Donal at the double as Ballymena United Rock Glenavon: ‘Opening day win will give us a huge lift'
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The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
Michael Johnson admits Grand Slam Track cannot pay its athletes until new investors are found
Grand Slam Track founder Michael Johnson has spoken out after failing to pay athletes and said the event would not go ahead in 2026 unless a solution was found. The league, which is in its inaugural season, owes competitors millions of dollars in appearance fees and prize money, and in June the fourth and final meet on the calendar, scheduled for Los Angeles, was cancelled. Johnson's deal with host UCLA had become financially unviable, with estimated losses of more than $2m had the event gone ahead. In a statement on Friday, Johnson said the company was 'struggling with our ability to compensate' athletes due to not receiving promised funding. 'It is incredibly difficult to live with the reality that you've built something bigger than yourself while simultaneously feeling like you've let down the very people you set out to help. However, I have to own that,' the former Olympic champion said. 'And yes, the cruellest paradox in all of this is we promised that athletes would be fairly and quickly compensated. Yet, here we are struggling with our ability to compensate them. 'We were devastated when we learned we would not receive the funding committed to us. We worked tirelessly alongside our investors and board to find a quick solution to the problem. Up until and even after the LA postponement, we were getting positive signs that a solution was close.' Before the opening event in Kingston, Jamaica, Johnson's co-founder Steve Gera told The Independent that they were 'maniacally focused on having the youngest fanbase of any sports league in the world in the next five years'. The star-studded list of athletes – which included US stars Kenny Bednarek, Gabrielle Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as well as British names including Josh Kerr and Dina Asher-Smith – competed in two linked events, such as 100m and 200m sprints, with results combined to calculate the winners in each category. Prize money for winners stood at $100,000, with $50,000 for runners-up and $10,000 for eighth place. The competition was billed as a much-needed shot in the arm for athletics, although the decision to include only track events and omit field disciplines was met with criticism. 'I am going to save what I think I can save,' Johnson explained. 'I think I can save track, I don't think I can save track and field.' But ticket sales have been slow and sponsorship and broadcast revenues have not met lofty expectations. The Times reports that organisers will save around £2.2m in prize money and travel expenses by cancelling the Los Angeles event. Some of the action has played out in half-empty stadiums, although the third event in Philadelphia was more popular, with close to 30,000 tickets sold over two days after the action was compressed from the three days of events held in Kingston and Miami. A disappointing crowd in Jamaica prompted organisers to review their locations for 2026, with a variety of other markets being considered, including European cities. Johnson said Grand Slam was now working to put new systems in place with the aim to ensure this did not happen again in the future. He added: 'While I am no stranger to setbacks and overcoming obstacles, as an athlete, professionally and personally, this current situation of not being able to pay our athletes and partners has been one of the most difficult challenges I've ever experienced. 'The 2026 season will not happen until these obligations are met - and that is my number one priority.'
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
Just imagine what Liverpool will be like when Arne Slot's rebuild is complete
Imagine what Liverpool will be like when they are the finished product. It is a statement which could have been applied for the past 12 months. There will come a point during his reign when Arne Slot considers his conquests and truly believes he has reached the pinnacle with a fully formed, perfectly balanced team. If it takes successive league championships to attain such a moment of satisfaction, so be it. If anything, the addition of four new outfield players has made Liverpool even more of a team in transition than when they began defying the odds a year ago. Liverpool's challengers spent the first seven months of last season convincing themselves Slot's restructured team were too flawed, too fragile in the event of suffering injuries, and too prone to scrapping their way to three points to sustain a title charge. By March, they all realised they had underestimated Slot as his side galloped away, the Dutch coach's ability to navigate a route to glory ensuring the early-season confidence of others dissipated as the Anfield bubble refused to burst. One can imagine those same emotions in north London, Stamford Bridge and the blue side of Manchester seeing Slot's side claim an opening-night win. It is inconceivable they will defend their crown playing as open as this, the game more reminiscent of the early years of Jürgen Klopp's roller-coaster rides than the stylistic, possession game that Slot evolved in his debut campaign. The most withering criticism that could be directed at Liverpool when they squandered a two-goal lead was to query if Slot wanted to fill the void left by Ange Postecoglou's demise at Tottenham Hotspur. To lose a goal on the counter-attack when 2-0 up could be considered unfortunate; conceding two in such a fashion was rank stupidity. Rich in entertainment, low on tactical sense. Slot, the manager hailed in his early months for his canny substitutions, was also indulging in odd experiments such as deciding holding midfielder Wataru Endo can play right-back (a mercifully short-lived expedition). And with the utmost respect to match-winner Federico Chiesa, even he seemed to have been sent on in hope more than expectation as the game was in danger of drifting entirely Bournemouth's way. Yet this team and this stadium have an uncanny habit of making it all seem scripted, as if a point needed to be reiterated that their slight imperfections are outweighed by their almighty strengths. 'Winning the league here will be more impressive than beating Bournemouth, but those last six minutes… wow,' said Slot, as players and supporters formed a familiar, powerful union. Liverpool's hunger for more silverware is insatiable. When the moments of truth come, the match-winners are queuing up, in this case Chiesa. The Italian has been more of a lucky charm than a stellar signing. It would be no surprise if his game-changing volley was a farewell gift if the right offer materialises before the end of the month, although Slot may be inclined to keep him for his ability to prompt the Kop into vibrancy. Chiesa needs only to warm-up to get the crowd going. This winner cements his cult status. As the chant of 'champions' raised the Anfield decibel level to somewhere akin to last May's title party, it was easy to flirt with the clichés. Elite teams always find a way, even if when Antoine Semenyo equalised for Bournemouth it was they who looked the more accomplished team and most likely to collect three points. Winning in the 90th minute is what title-holders tend to do, the hands of the clock seemingly existing to usher them towards the last, meaningful contributions before applauding the victorious players off. That will not alter the fact Slot has problems to solve, the introduction of Florian Wirtz adding glitz while the absence of the suspended Ryan Gravenberch added a glitch. Wirtz is a symbol of Liverpool's transition. He is so adept at finding space he could be employed by Nasa, and such is the delicacy of his touch, it is rather like he is dribbling with porcelain. But two games into his Liverpool career, the world is awaiting the first spectacular exhibition of his artistry. He is like a ballet dancer building up to his first pirouette. You sense it is coming, but so far there is more anticipation when he takes possession than a final product. Much of this is because of acclimatisation. Wirtz was often in position for a team-mate's pass, but the safer option was chosen. This will alter when the rest of the team realise that Wirtz being shadowed ought not to dissuade them from picking him out, given his ability to receive possession and glide from a marker. Next week's reintroduction of Gravenberch will demonstrate if Liverpool's openness is a minor malfunction, or structural defect. Most likely it is the former. There is so much talent at Slot's disposal, with the promise of more to come, that Liverpool's capacity to thrill should continue without such vulnerability. When they get it right at both ends, they might be the hottest ticket in Europe.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Hugo Ekitiké makes another good impression but there is a lot of work for Arne Slot to do
To take a side who have just won the league and make four major changes cannot be anything but a risk. There will always be at least some process of adaptation, particularly given the slight change of shape the arrival of Florian Wirtz has entailed. The danger for Liverpool is that they give up points that could prove costly if this is a tight title race. While that transition goes on, results perhaps matter more than performances, so long as the trend of those performances is towards a greater cohesion. Improvement certainly is needed. Liverpool cannot give up goals as easily as they did in the Community Shield and here if they are to defend their title. But they found a way to get the three points, the key goal coming from the most unlikely source of Federico Chiesa, and started the season with a win. And for all the talk of personnel changes and tactics, the image of Mohamed Salah standing alone before the Kop after the final whistle, wiping the tears away with his cuff as fans sang the Diogo Jota song, was a poignant image of how difficult this season will inevitably be for Liverpool's players. It's not invalid to talk of the mundanities of football – indeed it's a necessary part of the process – but equally this served as a reminder that grief is woven inevitably through this season. The football soap opera will perhaps struggle to find a vocabulary to discuss something so personal, so unpredictable, so potentially debilitating, but that does not mean that it is not there. The tributes before kick-off were moving and the minute's silence for Jota and his brother reverently observed, but there was still a match to be played, for football, life, always goes on. Some of Liverpool's new signings, it's fair to say, have settled in rather better than others. Hugo Ekitiké embellished the good impression he had made in the Community Shield, but Milos Kerkez is finding settling in rather harder. The 21-year-old Hungarian had an awkward afternoon last Sunday, dragged about by Ismaïla Sarr, and he no more enjoyed facing his former team-mate Antoine Semenyo. There was a strange jitteriness to Kerkez throughout, as though he had begun to doubt himself and, in trying to rectify that with decisive contributions, had lost a degree of judgment. He was fortunate an early lunge on the Ghanaian made minimal contact but didn't get away with an even wilder flying challenge on Adam Smith and was rightly booked. Not, it should be said, that Andy Robertson fared much better, having replaced Kerkez on the hour. Semenyo had darted in front of Kerkez to meet a low cross from Adrien Truffert early on and it was a very similar move that led to Bournemouth's first goal four minutes later, David Brooks this time delivering the cross. The sense perhaps is that whatever unease Kerkez may be feeling after his step up, there is also a broader tactical issue. The Community Shield and this game maintained the pattern Liverpool had demonstrated during pre-season of looking very exciting going forward but far less impressive at the back. The adoption of a more man-to-man pressing system seems to have rendered them vulnerable to direct running into the tracts that are mystifyingly appearing behind or in front of the back four. The equaliser was perhaps an extreme example as Semenyo surged 60 yards through mysteriously unoccupied space as Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté retreated before whacking his finish past Alisson. The shame is that what should have been an excellent night for Semenyo also involved him reporting an incident of racial abuse to the referee Anthony Taylor. Ekitiké made a rather more positive impression, although, as in the Community Shield, there was bewilderment that having taken one chance supremely well, he then fluffed a seemingly easier opportunity soon after. The goal he scored, though, was remarkable as he received the ball with six Bournemouth players around him, bundled through Marcos Senesi and then finished with a calm certainty. But more than the individuals the question mark is over the tweak to the system. Perhaps everything will look better when Ryan Gravenberch returns from suspension and can take up his place at the back of midfield. Certainly it's hard to imagine him, whatever the dictats of the pressing system, leaving the centre of defence as exposed as it was for the Bournemouth equaliser. Dominik Szoboszlai has not convinced in the deeper role and it may be that his immediate future is as back-up to Wirtz. One of the issues thrown up by the Community Shield was the isolation of Salah but that, at least, looks as though it may be readily resolved. His link-up with Jeremie Frimpong is a work in progress, but there were early signs of an understanding with Ekitiké and he played a decisive role in Liverpool's late surge for victory, his cross leading, via a series of shots, blocks and half-clearances, to Chiesa's volleyed goal before he got the fourth with a typically decisive finish. This is a long way from the controlled Liverpool of last season but it remains, for now, a winning Liverpool.
