the right thing.

See responses in bold. There's also the issue of Israeli settlers in the West Bank kicking off violence against Palestinians there yesterday, probably as a result of Hamas's attack on 7/10 - but the IDF isn't really doing anything to curb illegal settlements, nor to stop this violence. Perhaps most concerning is the news that IDF soldiers are filming themselves abuse Palestinians in the West Bank - https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-soldiers-film-themselves-abusing-humiliating-west-bank-palestinians/; this is going to do nothing to facilitate peace or a safer Israel. At worst, it's incitement to get the Palestinians of the West Bank to act out like Hamas has. At best, it's a bunch of bigoted kids in the IDF doing something stupid to make Israelis and Palestinians both have good reason to feel less safe.

https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=ceasefire

It's not that surprising tbh. Like I've said before, this conflict honestly goes on much longer than just the creation of Israel. Just look at this group Lehi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group) - a militant group from the era of British Palestine that waged terror attacks on the British & Arabs in Palestine to try to force them out. They even sought out getting ties with the fucking Nazis. And simultaneously, Palestinian leadership was trying to do the same thing to oust the British and the Jews - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini - and honestly I'm surprised Lehi wanted the British out as the British pushed Zionism massively while they controlled the territory, whereas I can understand it a bit more with the Grand Mufti al-Husseini... he was a bigoted dickhead, but he was reacting to how massively British rule was different for Arabs in the region compared to when it was under Ottoman control. But the more you learn about this conflict, you can look and see it goes back further than the Holocaust... and it becomes a lot more complicated looking than the Israeli government, Palestinian leadership, and any of the people going around try to get the general public to take one side of the matter. But you couple the fact that there's historically a huge element of extremism and terrorism that have marked this conflict for the past fucking century and since the mid-90s both sides have acted in ways that are deliberately against forming any lasting peace... and it's not surprising you've got Israelis more radicalised than ever. It's also why the Palestinians of Gaza are more extremist than the Palestinians of the West Bank, tbh. When you have a constant cycle of violence and conflict, it breeds extremism (look at Afghanistan, with their history of centuries of warfare with only brief periods of relative peace to verify that). When you've got leadership on both sides feeding into that cycle of violence, you've got leaders that are committed to making the people they govern more extreme - so the conflict gets more genocidal. Neither party is blameless in this situation. Tbf Israel relented to international pressure to allow aid into Gaza. They've gotten pressure from Joe Biden and other Western leaders to consider a ceasefire. Whether you're pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, though, if you're sane you'd want to see Hamas gone. They've done nothing for the people of Gaza but bring death and destruction. And to that end, I'm not sure a ceasefire will do anything meaningful - that's just not how Hamas operates. They always break ceasefires once they've built up enough rockets to resume the conflict. Their leadership, which isn't in harms way because they're holed up in a luxury penthouse in Qatar, has said it's not their responsibility to provide for the safety of civilians. Israel is committing war crimes because of their indescriminate bombing campaign, but Hamas is also committing war crimes by using civilian infrastructure for military purposes and using civilians as human shields. Israel is getting incredible amounts of flak for the bombing campaign - and I think quite rightly because they've shown a callus disregard for civilian life. But I don't think they can afford to let Hamas stick around otherwise there will be another terror attack like what happened on 7/10. So while I think airstrikes need to be pulled back pretty significantly and more targeted strikes and ground troop operations are more necessary... a ceasefire just isn't realistic for anyone up against a group like Hamas unless they release all hostages and fully surrender to Israel (which is also incredibly unrealistic). The bigger question is what world powers do next after Hamas has been pushed out of Gaza? Israel should probably not occupy it or set up their own government of it - I don't think that will do anything to cause the cycle that needs to be broken to be broken. I don't know if a UN peacekeeping mission is realistic when the UNSC is the way it is right now and with the divide from Russia & China v. western member nations of the UNSC so bitterly divided. Perhaps some sort of independent ruling coalition from Egypt, Jordan, and the US can begin rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza and set up a temporary administrative government until Gaza gets to a point where it is stable enough to hold it's own elections. But of course an Israeli government led by Netanyahu would react by going full psycho to an attack from Hamas that can best be described as "full psycho" - and I'm sure that was by design. What Hamas did was of no benefit to any Palestinian, but it did throw a huge spanner in the works of the Arab world normalising ties with Israel.

Israel already has de facto control over these gas fields, though, so it's not as though they need to hold all of Gaza to profit from it.

@MUFC

Translation: Brazen and cynical: ELN says it did not know that they themselves had kidnapped Luis Díaz's father. They assure that they will ask for his release now. ELN: "Well done boys, good process."

Colombia is now saying that Diaz's father was kidnapped by ELN, the main active remaining guerilla group in Colombia.

The West Bank is still heavily occupied by Israel and has constant illegal settlements pop up with no real retaliation from the Israeli government while the IDF provides protection to the illegal settlements on what is internationally Palestinian land. Israel withdrew from Gaza, but once Hamas took control of Gaza - they did their usual terrorist bullshit and in response Israel began the blockade of Gaza. So rather than do anything to weaken Hamas's grip on Gaza, their actions played right into the propaganda of Hamas and created new generations of emotionally scarred kids easy to radicalise into giving their lives to fight for the revenge of their people. The Times of Israel wrote a pretty scathing article about what @Beelzebub cited much earlier in the thread: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ - propping up Hamas as a means of eroding public support for a 2 state solution has massively backfired. This is a real quote from their current PM: "whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for transferring funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state." It's in reference to his government's support of resuming the practice of allowing Qatari cash to make it's way to Hamas in Gaza - which their last PM before their criminal PM, had put a brief stop to while his government was in charge for 18 months. Ben Gvir being Netanyahu's Minister of National Security is another example of how the current Israeli government is not demonstrating a desire for a meaningful and lasting peace. Two weeks before Rabin was assassinated, he stole Rabin's car's hood ornament and told cameras "Just like we got to this emblem, we could get to Rabin." That's a pretty direct example of the kind of stochastic terrorism Netanyahu and his followers used against Rabin for daring to try to pursue a 2 state solution to resolve the conflict. Ben Gvir, by the way, has 8 Israeli criminal convictions, including terrorism convictions and a conviction to incite anti-Arab racism. He was rejected from the IDF because he is a hateful extremist. He's now in charge of all Israeli police and Israel's national security. The current government of Israel and Hamas have very similar ideas on what should be done with Israel/Palestine - they just differ on how they want the land ethnically cleansed. Netanyahu belongs in an Israeli prison cell and Israel would be better off with leadership that is serious about resolving this conflict in a way that can bring about peace without trying to remove a group of people entirely from the land. Just like Gaza would be better off if they were not under the boot of Hamas.

Forcibly removing people from a region they're living in is ethnic cleansing. Genocide's not a gaslight term - there's a definition from UN from the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. Population percentage has fuck all to do with what constitutes genocide - and that's a fact. Under international law, you've got genocide when: any of the following acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a.) killing members of the group; b.) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c.) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d.) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e.) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. So just like Russia in Ukraine, both Hamas and Israel pretty clearly fit the definition of genocidal actors in the eyes of the UN. Honestly, historical title to the land means fuck all. The Canaanites and Phoenicians don't exist anymore. Both Arabs and Mizrahi Jews can claim Canaanite and Phoenician ancestry. History doesn't justify the Nakba or the erosion of Palestinian lands and rights. History doesn't justify Hamas's terrorism. It's very much a conflict of land, that is egged on by zealots in the region to turn it into something of a holy war. Israel hasn't made attempts at making a lasting meaningful peace since 1995 when Rabin was assassinated by an extremist Israeli. They aren't blameless in this. They're just as not serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict as Palestinian leadership is. Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are the victims of decades of leadership that's had no interest in creating peace. A lot of blood is on the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships hands.

By the way, protesting in the streets without fear of political reprisal or risking your life or well-being is a very western value. If you don't believe me, go try to organise a protest in Iran or Saudi Arabia and let us know how it ends up.

Because your governments have broken their homeland and supported their hypothetical forced removal for the past 100 years. Same reason my mum's family ended up in the UK after the US and UK fucked around in their country, left it broken and couldn't be bothered to clean up the fucking mess they created. If you want a world with less extremists - while also supporting an extreme foreign policy, you let refugees rebuild their lives in places that offer stability and peace and that actually have opportunities for upward mobility. And if western governments are going to sit by and allow ethnic cleansing by a close ally, the only way they can even come close to cleaning up the mess is by giving that path to refugees. If the West's goal is more stability in the region, to prevent future terror attacks and whatnot... perhaps not following in the footsteps of the Afghanistan withdrawal human crisis is a good idea to follow. It's a guaranteed way of making countries that are already lacking a good amount of stability even more unstable. Furthermore, it's not like Arab countries have a great track record with refugees lol. I think the alternative to the west taking in refugees in this hypothetical would simply just mean an even less stable Middle East. I don't think it would make anyone safer, nor would it mitigate how bad the humanitarian crisis would be.

If Israel is going to finish off the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, leaving no option other than a humanitarian crisis for the west to deal with it... it's hard to say these countries aren't reaping what they've sown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration is the best argument for why the UK has a lot of culpability in this issue and if the west is going to have to clean up Israel's mess, I think it's hard to say that the US and UK shouldn't bear most of the brunt of the refugee crisis.

I think rockets have been fired into Israel pretty regularly since October 7th - but there's far less casualties because Israel's got pretty effective defenses against Hamas rockets. They also haven't been the same sort of barrages that were used when Hamas attacked. Occasionally one gets through and there'll be a small number of casualties. It's not going to grab the same headlines as the obliteration of Gaza. But both Hamas and Israel are purposely firing into where they know civilians are and they're both fucking arseholes for doing so. I think it's a bit fucked too, the head of Hamas from the safety of his penthouse in Qatar saying that Palestinian civilians in Gaza aren't Hamas's responsibility, they're the UN and Israel's problem.

I think it's a bit weird the US gave weapons to Ukraine and put all sorts of conditions on them. Meanwhile the US is giving weapons to Israel, to target a much smaller area with a far higher likelihood of civilian casualties than anything Ukraine would be doing... and the US comes out and says there's no preconditions on how Israel can use these weapons. I think Ukraine's got a more legitimate reason to want to use the most advanced weapons possible on the Russian military that's invaded it than Israel has justification for this collective punishment of Gaza because Hamas uses innocents as human shields for propaganda purposes. I mean ultimately it probably comes down to the fact that Hamas can't respond with nuclear weapons but Russia can, but it also comes off as a ringing endorsement for Netanyahu's wartime strategy. And given Netanyahu's public support in Israel currently, or lack thereof, should the US be giving him this kind of public support? He is a big part of what happened on October 7th in all honesty and is he the right man to be leading Israel forward as they respond to that attack? The architect of the failed status quo should probably be nowhere near the drawing board for what happens now that Hamas has thrown the status quo out the window after October 7th.

I totally agree with this. If you bet on your games, even if you say it's not affecting your performance, it's always going to be in the back of your mind that you have at least some control over what happens. And that's not accounting for the fact a high profile player, which he was, probably has a great deal of influence over his teammates as well. There's just too many possible angles for gambling on a match you're playing in to lead to what can look like match fixing. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with gambling. Obviously if you end up with an addiction... it can lead to quite shitty paths because that's what addiction does. And if he wasn't a professional footballer, I think he'd be in quite a lot more problems with his gambling than he's currently facing with the ban - apparently he's got quite a bit of gambling debt. He's fortunate he's got the Saudi funding paying his wages, if he overcomes addiction he'll still be really well off financially and in a better place. Surely a better place to be in as a gambling addict than up to your eyeballs in debt with no way out. Personally, I don't think there's any good reasons for footballers to gamble on football. They've got too many connections in the sport to rule out even just the appearance of something corrupt by betting on football. If they want to gamble still, there's other shit to gamble on... bet on rugby or some shite like that, or take a page from Zaniolo's book and gamble on poker. Honestly, I think gambling on poker and blackjack is infinitely more fun... But in Tonali's situation, if we take him at face value on his gambling addiction - it seems like he's got quite a serious problem with gambling, one where in another life he'd not be getting the same second chance he gets now. He's still very young, he's still going to make good money. He doesn't have to let this ruin him financially or otherwise. I imagine for someone with a problem as bad as he's alleged, stopping gambling all together is the best thing for him. I hope he gets the help that gambling rehab is meant to provide him and he comes out of this having learned a very important lesson - for his own sake. Not many people are fortunate enough to have a bad addiction but also have the means and opportunity to beat it and come back from it stronger. He does - so hopefully he makes the most of it.

Lol, I think that would be a hilarious disaster... but one of the biggest criticisms of Ten Hairs is United don't have a defined playing style and look like a collection of random players put together. One thing that's a certainty of Fat Sam coming into any side is he will give them a defined playing style. It'll be an ugly, defense first, style of football... but at least it's a cohesive style of playing. I don't know what the answer is for United though, it's a very bizarre problem they've managed to create for themselves tbh. There's a number of issues that need to be addressed, I just don't know how they go about prioritising the issues addressed. The Glazers get a lot of criticism for their ownership of United. And there's some things their tenure as owners of the club that just mark them as awful owners. They take more money out of the club than they've put in (and how much did they really put in if they did a leveraged buyout? It's got to be minimal). They've neglected the infrastructure of the club: Old Trafford is in disrepair, the training facilities and academy are falling behind compared to their competitors. This is going to impact United negatively in the long run in terms of revenue and in terms of the academy being a pipeline for young talent. As money rules football more and more, having an academy that produces first team players is all the more important for clubs not backed by the wealth of an oil exporting nation. At the same time, for all their criticism... I don't think it can be said that United do not financially back their managers and do not put a priority on improvement of the first team squad. The issue has been entirely with how that significant funding has been spent. This is partially on Woodward, isn't it? But it's also partially on the managers who asked for big funds and then didn't really accomplish anything with those funds. Chopping and changing managers constantly has also been a massive problem, imo. Rashford is a great example of this. I think he's a player with a fantastic amount of raw ability. He also looks like a player who's development has stagnated to an extent because he's got a new manager every couple of seasons. But then they've got the issue of Ten Hag. The man was brought in to replicate the good work he'd done at Ajax. The man who's now saying, he can never get United to play like Ajax. Despite bringing in a number of ex-Ajax players, having 18 months to impart his system onto his new squad, and with something like £400m spent on new players to try to implement that system. And somehow 18 months on, United seem to have less of an identity on the pitch than they did in the first days of his time on the pitch. It's a pretty miserable situation to try to fix at United, tbh. It's a situation brought on by people at the top not thinking about the long-term of the club. Neglecting infrastructure to chase short term success is only really going to pay off if that short term success is achieved. Otherwise, it's just wasteful spending. But sacking another manager after a short period at the club where they can't immediately turn things around... it does nothing to address the instability unless there's a really good long-term plan for who is going to be brought in and how money is going to be spent to make the on-pitch performances better. I think it's understandable if United want to sack Ten Hag sooner rather than later. I'm not seeing much evidence that he's going to be able to turn things around, I'm seeing more evidence that he's losing faith in himself doing the job he was brought in to do when he's saying things like "United will never play like Ajax." I'm not seeing a manager making signings that... seem to make sense for the short term and long term goals at United. Signings like Antony coming in for big money and looking pretty fucking average don't indicate a great eye for talent. Signing Mount on big wages when it's not clear how exactly he fits in at United don't indicate a great eye for planning. The brand of football he's got going at United don't paint the picture of a man who's got a vision for a club to build into. It seems like a manager going through the motions with an expensively assembled squad. At the same time, United saw decades of success when they were patient and gave Alex Ferguson time even when United didn't look like they were up to much. I do think stability is an important factor at success at a club that isn't backed by the endless resources that clubs like Chelsea under Abramovich, City with the UAE, PSG with Qatar, etc. don't really need to consider because they don't truly operate like normal football clubs. But I'm not sure looking at what worked decades ago, when English football was very different, and expecting that kind of stability to work with the current manager is all that realistic. I also think player culture has changed quite a bit - especially at the top clubs. I thought Ten Hag would be your Klopp. Pretty much each week that's passed since March though and... I'm increasingly more sure that he's actually up to nothing at United other than spending a lot of money and hoping for the best each week. With Klopp it wasn't instant success, but we could very clearly see that he was pushing his ideas out from his brain onto the pitch through the squad - he was changing our system to fit how he wanted us to play, he was cutting out players like Sakho and Balotelli from the squad to make sure the mentality of the squad matched the mentality he wanted. And tbf to Ten Hag - he's tried something similar like that with both Ronaldo and Sancho in terms of trying to change the squad's mentality. But he's not really done much to demonstrate he's actively implementing a set style at United that'll lead to success. Personally, if I were a United fan.. I'd want Ten Hag gone. I just don't have faith that he can build what he had going for him in the Netherlands here in England. At least not right now with United. Imo a lot of heads need to roll at United for them to start building upwards back to where they want to be. That includes people above the manager who need to stop neglecting the club's infrastructure. The stadium's quality is important. If it wasn't, clubs wouldn't spend so much money building new stadiums or upgrading their stadiums. The club's training facilities and academy facilities are also important - both from a recruitment perspective as well as developing the players already at the club. And having loads of money to spend each window is great... as long as there's a fucking plan for spending that money. Sack the entire recruitment team, as well, since they've been pretty fucking abysmal in all honesty. If I were a United executive, I'd be drawing up a shortlist of managers that fit the sort of profile as Ange before he joined Spurs tbh. Managers that aren't the highest profile names and haven't necessarily "proven" themselves at big clubs, but managers who have a track record of implementing a good style that fits in with United's tradition of attacking football. I'd also be looking at clubs around Europe that have an impressive history of recruitment and seeing if I could poach any Directors of Football or Scouts. And then I'd probably be trying to bring in De Zerbi and Brighton's recruitment team, because in this hypothetical I work for Man Utd, so you can't expect me to look too hard into spending huge fat stacks of cash all at once. And even if that's not proper due diligence in bringing in new people to make good decisions... I think it'd be a hell of a lot more productive than doing whatever the fuck United have been doing. Having said that, I fully welcome United breaking the glass in case of emergency and bringing in Fat Sam. Laughter is good for the soul, after all.

Yeah, I think he's just made that up to feign outrage at this tbh. He's admitted he bet on Milan matches he played in, as well as other matches. He says it didn't impact how he played and claimed he's got a massive gambling addiction. I'm not saying he's lying, because doing something stupid like betting on matches you can impact is absolutely something I could see a player with a compulsive gambling addiction doing without even thinking about. But there's no way to ever prove whether or not it did impact his performances - but banning a player for betting on their own matches is absolutely reasonable. Zaniolo, on the other hand, has maintained he's not bet on football at all and that his online gambling was all on poker, blackjack, and shit like that. And if he's telling the truth, which I think the Italian authorities believe he is, I don't think any ban should be required for that. Because what the fuck does football have to do with poker or some shit like that? Fuck all and if he wants to gamble online playing games like that, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to do that. It's not going to impact any matches. Generally speaking, footballers should just avoid gambling on anything football related. They've got friends on other teams, they've got friends in other leagues - it just creates too much of the appearance of match fixing being likely to allow tbh, even if match fixing hasn't occurred. But gambling on your own club is absolutely something that justifies lengthy bans imo. A player would have too much influence to negatively impact the integrity of the sport for their financial gain - it's basically the most common sense decision to have a blanket ban on that.

She'd basically already died before officially being taken off life support. Her parents confirmed she was already braindead with 0 chance of recovery 2 weeks ago. Iran's used the Israel-Palestine conflict, that they've got a big hand in egging on with working with Hamas and threatening to send in Hezbollah, to move forward with many of the executions of protestors from the past year. So a lot of young men and women who think they deserve a life that involves having their human rights respected are going to get killed for having the balls to stand up against these awful abusers.

I think both sides are openly genocidal tbh. Just one side actually has the means to carry out a genocide and the other side are going to get massively fucked for Hamas lashing out. It’s pretty clear if there’s going to be any humanitarian hope for the people of Gaza, it’s got to be Egypt or Jordan taking them in because Israel’s not going to lift a finger other than taking Gaza from them.

He bet on his own matches, that’s about as direct of a link to match fixing without him admitting any intent, which he’d never do.