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      Conor McGregor anti-immigration rant in White House condemned by Irish PM

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      Ireland’s prime minister has denounced anti-immigration comments made by Conor McGregor as the MMA fighter visited the White House before a Saint Patrick’s Day meeting with Donald Trump.McGregor said “Ireland is on the cusp of losing its Irishness” and that an “illegal immigration racket” was “running ravage on the country”.Last week, Donald Trump singled out “Conor” – who last year was found liable for sexual assault after a civil trial – as one of his favourite Irish people.Dressed in a green business suit to mark Ireland’s national day, McGregor was at the White House at Trump’s invitation and participated in an impromptu Q&A session with reporters. “There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop,” he said, speaking in the White House briefing room alongside the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.The 36-year-old former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion said he was “here to raise the issue and highlight it” and that he would be listening to Trump on immigration – one of the president’s main areas of focus as he seeks to ramp up deportations of people in the US without proper documentation.The apparently off-the-cuff comments were immediately condemned by Micheál Martin, the taoiseach. “Conor McGregor’s remarks are wrong, and do not reflect the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland,” the Irish prime minister said on X. “St Patrick’s Day around the world is a day rooted in community, humanity, friendship and fellowship.”McGregor was among those at an official pre-inauguration party in Washington in January. He has been one of the biggest stars of the UFC, which was founded by the Trump ally Dana White.In November McGregor was ordered by an Irish civil court to pay nearly €250,000 (£210,000) in damages to a woman who said he “brutally raped and battered” her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018. McGregor claimed they had consensual sex and is appealing against the verdict with a hearing in Dublin’s high court due later this week.The fighter has said he is considering running for president in Ireland later this year, a prospect some thought would be ruled out after the civil trial verdict.He has been supported by figures including the self-styled misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and anti-immigration campaigners in Ireland whose reach has been turbocharged by Elon Musk retweets.Immigration is a hot topic in Ireland with many arrivals entering Northern Ireland on ferries or planes and crossing the invisible border on the island to enter the Republic of Ireland.The justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, has promised to clamp down on those who are not entitled to international protection. Last month he said more than 80% of applications for asylum in January were rejected in the first instance. More

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      West Virginia governor attacks NCAA ‘robbery’ after WVU excluded from March Madness

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      West Virginia’s governor, Patrick Morrisey, said on Monday that the state will launch an investigation into the NCAA and the selection committee over how teams were picked for this year’s NCAA Tournament.His move comes a day after his state’s flagship school, West Virginia, was excluded from the tournament.Standing behind a podium emblazoned with a sign that read “National Corrupt Athletic Association,” Morrisey said West Virginia deserved a place in the tournament.“This is a miscarriage of justice and robbery at the highest level,” he said.Clearly knowledgeable about college basketball, Morrisey talked at length about factors such as Quad 1 victories, strength of schedule and NET rankings – among the metrics that the tournament committee supposedly uses in determining the teams.Debate raged on Monday morning after the North Carolina Tar Heels were awarded a spot in the field of 68 instead of the Mountaineers. UNC received a No 11 seed and will play fellow No 11 San Diego State in a First Four game on Tuesday.West Virginia finished the season with a 19-13 record (10-10 Big 12); the Tar Heels were 22-13 (13-7 Atlantic Coast Conference). However, when using the metric of Quad 1 wins, North Carolina were 1-12 and West Virginia 6-10.“We keep hearing about the importance of these Quad 1 wins, but UNC couldn’t even get more than one,” the Republican governor said. “They also had the 25th-toughest schedule in America, right behind WVU.”Morrisey said he has directed state attorney general JB McCuskey to work with the NCAA to find out just what criteria the selection committee uses in picking the teams. McCuskey said that knowledge can help teams to build rosters and decide the best use of their NIL funds.McCuskey also said that as the NCAA Tournament has evolved into a billion-dollar business, the selection process hasn’t kept up. An animated Morrisey also questioned what influence Bubba Cunningham, the chair of the selection committee, might have had over the process. Cunningham is the athletic director at North Carolina.“That’s being reported by a number of outlets that Cunningham had a significant bonus incentive, at least $70,000, for UNC making the tournament – arguably more if they advanced,” he said, adding the state’s investigation would look into whether “backroom deals, corruption, bribes or any nefarious activities occurred.”He added: “Any way you slice it, this thing reeks of corruption.”Morrisey has tangled with the NCAA before. In 2023, when he served as the state’s attorney general, he and a coalition of attorneys general in other states sued the NCAA over transfer eligibility and won.“Is this retribution? I don’t know. We’re going to have to get to the bottom of that,” he said.West Virginia declined to participate in the second-tier NIT.“I want to reiterate what I said on Sunday that I am incredibly proud of this team and what they accomplished this season,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said in a statement on Monday. “One of our team goals was making the NCAA Tournament and we had a resume worthy of an NCAA Tournament selection. Our guys poured their hearts into this season and all their collective efforts into making the NCAA tournament. I would like to thank all of Mountaineer Nation for their unwavering support of our team this season.”Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told ESPN he thought the selection committee made the wrong decision.“I was surprised and disappointed to see West Virginia not receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament,” Yormark said. “In addition to their six Quad 1 wins, the Mountaineers won 10 conference games in one of the toughest leagues in the country.” More

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      Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump have taken the 2026 World Cup for themselves | Leander Schaerlaeckens

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      Two men held a press event in the Oval Office last week to announce a taskforce that would work to resolve the logistical problems surrounding the 2026 World Cup in North America, which were largely created by one of them.Both men were in their element. One, Donald Trump, received toady genuflection and a large, golden … thing (actually the Club World Cup trophy). The other, Fifa president Gianni Infantino, occasioned to bask in the proximity to real power, was affectionately referred to as “The king of soccer, I guess, in a certain way” by Trump.Theirs may be a marriage of convenience, but it seems to be a very happy one.At the event, Infantino made unsourced claims of an economic impact of $40bn and the creation of 200,000 jobs, all delivered by the 2025 Club World Cup and the subsequent World Cup proper. Trump demonstratively signed a piece of paper that made the World Cup taskforce official.The whole thing felt little more than symbolic. Such a taskforce doesn’t require a presidential decree, for a start. But also because Infantino knows full well, as did everyone else in the room, that the president is unlikely to rouse himself for a cause he seems to barely understand.“Can the US win?” Trump asked at one point, interrupting Infantino, who ignored the question.“First time it’s ever been in this part of the world,” proclaimed Trump, apparently referring to the World Cup. Never mind that three men’s World Cups have already been staged in North America – in Mexico in 1970 and 1986, and in 1994 in the United States.Infantino proceeded to theatrically show Trump the new Fifa Club World Cup trophy, a gaudy, golden behemoth that unlocks some rings orbiting its center with a key, which seemed to impress the president. Then the Swiss handed Trump an official match ball with the latter’s signature printed on it, tickling the last of the president’s erogenous zones that had not yet been activated.By the time he was done, Infantino had fully draped the tournament around one of his favorite strongmen. If it wasn’t already obvious, the 23rd edition of the Fifa World Cup will be remembered as The Donald Trump World Cup (trademark pending). Just as other mega-events have been hijacked for political ends, this World Cup will be leveraged for the glorification of a leader to a degree not seen since Benito Mussolini dominated the 1934 World Cup in Italy or the Videla regime’s stage crafting of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. While a quarter of the matches will be hosted by Canada and Mexico – introducing a separate set of issues owing to Trump’s erratic saber-rattling with his neighbors – the dominant narrative of the tournament has seemingly already been set.View image in fullscreen“When we made this,” Trump said of the 2026 World Cup, “it was made during my first term, and it was so sad, because I said, ‘Can you imagine, I’m not going to be president? And that’s too bad.’ And what happened is they rigged the election, and I became president and so that was a good thing.” Presumably, he was referring to the 2020 election, which he lost with no evidence of rigging, and his subsequent re-election in 2024.It always seemed unlikely that the sport would be able to keep Trump from claiming soccer’s signature tournament as his own. But Infantino has seen to it that something like the opposite is accomplished instead. The Fifa president, the proud holder of the Russian Federation’s Order of Friendship medal, has written a type of playbook on cozying up to autocrats – or democratically elected heads of state with autocratic inclinations – and entering into mutually beneficial bargains with them. They are lent the World Cup for whatever stains they need to sportswash away and handed a place of prominence at the tournament’s key moments, and Infantino is given a pliant environment from which to source the profits that will keep his patronage machine humming.That same week, Fifa also announced that the World Cup final will be interrupted by a half-time show for the first time in its history. As well as casting its lot with a historically unpopular US president, Fifa will also indulge in all the worst impulses of American sports.The 2026 edition of the world’s biggest sporting event, which somehow retains its prestige and credibility despite the best efforts of its guardians over the last century, will already count more teams and more games than any before it. The notion of expanding from 48 to 64 teams for the 2030 edition has already been soft-launched at the Fifa council.More, more, more, until every last inch and second and ounce of the World Cup has been commercialized and monetized. This is what the full Infantino-ing of Fifa looks like, mirroring the Trump-ification of the next World Cup co-hosts. Each grifting as hard as they possibly can.After the Oval Office event, Infantino made another appearance with Trump, at a White House crypto summit. Infantino demonstrated his labor-intensive trophy again. And then he cut to the chase. “Fifa is very, very interested to develop a Fifa coin,” he told the roundtable of crypto people. “If there is anyone here who is interested to team up with Fifa, here we are.”Of course they are.

      Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men’s national soccer team, out in 2026.

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      Newsom condemned for ‘throwing trans people under bus’ after sports comment

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      Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California believed to be eyeing a run for president in 2028, is facing fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates after his suggestion that the participation of transgender women and girls in female sports was “deeply unfair”.In the inaugural episode of his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, the governor hosted conservative political activist and Maga darling Charlie Kirk. The co-founder and executive director of the rightwing Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based organization that operates on school campuses, told Newsom: “You, right now, should come out and be like: ‘You know what? The young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports – that shouldn’t happen.’ You, as the governor, should step out and say: ‘No.’”The governor responded: “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that … it’s deeply unfair.”View image in fullscreenMembers of his own party in California quickly condemned the comments.“We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks,” assembly member Chris Ward and senator Caroline Menjivar, of the California legislative LGBTQ+ caucus, said in a statement. “All students deserve the academic and health benefits of sports activity, and until Donald Trump began obsessing about it, playing on a team consistent with one’s gender has not been a problem since the standard was passed in 2013.”California law has long protected trans youth’s rights to participate in school activities that match their gender.The governor’s remarks also earned him scorn from national LGBTQ+ rights leaders, with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president, Kelley Robinson, saying in a statement: “History doesn’t remember those who waver – it remembers those who refuse to back down.”Newsom’s comments saw him agreeing with one of the central anti-trans talking points of Republicans and rightwing activists, who have fueled moral panics about trans women in public spaces and trans youth healthcare in recent years. Out of more than 500,000 college athletes, there are fewer than 10 who are trans and out, officials recently said.Proponents of anti-trans restrictions for K-12 students have often struggled to find examples of trans girls playing in school sports.The few openly trans athletes who are in the public eye have faced intense harassment and scrutiny. Civil rights advocates argue that for youth, their ability to play sports that align with their gender is a matter of basic dignity and equal protection under the law.Izzy Gardon, the governor’s communications director, said in a statement on Thursday evening: “The governor rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids.” His office earlier pointed out that in the podcast, the governor noted the high rates of suicide and anxiety among trans people, saying: “The way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with. So, both things I can hold in my hand.”Bamby Salcedo, a longtime Los Angeles-based activist and president of the TransLatin@ Coalition, said it was devastating to hear Newsom fail to even correct Kirk when he appeared to be referring to trans women as men.“For someone who says he is supportive of our communities to come out and say these awful things, he’s using us as political pawns,” she said.“Denying the opportunity for young people to participate in sports is denying them the opportunity to be who they fully are. It is really damaging.”Scott Wiener, a state senator and proponent of trans rights, said in an interview that he considered Newsom a longtime ally of LGBTQ+ people and that it had been “brutal” to hear the governor’s comments. He noted there has been a “decades-long strategic plan by the right wing to demonize trans people”, adding: “They’ve done it very methodically. It’s disgusting, but it’s had some success.”Trans youth in the public eye have faced national ridicule, Wiener noted: “If they’re out as trans, they’re so courageous and they’re putting themselves at risk. It’s really important for people who know better to have their backs.”Wiener, who has introduced legislation to strengthen the state’s trans refuge law, said Newsom has had a good track record on trans civil rights bills, and he hoped that wouldn’t change.State assemblymember Alex Lee, another LGBTQ+ caucus member, said Newsom’s remarks were “shocking and offensive” and that it would hurt his future ambitions: “Throwing trans people under the bus will alienate lots of people who are LGBTQ+ and allies across the nation … If you’re running to be a Republican nominee, this is a great strategy. But if you want to run as a Democrat and someone who is pro-human rights, this is a terrible look.”Some California Republicans were dubious of Newsom, a longtime champion of LGBTQ+ rights who drew national attention when, as the mayor of San Francisco, he defied state law and began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is stunning,” the California assemblymember Bill Essayli wrote on X. “Talk is cheap @GavinNewsom. Why don’t you support my bill AB 844 to reverse CA’s law allowing boys to compete in girls sports? You’re the Governor, not a commentator!”Donald Trump made the issue of trans women in sports a central pillar of his campaign and as president has tried to erase trans and non-binary Americans from public life.He signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female, and another titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, which threatens to withhold federal funds from schools that do not comply. Meanwhile, the US state department has ordered officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes attempting to come to the US for sports competitions, including the Olympics, which Los Angeles will host in 2028.During his joint speech to Congress this week, the president spotlighted the story of a volleyball player who was injured by a trans athlete on the opposing team and threatened to pull federal funding from any school that defied his executive order.Earlier this week, Senate Democrats banded together to block a Republican bill that would have barred transgender women and girls from playing on female sports teams.“What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other and distract people from what they’re actually doing,” the senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat of Hawaii, said in a floor speech during debate over the bill on Monday. Instead of addressing the most pressing issues of the day, such as rising grocery costs and a growing measles outbreak, Schatz said, Republicans were instead focused on an issue that was “totally irrelevant to 99.9% of all people across the country”.Since Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss, Democrats have been embroiled in a debate over what went wrong, ostensibly the reason for the governor’s podcast in which he will “talk directly with people I disagree with”. Desperate for answers, some Democrats have pointed to the party’s support for trans rights as a reason for their defeat.In the interview, Newsom conceded Trump’s signature campaign ad – “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” – was both “brutal” and effective.“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” the governor told Kirk.“It’s not just that this was like the Willie Horton ad of the 2024 [cycle]. It wasn’t just like Lee Atwater brilliance. It’s that it reflected truth that the voters felt,” Kirk said. “Yeah, I appreciate that,” Newsom interjected, as Kirk continued: “Because voters felt as if their country was slipping away.”As Democrats search for a way out of the political wilderness, and grapple with their position on the issue, LGBTQ+ rights advocates are warning the party not to play into Republicans’ hands.“Our message to [Governor] Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple,” Robinson, of the Human Rights Campaign said. “The path to 2028 isn’t paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities – it’s built on the courage to stand up for what’s right and do the hard work to actually help the American people.” More

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      Charles Barkley calls athletes who won’t visit Trump’s White House ‘stupid’. I disagree | Etan Thomas

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      Since Donald Trump took office for his second term, he has taken a blowtorch to America. He has pardoned January 6 rioters, started the gutting of the federal government, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, insulted who we thought were the country’s allies, and vilified immigrants.While there have been voices of dissent in the sports world – such as former NFL punter Chris Kluwe and soccer coach Jesse Marsch – athletes have largely stayed silent on Trump’s policies, a stark contrast to his first term in power. In recent months, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce spoke of their pride in playing in front of Trump at the Super Bowl, while the Philadelphia Eagles are reportedly keen to visit the White House to celebrate their NFL title, a decision supported by Charles Barkley, who believes boycotts make the nation more divided.I couldn’t disagree more with Barkley. So I wanted to sit down with the epitome of the athlete activist, someone who didn’t hesitate to express his beliefs, even in the face of enormous backlash. And that is the great Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose protest during the national anthem in 1996 cost him his NBA career. Below is our conversation, which was has been lightly edited for length and clarity, about the importance of protest under the Trump administration.Etan Thomas: Do you think athletes have gone a little quiet since Trump has taken office? How important is it for athletes to not stay silent?Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf: It’s definitely not just athletes, but for the context of this discussion, we can focus on athletes. And, yes, it’s super important [for athletes to speak up]. I can’t help but think of years ago, J Edgar Hoover was discussing the power of the athlete. And how [the] goal was to shift [focus] from the Muhammad Ali types to the more quiet type of athlete because those in power recognize the power that athletes had to influence people. Especially an athlete that’s articulate and knows how to communicate and is current with all of the issues. So, there is an enormous amount of power that a lot of athletes … don’t realize that they have.ET: A lot of the reasoning given as to why athletes may be more reluctant to speak out now is because they are making so much more money and have much more to lose.MAR: Well, to whom much is given much is expected. Sometimes, people are quiet when they’re trying to get ahead in fear of messing up their chances to succeed, and I understand that. But when you get to a point where you are making millions and your finances are all taken care of, you would think that it would embolden you even more. But for so many of us, it makes it even worse … Sometimes, people listen to athletes more than they will academics who have studied the issues continuously.ET: Has the time of athlete activism passed? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once told me “if you have someone with that type of power and influence, pushing for something you don’t agree with, of course they are going to try to do whatever they can to silence them, because they are a threat to them.”MAR: Mr Abdul Jabbar was absolutely correct. So athletes having that power, have to prepare themselves for that responsibility. And if you want to improve on anything, you have to practice. We have to prepare ourselves just like we do on the basketball court. Just as we train, plan and strategize to overcome the opponent, exploit their weaknesses, capitalize on your strengths to win the game, that same strategic analysis has to be applied in real life. You can’t lose those lessons. It has to carry over. And let me add to that, the more athletes surround themselves with people who can influence them in a positive way, the better.ET: Like Muhammad Ali being mentored by Malcolm X.MAR: Exactly. Without the influence of Malcolm X, we may have only known Muhammad Ali as the greatest boxer of all time. And that would’ve been tragic. An athlete can be utilized as a mouthpiece to wake up the masses … because if an athlete says it, they pay more attention. It shouldn’t be that way of course, but a lot of times, that’s the reality. But honestly, the masses shouldn’t need anyone to point out what is clear and evident. It is amazing that a small cabal of people have convinced the masses to accept their oppression while they know they are being oppressed.ET: Like Trump getting so many people to vote against their own interests for a second time.MAR: Exactly, yes. So to answer your original question, it’s mandatory [for athletes to speak out against Trump]. Too much is at stake. I have conversations with different athletes all the time, just as I’m sure you do. Different races, ages, colors, coaches, administrators, everyone. But I also have conversations with different people of everyday life all the time; not just athletes, people from all races, backgrounds, owners of companies, people in the workforce. But so many people are afraid to make it public. They got us so fearful right now.ET: Almost like everyone is afraid to stand up to the school bully. The whole reason I wrote my book We Matter: Athletes And Activism is because I wanted to praise athletes like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant who were using their voices in Trump’s first term, despite the criticism and backlash, and showing younger athletes that they can follow suit.MAR: And they should look at those criticisms as a compliment. If the powers that be are speaking highly of you, in a system that doesn’t mean you or your people well, you should ask: “Why are they praising me?” Because they always have an angle. They are always trying to manipulate and conform to fit their agenda. But on the flip side, if they are going out of their way to tear you down, that means you are doing something right. The civil rights leader John Lewis talked about “good trouble”. Well, this is “good backlash”.ET: I like that. In your day, there was no social media. Nowadays, athletes don’t have to wait for a reporter or media outlet to interpret what their message is. They have the power to construct their own message, however they want to. But power unrecognized is just a waste.MAR: I wish we had social media back in the day. Being able to control your own narrative and get your own message out the way you want to is invaluable. And to add to that, now athletes have the ability to feel the support of the community through social media. So just as you can feel the backlash, you can also feel support. We didn’t have that when we were coming up. We kind of felt like we were on an island by ourselves because we only heard the media backlash. So, yes, social media plays a big difference in many ways.ET: Any final thoughts?MAR: OK, let me end it with this. If you’re really about human freedom and justice you have no choice but to speak up. With everything going on right now, it’s crucial for everyone to use whatever platform they have – not just athletes but everyone. I want to make that point clear. We can’t put this all on athletes even though we know and understand the level of influence athletes have. Silence is acceptance, compliance and ultimately agreement with the status quo. It was Huey P Newton who said: “I do not think life will change for the better without an assault on the establishment”. With the magnitude of where we are right now, remaining silent isn’t an option. Either you’re part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem. And that goes for everyone, not just athletes. More

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      Sports are an ideal home for Donald Trump’s singular brand of ego stroking

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      Donald Trump’s appearance at this year’s Daytona 500 was not subtle.Named the race’s grand marshal, the president buzzed the speedway from aboard Air Force One, dangling the world’s most advanced airliner above 150,000 Nascar fans the way a parent humors an infant with a spoonful of baby food. Later, from the backseat of the presidential limousine, AKA The Beast, he paced the 41-car field around the oval track before the race. The sight of that 20,000lb machine sticking to the track’s banked lanes at 70 mph blew away the crowd all over again. “This is your favorite president,” he told the drivers via their in-car radio system. “I’m a really big fan of you people. You’re talented people and great people and great Americans.” The shock and awe spectacle couldn’t have been more fitting of a man who has been taking the country for a ride since he entered public life more than 50 years ago.Plenty of other US presidents have used sports to further their agendas. Football wouldn’t be America’s game without rabid sportsman Teddy Roosevelt stepping in to save it from certain abolition at the turn of the 20th century. Former Texas Rangers owner George W Bush put American resilience on display after 9/11 with his on-the-money first pitch to kick off Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium. For nine straight years Barack Obama – a basketball superfan – made a spring rite of picking his March Madness bracket live on ESPN, turning those Baracketology sessions into the hoops equivalent of FDR’s fireside chats.While there’s no doubt that Trump is a genuine fan of some sports in the abstract, he doesn’t care as much about what sports can do for his country as he does what sports can do for him. Given his native New Yorker bona fides, you’d think he’d have staked out firm positions on the sports rivalries that dominate the city. But Trump’s only loyalty is to whoever’s running up front. After the Yankees won back-to-back World Series in the late 70s, Trump and team owner George Steinbrenner, baseball’s eternal autocrat, were inseparable. (Trump called “the Boss” his best friend.) When the Knicks became trendy in the 90s, Trump was courtside at Madison Square Garden between his future second wife Marla Maples and actor Elliott Gould. Trump made himself a fixture at the US Open for nearly four decades, less for the tennis than to be seen mingling with New York’s glitterati and Hollywood celebrities.The essence of fandom lies in the inevitable struggles in the path to glory. But Trump doesn’t do struggle or even concede defeat; that’s for the plebes, Jets and Mets junkies. He doesn’t indulge in true sports fandom. He engages, in the cold, tech bro-y sense of the word – for the branding opportunity. He leaves the Super Bowl before the end of the game and bails on the Daytona 500 after 11 laps – 189 short of the full distance. His only struggle is with the concept of fair-weather fandom. He’s all about the sure thing. The attitude is about par for a golfer whose reputation as a shameless cheat puts him in league with Kim Jong-il and other cult of personality authoritarians.Trump prefers nothing more than a “winner”. It’s why he touted quarterback Patrick Mahomes during the Kansas City Chiefs’ three-peat run, and NFL owner Bob Kraft when his New England Patriots were the league’s reigning dynasty; he praised Serena Williams in similar terms when she was at her most dominant on court. But you would be hard pressed to use the same word to describe Trump back when he was pursuing his own sports endeavors, before hopping on the politics bandwagon.In the 1980s and 90s Trump lured Mike Tyson and other heavyweights to his Atlantic City casino in a failed attempt to upstage the Las Vegas scene. His casinos ultimately went bankrupt, and Atlantic City fell into economic ruin. In 1983 he bought a franchise in the upstart United States Football League expressly to force a merger with the NFL only to wind up collapsing the younger league. In 2014, Trump came up a half-a-billion dollars short of buying the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. He has said that if he owned the team, he likely never would have run for president. You can drive yourself mad thinking of the pain and distress a crowdfunding campaign might have spared the world.But Trump’s loser history was mostly forgotten once he achieved power and began flexing it. And his strongman image has only benefited from his associations with self-proclaimed tough guys like UFC president Dana White, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former NFL star Herschel Walker – whom Trump recently appointed ambassador to the Bahamas. The past two months have seen Trump steal focus from the college football championship and the Super Bowl, which he mostly used as an excuse to troll Taylor Swift.The more he makes sports his bully pulpit, the more the actual protagonists in the arena feel compelled to kiss the ring. Ten months ago McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown was the one falling over himself while guiding then-candidate Trump on a VIP tour of the Miami Grand Prix. Earlier this month PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan implored Trump to moderate the merger negotiations between his circuit and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which would enrich the family business. “One doesn’t know if he is acting as president of the United States or simply as a businessman, in trying to promote this merger,” US representative Jamie Raskin told the Washington Post, nodding at the millions Trump has collected from both organizations through his golf properties.View image in fullscreenMost recently, Team USA general manager Bill Guerin beseeched the president to attend the NHL’s 4 Nations final between the US and Canada amid rising tension between the countries over trade tariffs. “We have a room full of proud American players and coaches and staff,” Guerin told Fox News. “And listen, we’re just trying to represent our country the best way we can.”But there’s good reason why Team USA ultimately had to settle for a phone call from the president whereas the Daytona 500 crowd got the full presidential parade: Nascar is a more influential crowd for Republican presidents. In 1984 Ronald Reagan became the first of four sitting presidents to attend the Great American Race, and every one since has been a Republican. George W Bush, who attended 12 years after his father, owes his two terms in office in large part to Nascar Dads trooping out to the polls. In 2006 vice-president Dick Cheney did a flyover in Air Force Two before taking a lap around the track in his motorcade, setting the template for Trump’s grand entrance this year.At the last Daytona 500 I covered in 2017, weeks after Trump was sworn in for his first term, Trump-Pence campaign signs, bumper stickers and flags proliferated in the Daytona infield. Three years later he turned up for his first stint as race grand marshal. That’s a lot of attention by proximity for a sports league that’s fallen in popularity from its Bush-era peak. But you wonder if everyone inside Nascar corporate is totally comfortable with it.Nascar, after all, has spent the better part of the past 30 years trying to convince the public that it is a diverse, equitable and inclusive sport in spite of its homogeneous presentation and good ol’ boy heritage in the deep south. When Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only Black Cup series driver, called on the sport’s governing body to ban displays of the confederate flag, he was inundated with abuse and death threats. But since Nascar acquiesced to his demand in 2020, over Trump’s forceful objections, the sport has kept pushing toward progress.Michael Jordan and Pitbull have joined Nascar as team owners. Kyle Larson, the sport’s only driver of Asian descent, cruised to the 2021 Cup championship in what was a victory for Drive for Diversity – the quarter-century old Nascar program tasked with bringing more women and minorities into the sport. (Never mind if Larson hadn’t exactly helped racial progress by getting suspended for most of the 2020 season after using the N-word on a live stream.) It’s not hard to imagine Trump taking aim at Drive for Diversity if he detects the slightest hint of disloyalty from Nascar. With Trump literally leading the bandwagon, what else can Nascar do but follow dutifully behind?But playing ball with Trump comes at a cost, especially now that he’s the president again – even if the leagues themselves don’t pick up the tab. The Super Bowl trip to New Orleans is estimated to have set taxpayers back at least $1m. His Daytona 500 drop-in could cost 10 times as much. Some X users, doing the quick math on Air Force One’s hourly operation rate, reckon that $25,000 alone was burned on jet fuel when Air Force One buzzed the speedway. Between the lavish engagements at sporting events and the millions he pocketed from playing golf at his own courses, it’s a wonder anyone believes him when he talks about cracking down on government waste and fraud.Authenticity has always been a prime selling point of sports, but that’s not why Trump’s in the game. For him, sports are just another venue for his singular brand of ego stroking. Wherever the lights are brightest, you can bet Trump will find some way to make a spectacle of himself. More

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      Trump is using the presidency to seek golf deals – hardly anyone’s paying attention | Mohamad Bazzi

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      In his first month in office, Donald Trump destroyed federal agencies, fired thousands of government workers and unleashed dozens of executive orders. The US president also found time to try to broker an agreement between two rival golf tournaments, the US-based PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league, funded by Saudi Arabia.If concluded, the deal would directly benefit Trump’s family business, which owns and manages golf courses around the world. And it would be the latest example of Trump using the presidency to advance his personal interests.On 20 February, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House between Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, chair of LIV Golf and head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, along with the golf star Tiger Woods. It was the second meeting convened by Trump at the White House this month with PGA Tour officials involved in negotiating with the Saudi wealth fund. A day before his latest attempt at high-level golf diplomacy, Trump travelled to Miami to speak at a conference organized by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is managed by Al-Rumayyan but ultimately controlled by the kingdom’s de facto ruler and crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.Trump’s sports diplomacy in the Oval Office and cozying up to Saudi investors in Miami did not get much attention compared with his whirlwind of executive orders and new policies. But these incidents encapsulate Trump’s transactional and corrupt approach to governing – and the ways that wealthy autocrats including Prince Mohammed will be able to exploit the US president. While Trump will often boast he is making good deals for the US, his relationship with Saudi Arabia and its crown prince is largely built on benefits for Trump’s family and its extensive business interests.During Trump’s first term, the Trump Organization had dealings with Saudi Arabia that posed a potential conflict of interest for the president, especially after Saudi government lobbyists spent more than $270,000 on rooms at the Trump International hotel in downtown Washington. Now with no guardrails from Congress or the courts, the Trump family business is plowing ahead with new agreements that could reap tens of millions of dollars in profit from Saudi-linked real estate and golf ventures.In December, a month after Trump was elected to a second term, the Trump Organization announced several real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, including a Trump Tower in the capital, Riyadh, and another $530m residential tower in the city of Jeddah. The projects are branding deals for Trump’s family business with Dar Global, an international subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan, one of the largest real estate companies in Saudi Arabia. While Dar Al Arkan is a private company, it relies on large Saudi government contracts and the crown prince’s goodwill.After a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, the Trump Organization lost a series of real estate partnerships and other deals in the US. During Trump’s years out of power, Saudi Arabia became one of the few consistent sources of new deals and growth for the Trump brand, which was considered toxic by many US customers and businesses. Aside from real estate branding agreements with Saudi companies, Trump convinced the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV professional golf tour at several of his golf courses, including those in Washington, Miami and Bedminster, New Jersey. After the assault on the Capitol, the PGA of America, which is a separate organization from the PGA Tour and runs one of golf’s most important tournaments, the PGA Championship, cancelled a 2022 tournament at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. The LIV Golf tournaments brought Trump’s properties back into the professional golfing circuit and provided millions of dollars in revenue for the Trump family business.In November 2022, as Trump was preparing to announce his presidential campaign, the Trump Organization finalized a deal with Dar Al Arkan and the government of Oman to be part of a multibillion-dollar real estate development in Oman. While the Trump Organization is not expected to contribute funds toward the project’s development, it will earn millions of dollars in licensing fees for a Trump-branded hotel and golf course – and will be paid millions more in management fees for up to 30 years. The project raised concerns that if Trump was re-elected, he would violate the US constitution’s emoluments clause by profiting from being in a partnership with the government of Oman, a longtime US ally, and a real estate firm with close ties to the Saudi government. (A report released by Democrats in Congress last year found that Trump’s businesses had received $7.8m from at least 20 foreign governments during his first term as president.)As Saudi Arabia helped keep Trump’s family business afloat after the Capitol insurrection, it provided even more crucial support to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser during the first Trump administration. Six months after Kushner left the White House in 2021, his newly created firm, Affinity Partners, secured a $2bn investment from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Prince Mohammed overruled a panel of advisers who had recommended against investing in Kushner’s company, citing its lack of experience and track record in private equity. The advisers warned that due diligence had found the firm’s early operations “unsatisfactory in all aspects”, but internal documents leaked to the New York Times showed that the prince and his aides were more concerned with using the investment as part of a “strategic relationship” with Kushner.Why was Prince Mohammed so eager to invest in Trump and Kushner’s businesses, even when they were out of power? The prince was betting on a second Trump term – and he was rewarding Trump’s steadfast support throughout his presidency. The Trump administration helped Prince Mohammed survive a severe challenge to his rule: fallout from the assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who suffocated the Saudi journalist and dismembered his body with a bone saw.As the international outcry over Khashoggi’s killing intensified and members of Congress demanded sanctions against Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials, Trump and Kushner never wavered in their support for the prince and his regime. While Saudi officials at first tried to claim that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, the crown prince eventually blamed rogue operatives for the assassination. But a US intelligence report, which Trump refused to release, found that Prince Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s killing.The president later made sure to remind Prince Mohammed that he owed Trump for defending him after Khashoggi’s assassination. In interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward in early 2020, Trump boasted: “I saved his ass”– meaning he protected the crown prince from a backlash in Congress. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone,” Trump told Woodward. “I was able to get them to stop.”Today, the president is trying to reap more benefits based on his protection of Prince Mohammed – beyond what Kushner and the Trump Organization have already amassed from Saudi investments during Trump’s time out of office. Trump is corrupting the presidency by using it to negotiate international golf agreements and other deals that will ultimately enrich his family – and hardly anyone is objecting.

      Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University More

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      Canada’s American coach Marsch ‘ashamed’ of Trump’s 51st state comments

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      Canada head coach Jesse Marsch took direct aim at Donald Trump and the current state of discourse in the US in comments to media on Wednesday.“If I have one message to our president, it’s lay off the ridiculous rhetoric about Canada being the 51st state,” said Marsch, who grew up in Wisconsin and enjoyed a 13-year career in Major League Soccer before moving into coaching. “As an American, I’m ashamed of the arrogance and disregard that we’ve shown one of our historically oldest, strongest and most loyal allies.”Marsch was addressing the media in Los Angeles, where he appeared with other representatives of the four nations participating in the Concacaf Nations League finals, set to be hosted at SoFi Stadium at the end of next month. Canada will play Mexico in one semi-final on 20 March with the US and Panama playing each other on the same day, raising the possibility that the two nations will play each other in either the Nations League final or third place game on 23 March.Trump has repeatedly antagonized Canada in comments and through official policy proposals like tariffs during his second term. On multiple occasions he has said that Canada could become “the 51st state” of the United States and has proposed tariffs that experts predict would kick off a trade war between the countries.Trump’s comments have already resonated in the sports world. The US national anthem was booed repeatedly at NHL and NBA games in Canada, while the countries’ meeting at the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off became an overtly political spectacle. In the final of that tournament, the Canadian national anthem singer changed the song’s lyrics in a direct rebuke to Trump, before Canada set off wild celebrations with a victory.Marsch, the former Leeds United, RB Leipzig, RB Salzburg and New York Red Bulls head coach, said on Wednesday that international tournaments like the Nations League “mean something different now” given the current political climate, and said he finds the 51st state discourse to be “unsettling and frankly insulting.”“Canada is a strong, independent nation that’s deeply rooted in decency, and it’s a place that values high ethics and respect, unlike the polarized, disrespectful and often now, hate-fueled climate that’s in the US,” Marsch said. “It’s one of the things that I’ve enjoyed the most about our team, is that they exemplify this as human beings and as a team … So for me right now I couldn’t be prouder to be the Canadian national team coach. I found a place that embodies, for me, the ideals and morals of what not just football and a team is, but what life is, and that’s integrity, respect and the belief that good people can do great things together.”Canada, who appeared in their first men’s World Cup in 36 years in 2022, hired Marsch in 2024 and have continued to thrive. The team progressed to the third place game at the 2024 Copa América, and defeated the US 2-1 in a September friendly later that year. A win against Mexico at the Nations League finals would stretch the team’s unbeaten run to six games since the Copa América.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“One thing’s for sure, when I look forward to a month from now … I know this will fuel our team, the mentality we have, the will we have to play for our country, the desire we have to go after this tournament in every way and show on and off the pitch exactly what Canadian character is,” Marsch said.US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino was not present at the event, replaced instead by former USMNT defender and current US Soccer President of Sporting Oguchi Onyewu. Asked to respond to Marsch’s comments, Onyewu said: “We’re all here to promote the Concacaf Nations League, and all of my comments are to promote the Concacaf Nations League, SoFi Stadium, and the strong competition that we have on this panel right now.” More