Ex-Arsenal talent jailed for drug smuggling, who can beat Spain at World Cup?

New York Times

12 hours ago

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Hello. He once had Arsene Wenger purring. Now this former Arsenal forward is serving time for drug smuggling.
On the way:
The reason Jay Emmanuel-Thomas is now a former footballer is because of the story you're about to read. As recently as September of last year, he was playing out his days with Greenock Morton, a Scottish team on the outskirts of Glasgow. Then the police came knocking.
That same month, Emmanuel-Thomas — best known as a product of Arsenal's academy — was arrested as part of a drugs bust and accused of smuggling cannabis with a street value of £600,000 ($814,000) into the UK. Yesterday, a court sentenced him to four years in prison. Aged 34, his name is tarred and his career is over, a sharp fall from grace complete.
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It's many moons since mentions of Emmanuel-Thomas in dispatches were making ears prick at Arsenal and beyond. Ultimately, it didn't happen for him there and he soon became nomadic, passing through clubs in England, Scotland, Thailand and India.
But he's still the guy Arsene Wenger once described as 'an unbelievable finisher' — so lethal and powerful that when he helped destroy Liverpool in the FA Youth Cup in 2009, Liverpool's players refused to believe he was young enough to be taking part in the competition.
Why, then, did Emmanuel-Thomas embroil himself in the importation of narcotics, a crime his own barrister described as 'a catastrophic error of judgement', when, before this offence, he had been a law-abiding citizen his entire life? Danny Taylor was in court to find out.
'The most painful experience'
By the time of his arrest, Emmanuel-Thomas was no longer earning big from football. His pay at Morton was £600 a week, before bonuses. The club terminated his six-month contract as soon as he was charged.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how he may have been tempted into criminality during his short time playing for Thai side PTT Rayong in 2019. The cannabis in question arrived on a plane from Bangkok. The court was also told that Emmanuel-Thomas enlisted two women — one of them his own partner at the time — to act as couriers, promising them £2,500 in cash and flying them business class via Dubai.
The women were themselves charged by police, but the allegations against them were dropped after WhatsApp conversations showed they believed they were bringing gold back to the UK, rather than illegal drugs. Emmanuel-Thomas deleted his messages, threw away his mobile phone and, at first, denied all wrongdoing — before changing his tune and pleading guilty.
The maximum sentence for cannabis importation in the UK is 14 years. He received four, although nine months of that sentence have already been served by him on remand. He called his conviction 'the most painful and eye-opening experience of my life'.
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A father of two, he will re-emerge from prison before long, with no semblance of a career to cling to. As the judge told him, 'You will no longer be known for being a professional footballer. You will be known as a criminal, a professional footballer who threw it all away and put others at risk of imprisonment in pursuit of money.'
The World Cup is rarely a foregone conclusion but, with the big kick-off in North America a little over 12 months away, is anybody looking beyond Spain?
They're the European Championship holders, they've got Lamine Yamal running riot and they're different gravy. OK, their Nations League semi-final against France last night ended 5-4 in their favour, but I was packing up and heading to bed when they led 5-1 with 12 minutes to go.
It was worth hanging on to see evidence (if any more was needed) of why Manchester City are so set on seducing France's Rayan Cherki. In the chaos of a frantic finish, he hammered in a beast of a volley (above) and plucked an assist right out of the Yamal playbook. These boys are the future, just like the Spanish, who face Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal in Sunday's final.
Our pals at The Pulse run a regular section entitled 'Hi, my name is…', where they introduce us to a prospect we haven't heard of (or not in great detail). Today, I'm pinching it for a footballer who is 32.
Ravel Morrison won't need introducing to many of you, but he's been so far off the radar for so long that some readers might not be familiar. How gifted was he as a teenage midfielder at Manchester United? Sir Alex Ferguson explained it best when he said he'd never seen anybody better. Morrison displayed his talent with an iconic instep volley during an England Under-21 training session, below.
Danny Taylor has interviewed Morrison for The Athletic and it's a great get because Morrison doesn't do much media. From Old Trafford to West Ham United, Lazio and now a second-division team in Dubai, he carried the reputation of being a bad boy and a big-time problem as his promise melted — a reputation he earned on occasions.
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Aged 17, and just after his United debut, he was convicted of intimidating a witness in a robbery case. Negative headlines had a habit of coming for him. These days, however, he's on the straight and narrow, and aiming to represent Jamaica at next year's World Cup.
Reading Danny's piece, the popular caricature of him becomes faintly ludicrous. Did he quit Lazio because of a lack of salad cream (a sandwich condiment in the UK)? Did he p**s in a former manager's fish pond? Did he complain about his digs at West Ham being haunted? No, no and no. The truth about Morrison was less likely to send a tweet viral, but where's the fun in that?
(Selected games, kick-offs ET/UK time)
Friday: UEFA World Cup qualifier Group I: Norway vs Italy, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Fox Sports, Fubo/Amazon Prime.
Saturday: UEFA World Cup qualifier Group K: Andorra vs England, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Fox Sports, Fubo/ITV. International friendlies (all U.S. only): USMNT vs Turkey, 3.30pm — TNT, Peacock Premium, Fubo; Canada vs Ukraine, 3.30pm — OneSoccer; Mexico vs Switzerland, 4pm — Univision, VIX. MLS: DC United vs Chicago Fire, 7.30pm/12.30am — MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.
Sunday: UEFA Nations League final: Portugal vs Spain, 3pm/8pm — Fox, Fubo/ITV. MLS: LAFC vs Sporting Kansas City; Vancouver Whitecaps vs Seattle Sounders — both 9pm/2am and MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.
Everyone makes mistakes, even your loyal scribes at TAFC. So we're about to throw stones from a glass house. But here's a howler of epic proportions from Finland.
This week, the manager of Finland's women's team, Outi Saarinen, named her squad for a Nations League match against Serbia. She meant to include defender Nanne Ruuskanen but absent-mindedly filled in the teamsheet with the name of Stina Ruuskanen — a 51-year-old whose last international appearance for Finland came almost 30 years ago.
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The error was picked up too late to be changed, leaving Nanne to kick her heels, while Stina joked to a local paper: 'I'm definitely ready if the call comes.' If the squad had anything about them, they'll have worn Stina Ruuskanen face masks to the next training session.
(Top photo by)