Lord Coe worried by unpaid fees of Michael Johnson's Grand Slam Track
Johnson, the former Olympic sprint champion and now BBC pundit, had to cancel the fourth leg of the new league in Los Angeles at the end of June because of financial issues, sparked, not least, by poor attendances in the first three events.
As The Times revealed earlier this month, track stars are still waiting on payments due after the opening event in Jamaica at the beginning of April. Indeed, an email from a Grand Slam Track official to agents chasing the money on behalf of their clients promised payment for the Jamaica meet by the end of this month and the following two events, in Miami and Philadelphia, by the end of September. Even so, there is talk of them owing as much as $13million with key stakeholders also as yet unpaid.
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Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Glasgow hosted a glorious Games - but bringing them back now feels like a terrible mistake
A kind of magic typically descends on Scotland when it hosts world sporting events. I am a veteran of several Open championships at St Andrews and, at each one, I've fallen under the spell. Seve Ballesteros holing his 12ft putt on the 18th to clinch the title in1984? I was greenside, watching the ball hesitate on the lip of the cup and then finally drop, prompting ecstasy from the Spaniard. He later described it as happiest moment of his life. It was one of the most unforgettable in mine. Some moaned about the road closures but it's the magic I remember about the UCI Cycling World Championships when they hit Glasgow two summers ago. In the 160mile men's road race Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel hurtled into a crash barrier in the Merchant City after opening up a commanding lead. 'Someone call an ambulance' was my first thought. His first one was getting back on his damaged bike and hanging on for victory. Bewitching viewing. So were the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow 11 years ago. I was among the 60,000 at the opening ceremony at Celtic Park – a delightfully bonkers spectacle of dancing tea cakes and Scottie dogs in tartan coats leading out the teams from each participating nation. The late Queen was there; the Red Arrows too. Rod Stewart and Amy Macdonald duetted on Rhythm of My Heart together. Susan Boyle, bless her, did Mull of Kintyre. I was too caught in the moment to consider how all this was playing elsewhere, but I gather a UK audience of nine million tuned in for the BBC's coverage, while the estimated worldwide audience was one billion. On the streets of Glasgow the games were inescapable. A volunteer army of more than 12,000 helpers – known as Clyde-siders – saw to that. Fine by me. In a few weeks it would be the independence referendum that was inescapable. Here was a welcome chance for the city to stand as one before facing the sorry task of dividing itself in two. I struggle to think of a single occasion in the past when Scotland has not been enriched by the arrival of elite sports men and women on its shores. Why then, does the return of the Commonwealth Games to Glasgow next summer feel like a terrible mistake? Why does it bring groans rather than tingles of anticipation? And why does the same sense of listlessness seem to afflict the BBC which, last time around, cleared its schedules for such unpromising spectacles as weightlifting from the Armadillo and bowling from Kelvingrove Park? A year out from the Games, the Beeb has not yet committed to showing anything at all. And, I'm sorry to say, I kind of get it. In 2014 the athletics were hosted by Hampden Park, our national stadium. Twelve years later they are heading for Scotstoun stadium which, even with added temporary seating, will have a quarter of Hampden's capacity. There will be just 10 core sports and a total of four venues. In 2014 there were 17 sports and 16 venues. Yes, these are a scaled down version of the Games, everyone involved has readily admitted ever since Glasgow contrived to find itself the only candidate for staging them – but they will still be magic. Really? They are beginning to sound like a school sports day. I wonder if attending them won't feel rather like showing up for a wake and swapping wistful memories of the deceased. Remember 2014 when the world's fastest man Usain Bolt stood in the rain in the east end and – allegedly – delivered the verdict that whole shebang was 'a bit sh*t'? How fervently we took issue at the time. Sure, it may have lacked the wallop of the Olympics or the World Cup Finals but it was a sporting feast nonetheless. Our stadiums were filled. Our hearts were full, our voices hoarse. This time around? I cannot imagine being in any position to disagree with the sprinter's original assessment. You may remember that the Australian state of Victoria was slated to host the 2026 Games until it pulled out in July 2023. State premier Daniel Andrews – a republican – said he was not prepared to spend up to £3.6 billion on a '12 day sporting event'. 'I've made a lot of difficult decisions in this job,' he added: 'This is not one of them.' The 2022 Games were held in Birmingham after Durban in South Africa – the only bidder for the event – was ruled out due to financial constraints. The 2030 Games? They were supposed to be heading for Alberta in Canada but, a month after Victoria ditched plans to host next year's games, Alberta got its cancellation in early for following edition. Are we getting a pattern here? Is every Commonwealth country but Britain waking up to the fact the games are past their sell-by date? I'm lukewarm at best about the return of the Games not only because, by financial necessity, they will be a pale imitation of the 2014 version. It's also the fact no-one else on the planet wanted them. Victoria was prepared to hand over £100 million to Glasgow just to be shot of them. How deafening the silence from potential hosts when Mr Andrews delivered his bombshell in 2023. All around, great Commonwealth nations sitting on their hands, avoiding gazes, waiting for some muggins UK city to blink. As a sports lover, it depresses me to say it, but I wish Glasgow had sat on its hands too. If these games are to survive – and I doubt they will – then the least they require is a level of desire among nations beyond our shores to host them. That's a big ask in the 21st century. Don't forget this is an event which began life in 1930 as the British Empire Games and did not drop the word 'empire' from its name until 1970. Queen Elizabeth II may not have seen it this way – she treasured the Commonwealth – but the competing nations in this quadrennial fixture owe their right to participate to history which not all of their populations now celebrate. It's because of this history that Canadian athletes compete but USA ones do not, that practically the whole of Europe is a no show. Here in the UK our attachment to the Games is, I suspect, of a different nature to that of other Commonwealth nations – and not simply because we are the daddy. We enjoy the fact that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete as separate nations rather than Team GB as they do in the Olympics. For those of a Nationalist, republican bent, it may be the one thing the Games have going for them. But I wonder if the time has come for us to worry less about keeping the Games on life support and focus more on their reputation outside the UK. Are they a thing of value or a diplomatic chore? Do top-flight athletes in Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Jamaica still see them as relevant to their careers or might they have come round to Mr Bolt's way of thinking? I don't say it should be the latter but, if it is, it's time to let go.
Scottish Sun
7 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
The more comical the action at women's Euros, the more woke BBC get – one pundit's pearl of wisdom was red card offence
A SIMPLE equation is at play with the BBC and ITV's coverage of the women's Euros – the funnier the football gets, the more earnest the pundits must become. To the point, when things go really haywire, they sound more like they're dissecting Garry Kasparov versus the Deep Blue chess computer than the latter stages of a football tournament. 7 BBC's pundits during the England/Sweden game 7 Pundit Gabby Logan for BBC Sport Credit: Instagram/gabbylogan 7 Ian Wright during ITV's coverage of England/Italy semi-final Credit: Pixel8000 A sly reference to the exquisite mayhem of the England/Sweden penalty shoot-out, in Zurich, on BBC1, which has to be a contender for the...
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
The more comical the action at women's Euros, the more woke BBC get – one pundit's pearl of wisdom was red card offence
A SIMPLE equation is at play with the BBC and ITV's coverage of the women's Euros – the funnier the football gets, the more earnest the pundits must become. To the point, when things go really haywire, they sound more like they're dissecting Garry Kasparov versus the Deep Blue chess computer than the latter stages of a football tournament. 7 7 7 A sly reference to the exquisite mayhem of the England/Sweden penalty shoot-out, in Zurich, on BBC1, which has to be a contender for the funniest ever climax to a quarter-final. Eventual winners England seemed determined to turn it into a Gentlest Back Pass contest, while the slightly more gung-ho Swedes were playing a game familiar to every nine-year-old boy on the planet: Who can kick it the furthest? A challenge eventually ended by Smilla Holmberg, who nearly landed her effort on base camp at the Matterhorn. So long had this farce been going by that point, however, there was no time for the Beeb team to do anything more than agree with co- commentator Rachel Brown-Finnis's assessment that it had been a penalty shoot-out, 'worthy of any final'. Final of what? She didn't say, but I'd like to believe Rachel was referring to the carnage of It's A Knockout's old pan-European spin-off Jeux Sans Frontieres. It seems unlikely, though, as absolutely everyone at the BBC and ITV is in a state of denial about this tournament's wretched quality, aided and abetted by dozens of useful media idiots who've cast themselves in the Sir Galahad role and will go to any credibility-knackering lengths to protect the honour of the women. A self-deceiving charade that reached new levels of condescension, in one broadsheet newspaper, after the Sweden game, when a journalist argued that gross incompetence wasn't so much the issue as 'goalkeepers improving'. You treat readers like mugs, you get the response you deserve, which in this case was the comment: 'You won't get laid trying to be their ally.' You're also missing an easy trick, though. For just as the great Jock Stein said, 'without the fans, football is nothing,' it's also nothing without laughter. And for once, I really know what I'm talking about here. For I have seen Scotland play in 31 countries and lose in seven different time zones, since 1986, and frankly it's only the laughter that's kept me going. It's the very last thing you'll hear on either channel in Switzerland though, where instead of taking the light-hearted approach they've gone to the extraordinarily controlling lengths of reinventing the pundit lexicon in an attempt to disguise what's really happening here. ITV's Karen Carney has a particularly grating habit of saying 'vertical pass' when she means forward, but the real blood-boiler is the BBC's maddening use of the T-word which made the quarter-final pre-match banter sound more like a cult meeting. Gabby Logan kicked it off by saying: ' Fara [Williams], an area you're worried about is the transition.' 'Yes, Sweden will much prefer the transitional game,' agreed Fara before Ellen White butted in to say: 'It's frustrating when you're conceding on that transition and Sweden really do like to play in that transition.' Which was the cue, apparently, for Jonas Eidevall to chip in with his observation that: 'If the game is played in transition, it's advantage Sweden.' At no point, however, did anyone ask: 'Transition? What the f*** is the transition?' A huge shame as someone would've been forced to admit it just means losing possession and the reason they were trying to blind us with science is because, in this tournament, it happens roughly every second or third pass. Pull at the honesty thread, everyone clearly believes, and the whole of women's football unravels. It's not the case, obviously. Viewers will watch football, no matter what the quality. Ten million tuned into ITV's coverage of the England/Italy semi-final, on Tuesday. Most of them, like me, probably praying it would end in more penalty shootout mayhem. It was narrowly avoided, sadly, but the night did at least benefit from the presence of Ian Wright and the absence of the terminally tedious Eni Aluko, who'd accused him of 'blocking women' from punditry jobs. Less gracious men than Wrighty would've told ITV to shove their invite, after they left him out of their original roster. But he was present, adding more passion, honesty and animation than the rest of them had managed in the previous 34 games combined. Given TV is so lost to the cult of woke, though, my worry now is it'll simply cut and paste the dull, pompous, dishonest, language-mangling insincerity of the women's game over to the blokes. Especially when Wrighty left a pregnant pause on Tuesday night. 'England can't quite find enough in . . . in . . . ' In the transition, Ian. The sacred bloody transition. Shaz: 'A dandelion.' Ben Shephard: 'Which letter that appears in the word for a song of praise known as a 'hymn' is silent when spoken out loud?' Richard: 'P.' And Impossible, Rick Edwards: 'Which settlement is situated at the southern tip of Loch Ness?' Callum was given the choice of 'A) Fort William' or 'C) Fort Augustus,' but chose 'B) Fort Lauderdale.' RANDOM IRRITATIONS THE new Royal Mail advert provoking us with Judi Love, Josh Widdicombe and Micah Richards so soon after the Horizon IT scandal. BBC2 putting a 'no longer active' disclaimer on Live Aid's 1985 phone lines. Channel 4 newsreader Cathy Newman even sounding smug banking money on The Weakest Link. And Good Morning Britain starting every show with half an hour of Labour Party PR from Kevin Maguire, who is the very last thing TV needs right now: A complete irrelevance disguised as a minor nuisance. LOOSE Women, Monday, Charlene White: 'You will never guess Janet Street-Porter 's summer holiday job.' 7 Pulling tourist carts round the Fez medina? Giving Princess Anne her next ride at Trooping the Colour? Mounted crowd control at the first Old Firm game? Actually, you're right. I give up. C4 LOST PLOT ON KNIFING 7 THE title of Channel 4 's documentary One Day In Southport has to be the most grotesque misnomer of the year. Just seven minutes and 30 seconds, plus a brief sentencing update at the end, was devoted to Axel Rudakubana 's barbaric murder of three young girls at a dance class, while the rest was consumed by the bone-brained riots that followed the outrage. No time at all, apparently, was available to discuss the systemic failings of the state preceding Rudakubana's savagery or indeed anything that happened before July 29, 2024, other than a Tommy Robinson march, two days prior, which had zero bearing on subsequent events but seemed to vex the C4 production no end. And if you even begin to doubt this was because the network was engaged in a political crusade, rather than the moral one the victims' families deserved, you need only question the undue prominence given to a counter-protester called Weyman Bennett. He's billed here as 'Stand Up To Racism, Secretary', and portrayed as very much an 'honest broker' but is also a hardcore member of the Socialist Workers Party and, indeed, part of the central committee infamously accused of covering up rape allegations against a far-left ally. All of which means there is still a huge gap in the network's schedules for a proper documentary about the Southport murders, which isn't afraid to point fingers at the Home Office and its anti-extremism Prevent scheme, which refused three times to deal with Rudakubana. But as well as dropping its infantile political agenda, that would require Channel 4 to find its moral compass, and I'm not entirely sure it ever had one in the first place. URGENT clarification required Re: A cosmetic surgery consultant called Cindy Jackson, who looked ITV2 's Price Of Perfection host Olivia Attwood straight in the face and said: 'I think there are a lot of ways you can lower your visual IQ and come across as someone who's not very bright.' 'Cos that's all natural, Cindy, and I'll challenge anyone else who says Olivia's stupidity isn't God given. LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK THIS week's winner is Love Island's Yasmin and Morticia Addams. Emailed in by Michele M. ELLA TOONE: 'We kept going until the first minute.' Ellen White: 'Winning is everything but it's not.' Rachel Brown-Finnis: 'You have to draw a line behind what's happened before.' (Compiled by Graham Wray) TV (NOT QUITE) GOLD 7 NOTHING really deserved the description 'TV Gold' during this terrible TV week. But I feel I should mention BBC2's Top Gear repeats and screening of The Searchers, with John Wayne (a classic). Plus, Martin Lewis, of all people, making a genuinely unexpected cameo on the new series of Mandy (BBC2) to deliver the line: 'Just give her a paper receipt, you dirty wet wipe.' And ITV2's Love Island: Unseen Bits, which is the last reminder this show used to be quite funny, rather than simply soul-destroying, and made a point of flagging up Tommy's breakfast preparations, on Saturday: 'How the f*** do you squash avocado?' Conor: 'You literally just . . . mate, that's not an avocado. That's a lime.'
