Vesper

£113m is €130m

€15m (£13m) gross per annum is £250K PW

yes, I forgot Como is stacked with attacking firepower now

Who is Ali Barat? Premier League 'super agent' at the heart of Chelsea mega deals Ali Barat has been at the heart of several high-profile transfers already this summer and is set to be even busier as the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United, and Chelsea continue their spending sprees https://www.football.london/Chelsea-fc/news/who-ali-barat-premier-league-32105809 Premier League clubs are gearing up for another massive summer of expenditure as Liverpool, Manchester United, and Chelsea aim to revamp their squads ahead of the new season. The reigning Premier League champions have already splashed out more than £150m on Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez and are poised to increase that figure further after agreeing a deal potentially worth £79m for Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike. Meanwhile, United's spending is just shy of £70m following the acquisitions of Matheus Cunha and Diego Leon. However, this amount is set to more than double after the Old Trafford outfit agreed a £71m deal with Brentford for Bryan Mbeumo over the weekend. Over at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea, fresh off their recent Club World Cup victory, are on track for another summer of lavish spending, with the signings of Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro, and Liam Delap, totalling more than £150m. But the Premier League clubs' spending spree hasn't stopped there, with Noni Madueke recently leaving Chelsea to join Arsenal in a deal roughly worth £50m, reports the Liverpool Echo. And Madueke's former Stamford Bridge colleague Nicolas Jackson could soon be heading for the exit too, with the Senegal international reportedly in talks with Manchester United earlier this month. Interestingly, one individual seems to be at the heart of many of the Premier League's deals this summer, Ali Barat. Barat, the proprietor of Epic Sport agency, has been instrumental in several high-profile transfers this summer, including Madueke's move across London and Dean Huijsen's switch from Bournemouth to Real Madrid. After being named Agent of the Year at the 2023 Golden Boy awards for facilitating big-ticket moves for Moises Caicedo and Jackson to Chelsea, Barat is also managing Ekitike's transfer from Frankfurt to Anfield. Following a series of high-stakes negotiations, Barat is now considered one of football's emerging 'super agents,' akin to Jorge Mendes. Once Ekitike's transfer to Anfield is sealed, Barat is expected to focus on arranging moves for his other clients, including Xavi Simons and Jackson.

he would flourish at Napoli what a fool

No Rodrygo? Also, I would take Antoine Semenyo or Jesus Rodriguez (or even the too expensive Rafael Leão or Anthony Gordon) over Garnacho

Contract expires:June 30, 2029 Last contract extension:Aug 16, 2024 Reports: Juve prepping a big contract offer for Kenan Yildiz after Club World Cup https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/reports-juve-prepping-a-big-contract-offer-for-kenan-yildiz-after-club-world-cup/ar-AA1GjMLj Over the past year and a half or so, we’ve seen a handful of Juventus players be rewarded with new contracts that, for the most part, have tied them to the club for the long-term future. But when it comes to Kenan Yildiz, we’ve seen the budding young Turkish star get not one, but two new contracts within the span of 12 months. The first came in August 2023. The second came in August 2024 — and with a new kit number to boot. It seems that a third contract extension in as many summers will be discussed with Yildiz once Juventus return from their Club World Cup participation in the United States. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this week and since also reported by Tuttosport on Sunday, Juventus intend to even further lock in the 20-year-old Yildiz as a leading player at the club heading into the 2025-26 season. With Juve qualifying for the Champions League, the need to cash in on Yildiz’s ever-growing value on the transfer market doesn’t seem likely, but a contract extension, in theory, would stave off the big-money clubs — namely from the Premier League — and not even give the young Turkiye attacker even a temptation to ply his trade somewhere other than Turin. Yildiz currently earns around €1.5 million net with the deal he signed prior to the start of the 2024-25 season, but La Gazzetta says a new deal could see that figure nearly triple and go to €4 million plus bonuses, A salary like that would put Yildiz amongst Juventus’ highest earners — especially if Dusan Vlahovic, like everybody expects, and his Serie A-high €12 million net salary comes off the books this summer.

Analysis: Profiling Europe's Most Wanted Wingers Wingfielders and wide-forwards analysed with Attributes and Archetypes

Juve told us and all other teams who tried to buy him to fuck off

The 2026 World Cup Could Be the Most Corrupt Ever The president has anointed himself chair of next year’s lucrative sporting event, which was once entangled in the biggest sports bribe scandal in history. What could go wrong? https://newrepublic.com/article/197988/trump-fifa-infantino-world-cup Donald Trump speaks alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino after unveiling the 2025 Club World Cup trophy in the Oval Office. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump designated himself chairman of the U.S. task force organizing next year’s World Cup in North America. His reign officially kicked off amid a hail of boos on July 6 in New Jersey at the Club World Cup finale between Chelsea and Paris Saint-German—a precursor to the big event in 2026. As with most things associated with Trump, his participation in FIFA’s minor canon came with a generous helping of slapdash corruption. Trump had already helped himself to the trophy meant for the tournament’s winners, claimed as a piece of bric-a-brac to display in the Oval Office, so Chelsea’s triumphant squad had to be presented with a replica of the original. (The president insisted the winners’ trophy was gifted to him by FIFA.) The kleptomania didn’t end there: Trump was filmed tucking away a championship medal in the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket at the event. He also hogged the victory stage during the Chelsea players’ celebration in front of the fans at MetLife Stadium. Gianni Infantino, head of the international soccer organization Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, was seen on camera attempting to usher the president from the platform, but Trump wasn’t budging. The lone outsider stuck fast to the stage as the players around him leapt into the air to celebrate their win. He was later erased from one of the team shots posted on social media. Chelsea midfielder Cole Palmer, who scored two of the team’s three goals for the title win, said later he was “confused” by the lingering Trump. “I knew he was going to be here, but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy,” Palmer added. Better get used to Trump hanging around. The president will now lord over arrangements hammered out in offices in his own Trump Tower in Manhattan for the 2026 World Cup taking place in the United States (13 cities), Canada (two cities), and Mexico (three cities). The 2026 iteration of the Cup will debut its new, expanded format and will include a record 48 teams and 104 games. Trump named as the executive director of his new World Cup task force former small-time pro golfer and short-time Republican candidate for New York Governor Andrew Giuliani, 39, son of onetime New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a main defender of Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was rigged. The task forces will be part of Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security. Trump Tower enthusiasts will recognize that this is a full-circle operation. Ten years ago, an investigation into the biggest bribery scandal in soccer history was launched in the exact same building, as FIFA general secretary Chuck Blazer, to save himself, suited up with a wire for the FBI to implicate his cronies in the sports federation. Mike Gaeta, a founder of international investigation and consulting firm SI Global Partners, was a top FBI investigator in the case who launched the probe. In an interview, he characterized the crackdown as a major “slap upside the face of those out to game the system.” A decade later, FIFA is back in the building. And with it comes millions of dollars—involving security, sponsorships, sports gear, and memorabilia—that has been and is being negotiated. Trump, whose private companies continue to profit from deals with corporations and nations even as he serves in the White House, is calling the shots in the U.S. What could possibly go wrong? Besides providing a fresh opportunity for profit and kickbacks, the World Cup in the U.S. promises politically to be a jarring mix of global cooperation, talented athletes from around the world, and the Trump administration’s “suited and booted” ICE men poised to pounce on people attending the matches from around the world. It threatens to be a modern-day taste of Hitler’s 1936 Summer Olympics, when Germany hosted the global games while aiming at the same time to highlight Nazi domination. A decade ago, the FBI’s investigation resulted in the indictment of nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives by the U.S. Department of Justice—for corruption, racketeering, and money laundering, among other charges—in a massive bribery and kickback scandal linked to awarding contracts and choosing World Cup venues in South Africa (2010), Russia (2018), and Qatar (2022). The number of indicted FIFA officials and corporate representatives later grew to some 40 people. Most confessed, were convicted, or died before court actions concluded. U.S. prosecutors accused individuals (and collaborators) of FIFA’s exclusive 24-member executive committee of choosing World Cup venues and awarding contracts influenced by hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. According to the indictments, the head of FIFA’s regional Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, or CONCACAF, Blazer’s boss Jack Warner, raked in $10 million just for voting for South Africa to be a World Cup venue, a fraction of his total take. Warner, who lives in Trinidad, has denied all the charges and has stayed out of the U.S. since his indictment. Warner also picked Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. (Blazer, who lived in Forest Hills, Queens, as a boy and New Rochelle, New York, later on, told confidants he did not, since the U.S. was vying to be the World Cup venue the same year.) Qatar had no stadiums adequate for World Cup play when its bid was accepted. As it fulfilled its commitments, hundreds of immigrant workers lost their lives in accidents building the stadiums and other projects for the event—a reality that Qatar’s own World Cup chief has admitted. Human rights organizations say thousands died leading up to the Cup. Staging the World Cup in Qatar cost an estimated record-busting $220 billion. By the time federal agents confronted Blazer outside Trump Tower in November 2011, he had raked in his own multimillion-dollar income, helping himself to at least a 10 percent cut of every deal he made, and an additional untold fortune under the table throughout his 11-year reign as CONCACAF general secretary. He paid no taxes for 20 years, Gaeta noted, a fact leveraged by agents to force his cooperation in their investigation. He turned out to be the linchpin in the FBI’s massive crackdown on the sports organization. Gaeta credited Blazer with nailing down needed information that ultimately resulted in the dramatic arrests by Swiss authorities of FIFA officials outside the Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich in May 2015. Like the mobster wiseguys Gaeta had worked with, he said Blazer was “practical, getting the most benefit as quickly as possible” while working with the FBI to stay out of prison. “At some point he started to take to the work,” Gaeta added. It was Blazer, who got his start in the sport coaching the soccer teams of his son and daughter when they were children, who decided to rent the seventeenth floor of Trump Tower for CONCACAF offices when he became general secretary in 1990. He also lived in the building in a $18,000-a-month, three-bedroom apartment on the forty-ninth floor with a view of Central Park, with a second $8,000-a-month, one-bedroom apartment rented exclusively for his cats. Trump Tower was a symbol to Blazer that he had arrived. Trump had nothing to do with FIFA or CONCACAF then, but the crafty, ebullient Blazer—who tipped the scales at 450-plus pounds and needed a motorized mobility chair to get around and a breathing apparatus at night—was friendly with his neighbor and building owner, who lived in Trump Tower’s two-story penthouse. Both were Queens men with a chip on their shoulder about snooty Manhattan society. Trump offered Blazer open invitations to his various beauty pageants, and Blazer took him up on them. Trump filmed his lone TV ad for his infamous Trump “University” offering pricey classes on business and real estate in Blazer’s apartment in 2010. Trump touted his enterprise in a scene outfitted to look like an academic office with shelves of books and a giant globe. Neither Trump nor Blazer had any books to speak of to complete the look, so they had to be borrowed from a law firm, according to Mary Lynn Blanks, Blazer’s longtime romantic partner. A $25 million settlement was later paid in 2017 to settle claims by several “university” clients that they were subject to high-pressure sales techniques and lies about the money they would make with Trump classes. The money to be made and expended in the U.S. World Cup games is unclear. A FIFA accounting mashing together figures for 2023–2026 reported a budget for the 2026 Word Cup of $3.75 billion, though specific expenses weren’t detailed. Listed revenue apparently for all FIFA events included some $4.2 billion in broadcasting rights and $3 billion in hospitality and ticket sales. Cost estimates for Vancouver alone for its World Cup games are already edging close to half a billion U.S. dollars. Expenses may be divvied up among hosting nations and cities and FIFA, but the organization’s budget report doesn’t detail how the burden will be shared. FIFA did not respond to repeated requests to provide the information. Nor did the White House provide any figures, including costs like Giuliani’s salary, the number of task force staffers or a budget for them, or how much rent the Trump Organization will be paid for the World Cup offices. Trump’s task force will be responsible for all World Cup “logistics and security,” according to his executive order establishing the group. Payments to cover World Cup expenses by U.S. hosting cities, which will include large expenditures on police and other security and emergency services, will come at a time when states will be struggling to make up for significant federal cuts in Medicaid and federal education and health services. Trump beefed up his “big, beautiful bill” with a $625 million fund to help pay for “safety and security” in the host cities—Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, East Rutherford (for New York and New Jersey), Philadelphia, Santa Clara (for the Bay Area), and Seattle. The money was allocated just as a Houston World Cup official warned that the city was “teetering in terms of being close to breaking even” for hosting one of the games. FIFA comes out way ahead in stadium agreements, according to one recently obtained by The New York Times. It will take full control of New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, 30 days before the opening World Cup match until seven days after the tournament, according to the deal. The city and stadium, meanwhile, shall “bear all the costs and expenses incurred,” including “providing police escorts” for teams, referees, and FIFA head Infantino and his delegation. The city is also expected to “provide medical services and fire protection around matches” and any required FIFA offices free of charge. In return for local costs, FIFA has optimistically predicted the World Cup could boost the “global GDP” by $47 billion and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. But there have been warning signs that next year’s event won’t be quite as successful as touted. The recently concluded Club World Cup, intended to goose interest in the bigger tournament to come, was far less than the windfall that was hoped for, with discounted and empty seats and complaints about the extreme heat during some of the matches. The World Cup will play out next year during the same hot summer months. The Cup will also be facing stiff headwinds created by the growing global animosity toward America, the boycotts triggered by Trump’s tariffs, and his constant battery of insults directed at other countries and world leaders. The world’s disregard for Trump has decimated tourism to the United States. On top of that, sports fans from around the world will also have to worry that they could be detained en route to the U.S. or otherwise swept up in anti-immigrant raids by masked ICE agents and locked in detention cages until their details are sorted out. In addition, countless sports fans hail from the 12 countries whose travelers have been banned from entering the U.S. as of June 9, in an executive order signed by Trump. The order includes an exemption for athletes, coaches, and support staff and “immediate relatives” traveling to the Cup or to the 2028 Olympics in the U.S. Despite problems, Trump could profit mightily from the Cup now and in the future if only by promoting his name and brand and nurturing and exploiting relationships with FIFA and sports companies and event officials. He could cash in on sports memorabilia, like issuing a World Cup meme coin from his crypto company. Infantino noted in a visit with Trump earlier this year at the White House that he might be interested in developing a “FIFA coin.” Trump noted: “That coin may be worth more than FIFA in the end.” Qatar’s aim in hosting the Cup in 2022 was part of its “sportswashing” strategy, a bid to boost the reputation of the regime to become a player on the global scene. It worked as intended, particularly with the leader of the United States. Qatar is now supplying a $400 million “flying palace” to a grateful Donald Trump to use as his Air Force One. (“Why wouldn’t I accept a gift?” he asked in a Fox television interview.) And the president’s family is currently doing business with a Qatari government–owned company to build a luxury golf resort in the country. Saudi Arabia has been chosen to host the Cup in 2034, despite scathing criticism over its multiple human rights violations and the murder-dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul seven years ago. Trump staunchly defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his first administration, despite a determination by America’s own intelligence network that bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s murder. “I saved his ass,” Trump later boasted about his defense of the prince, amid the outcry over Khashoggi’s killing in an interview with Washington Post author Bob Woodward. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop,” Trump said, Woodward recounted in his book Rage. Just months after the end of the first Trump administration, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund—over objections by some of its board members—invested $2 billion in a financial investment operation launched by Trump’s son-in-law and onetime White House aide Jared Kushner, the first such business Kushner had ever started. The Trump Organization also maintains a strong relationship with the global Saudi golf tournament operation LIV, which is part of that country’s early sportswashing effort. Despite such recent developments, Gaeta is convinced the dramatic FIFA busts in Zurich 10 years ago and subsequent cases sparked by a powerful FBI investigation sent a strong message to “extremely wealthy international businessmen abusing the system and making the rules for themselves” that they “can’t do everything they want, and there are consequences.” That’s “still in the back of their minds,” Gaeta said. We shall see.

you forgot Rodrygo and (an absolute steal at only £24.9m) Malick Fofana

Prospect Sheet: Rodrigo Mora (FC Porto) The second issue of the CIES Football Observatory Prospect Sheet, developed in collaboration with Impect, features Portuguese talent Rodrigo Mora. Born in 2007 like Lamine Yamal, the FC Porto’s attacking midfielder achieved an impressive professional career start, scoring ten goals in the Primeira Liga and earning his first call-up to the senior national team, where he should soon make his official debut. With a contract valid until 2030, Rodrigo Mora’s transfer value, as estimated by the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model, has already reached €53.4m for a top-flight club. This value is set to increase with his future performances, and could quickly exceed the €70m buy-out clause negotiated at the time of his recent contract extension. From a technical profile standpoint, Rodrigo Mora is particularly active in terms of finishing and take on, making him a shooting attacking midfielder with take on ability. Among the footballers with similar characteristics mentioned in the report, notably are another highly coveted player in the ongoing transfer window, Nigeria’s Ademola Lookman, and Brazil’s Philippe Coutinho. >>> Full report >>> Report glossary

Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against him A comprehensive analysis of hundreds of lawsuits against Trump policies shows dozens of examples of defiance, delay and dishonesty, which experts say pose an unprecedented threat to the U.S. legal system. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/21/trump-court-orders-defy-noncompliance-marshals-judges/ President Donald Trump and his appointees have been accused of flouting courts in a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling, a Washington Post analysis has found, suggesting widespread noncompliance with America’s legal system. Plaintiffs say Justice Department lawyers and the agencies they represent are snubbing rulings, providing false information, failing to turn over evidence, quietly working around court orders and inventing pretexts to carry out actions that have been blocked. Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have often agreed. None have taken punitive action to try to force compliance, however, allowing the administration’s defiance of orders to go on for weeks or even months in some instances. Outside legal analysts say courts typically are slow to begin contempt proceedings for noncompliance, especially while their rulings are under appeal. Judges also are likely to be concerned, analysts say, that the U.S. Marshals Service — whose director is appointed by the president — might not serve subpoenas or take recalcitrant government officials into custody if ordered to by the courts. The allegations against the administration are crystallized in a whistleblower complaint filed to Congress late last month that accused Justice officials of ignoring court orders in immigration cases, presenting legal arguments with no basis in the law and misrepresenting facts. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor also chided the administration, writing that Trump officials had “openly flouted” a judge’s order not to deport migrants to a country where they did not have citizenship. The Post examined 337 lawsuits filed against the administration since Trump returned to the White House and began a rapid-fire effort to reshape government programs and policy. As of mid-July, courts had ruled against the administration in 165 of the lawsuits. The Post found that the administration is accused of defying or frustrating court oversight in 57 of those cases — almost 35 percent. Legal experts said the pattern of conduct is unprecedented for any presidential administration and threatens to undermine the judiciary’s role as a check on an executive branch asserting vast powers that test the boundaries of the law and Constitution. Immigration cases have emerged as the biggest flash point, but the administration has also been repeatedly accused of failing to comply in lawsuits involving cuts to federal funding and the workforce. Trump officials deny defying court orders, even as they accuse those who have issued them of “judicial tyranny.” When the Supreme Court in June restricted the circumstances under which presidential policies could be halted nationwide while they are challenged in court, Trump hailed the ruling as halting a “colossal abuse of power.” “We’ve seen a handful of radical left judges try to overrule the rightful powers of the president,” Trump said, falsely portraying the judges who have ruled against him as being solely Democrats. Retired federal judge and former Watergate special prosecutor Paul Michel compared the situation to the summer of 1974, when the Supreme Court ordered President Richard M. Nixon to turn over Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation. Nixon initially refused, prompting fears of a constitutional crisis, but ultimately complied. “The current challenge is even bigger and more complicated because it involves hundreds of actions, not one subpoena for a set of tapes,” Michel said. “We’re in new territory.” Deportations and defiance Questions about whether the administration is defying judges have bubbled since early in Trump’s second term, when the Supreme Court said Trump must allow millions in already allocated foreign aid to flow. The questions intensified in several immigration cases, including high-profile showdowns over the wrongful deportation of an undocumented immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager and was raising a family in Maryland. The Supreme Court ordered the government to “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego García’s return after officials admitted deporting him to a notorious prison in his native El Salvador despite a court order forbidding his removal to that country. Abrego remained there for almost two months, with the administration saying there was little it could do because he was under control of a foreign power. In June, he was brought back to the United States in federal custody after prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment against him for human smuggling, based in large part on the testimony of a three-time felon who got leniency in exchange for cooperation. And recent filings in the case reveal that El Salvador told the United Nations that the U.S. retained control over prisoners sent there. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego’s lawyers, said the events prove the administration was “playing games with the court all along.” Aziz Huq, a University of Chicago law professor, said the case is “the sharpest example of a pattern that’s observed across many of the cases that we’ve seen being filed against the Trump administration, in which orders that come from lower courts are either being slow-walked or not being complied with in good faith.” In another legal clash, Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg found Trump officials engaged in “willful disregard” of his order to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador in mid-March after he issued a temporary restraining order against removing migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, which in the past had been used only in wartime. A whistleblower complaint filed by fired Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni alleges that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told staffers before the flights that a judge might try to block them — and that it might be necessary to tell a court “f--- you” and ignore the order. Bove, who has since been nominated by Trump for an appellate judgeship and is awaiting Senate confirmation, denies the allegations. In May, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, opined that the government had “utterly disregarded” her order to facilitate the return of a Venezuelan man who was also wrongfully deported to El Salvador. Like Boasberg, who was appointed by Obama, she is exploring contempt proceedings. Another federal judge found Trump officials violated his court order by attempting to send deportees to South Sudan without due process. In a fourth case, authorities deported a man shortly after an appeals court ruled he should remain in the U.S. while his immigration case played out. Trump officials said the removal was an error but have yet to return him. One of the most glaring examples of noncompliance involves a program to provide legal representation to minors who arrived at the border alone, often fearing for their safety after fleeing countries racked by gang violence. In April, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, a Biden appointee, ordered the Trump administration to fund the program. The government delayed almost four weeks and moved to cancel a contract the judge had ordered restarted. While the money was held up, a 17-year-old was sent back to Honduras before he could meet with a lawyer. Attorneys told the court that the teen probably could have won a reprieve with a simple legal filing. Alvaro Huerta, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in a suit over the funding cuts, said other minors might have suffered the same fate. “Had they been complying with the temporary restraining order, this child would have been represented,” Huerta said. Protesters rally for Kilmar Abrego García outside the federal courthouse in Nashville on June 13. (William DeShazer/For The Washington Post) Gaslighting the court Another problematic case involves the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to police unfair, abusive or deceptive practices by financial institutions. A judge halted the administration’s plans to fire almost all CFPB employees, ruling the effort was unlawful. An appeals court said workers could be let go only if the bureau performed an “individualized” or “particularized” assessment. Four business days later, the Trump administration reported that it had carried out a “particularized assessment” of more than 1,400 employees — and began an even bigger round of layoffs. CFPB employees said in court filings that the process was a sham directed by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service. Employees said counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget told them to brush off the court’s required particularized assessment and simply meet the layoff quota. “All that mattered was the numbers,” said one declaration submitted to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee. Jackson halted the new firings, accusing the Trump administration of “dressing” its cuts in “new clothes.” David Super, a Georgetown law professor, said the government has used the same legal maneuver in a number of cases. “They put out a directive that gets challenged,” Super said. “Then they do the same thing that the directive set out to do but say it’s on some other legal basis.” He pointed to January, when OMB issued a memo freezing all federal grants and loans. Affected groups won an injunction. The White House quickly announced it was rescinding the memo but keeping the freeze in place. Justice Department attorneys argued in legal filings that the government’s action rendered the injunction moot, but the judge said it appeared it had been done “simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts.” In another case, a judge blocked the administration from ending federal funds for programs that promote “gender ideology,” or the idea that someone might identify with a gender other than their birth sex, while the effort was challenged in court. The National Institutes of Health nevertheless slashed a grant for a doctor at Seattle Children’s Hospital who was developing a health education tool for transgender youth. The plaintiffs complained it was a violation of the court order, but the NIH said the grant was being cut under a different authority. Whistleblowers came forward with documents showing that the administration had apparently carried out the cuts under the executive order that was at the center of the court case. U.S. District Judge Lauren King, a Biden appointee, said the documents “have raised substantial questions” about whether the government violated her preliminary injunction and ordered officials to produce documents. The government eventually reinstated the grant. In a different case, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, was unsparing in her decision to place a hold on the Trump’s administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, saying the order was “soaked in animus.” Then the government issued a new policy targeting troops who have symptoms of “gender dysphoria,” the term for people who feel a mismatch between their gender identity and birth sex, and asked Reyes to dissolve her order. Reyes was stunned. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had made repeated public statements describing the policy as a ban on transgender troops. Hegseth had recently posted on X: “Pentagon says transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.” “I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public — what they really mean to the public — and coming in here to the court and telling me something different, like I’m an idiot,” the judge told the government’s lawyer. “The court is not going to be gaslit.” Courts have traditionally assumed public officials, and the Justice Department in particular, are acting honestly, lawfully and in good faith. Since Trump returned to the White House, however, judges have increasingly questioned whether government lawyers are meeting that standard. “The pattern of stuff we have … I haven’t seen before,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a columnist for the conservative National Review and a former federal prosecutor. “The rules of the road are supposed to be you can tell a judge, ‘I can’t answer that for constitutional reasons,’ or you can tell the judge the truth.” Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to reporters June 27 at the White House as President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche watch. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) A struggle for accountability While many judges have concluded that the Trump administration has defied court orders, only Boasberg has actively moved toward sanctioning the administration for its conduct. And he did so only after saying he had given the government “ample opportunity” to address its failure to return the deportation flights to El Salvador. The contempt proceedings he began were paused by an appeals court panel without explanation three months ago. The two judges who voted for the administrative stay were Trump appointees. On Friday, the Trump administration brokered a deal with El Salvador and Venezuela to send the Venezuelan deportees at the heart of Boasberg’s case back to their homeland, further removing them from the reach of U.S. courts. A contempt finding would allow the judge to impose fines, jail time or additional sanctions on officials to compel compliance. In three other cases, judges have denied motions to hold Trump officials in contempt, but reiterated that the government must comply with a decision, or ordered the administration to turn over documents to determine whether it had violated a ruling. Judges are considering contempt proceedings in other cases as well. Most lawsuits against the administration have been filed in federal court districts with a heavy concentration of judges appointed by Democratic presidents. The vast majority of judges who have found the administration defied court orders were appointed by Democrats, but judges selected by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have also found that officials failed to comply with orders. Most notably, at least two Trump picks have raised questions about whether officials have met their obligations to courts. Legal experts said the slow pace of efforts to enforce court orders is not surprising. The judicial system moves methodically, and judges typically ratchet up efforts to gain compliance in small increments. They said there is also probably another factor at work that makes it especially difficult to hold the administration to account. “The courts can’t enforce their own rulings — that has to be done by the executive branch,” said Michel, the former judge and Watergate special prosecutor. He was referring to U.S. Marshals, the executive branch law enforcement personnel who carry out court orders related to contempt proceedings, whether that is serving subpoenas or arresting officials whom a judge has ordered jailed for not complying. Former judges and other legal experts said judges might be calculating that a confrontation over contempt proceedings could result in the administration ordering marshals to defy the courts. That type of standoff could significantly undermine the authority of judges. The Supreme Court’s June decision to scale back the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, and the administration’s success at persuading the justices to overturn about a dozen temporary blocks on its agenda in recent months, might only embolden Trump officials to defy lower courts, several legal experts said. Sotomayor echoed that concern in a recent dissent when she accused the high court of “rewarding lawlessness” by allowing Trump officials to deport migrants to countries that are not their homelands. The conservative majority gave the green light, she noted, after Trump officials twice carried out deportations despite lower court orders blocking the moves. “This is not the first time the court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet each time this court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.” Two months after a federal court temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze on billions in congressionally approved foreign aid, an attorney for relief organizations said the government had taken “literally zero steps to allocate this money.” Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, has ordered the administration to explain what it is doing to comply with the order. Trump officials have said they will eventually release the funds, but aid groups worry the administration is simply trying to delay until the allocations expire in the fall. Meanwhile, about 66,000 tons of food aid is in danger of rotting in warehouses, AIDS cases are forecast to spike in Africa and the government projected the cuts would result in 200,000 more cases of paralysis caused by polio each year. Already, children are dying unnecessarily in Sudan. Such situations have prompted some former judges to do something most generally do not — speak out. More than two dozen retired judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents have formed the Article III Coalition to push back on attacks and misinformation about the courts. Robert J. Cindrich, who helped found the group, said the country is not yet in a constitutional crisis but that the strain on the courts is immense. Citing the administration’s response to orders, as well as its attacks on judges and law firms, Cindrich said, “The judiciary is being put under siege.”

Epstein Exposed: Trump, Mossad & The Elite’s Dark Secrets Why Epstein’s 'client list' will never be released

Summer transfers 2025: All the Chelsea ins, outs and new contracts so far https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/summer-transfers-2025-all-the-Chelsea-ins-outs-and-new-contracts-so-far With the transfer window now in full swing, here's a recap of everything that's happened so far during what has already been an exciting summer at Chelsea. Chelsea new signings 2025 Liam Delap The England Under-21 striker joined Chelsea from Ipswich Town after impressing in the Premier League last season, and scored his first goal for the Blues in the win over ES Tunis at the FIFA Club World Cup. Dario Essugo The Portugal Under-21s midfielder was our first new signing of the summer, completing a move from Sporting Lisbon after impressing during a loan spell in Spain with Las Palmas last season. He has signed a contract until 2033. Estevao The 18-year-old will link up with the Blues ahead of the 2025/26 campaign, with a deal agreed last summer to bring him to Stamford Bridge. Already a full Brazil international, Estevao featured for Palmeiras at the Club World Cup and scored against Chelsea in the quarter-finals. Jamie Gittens The young English winger completed a move from Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea on 5 July, signing a contract with the Blues until 2032. The 20-year-old made well over 100 appearances in Germany, gaining experience in the Bundesliga, Champions League and Club World Cup. Joao Pedro celebrates his goal in the Club World Cup final Joao Pedro The Brazilian forward joined Chelsea from Brighton & Hove Albion in time to make an instant impact at the Club World Cup, netting both our goals in the semi-final before scoring again as we beat Paris Saint-Germain in the final. Kendry Paez After turning 18 in May, Paez completed his move to Chelsea this summer. The teenager already has 18 senior caps and two goals for Ecuador, making him the youngest player ever to score in South American FIFA World Cup qualifying. Mike Penders The young goalkeeper's move from Genk to Chelsea was announced last August, before the Belgian officially joined the Blues this summer. Mamadou Sarr The France Under-20s defender impressed in Ligue 1 with Strasbourg last season before joining Chelsea this summer, signing a contract until 2033. Sarr signs his contract at Cobham Kian Best The teenage defender signed a contract until 2027 to join Chelsea from Preston North End, where he made his senior debut in the Championship aged 17. He is an England Under-19s international. Chelsea new contracts 2025 Ato Ampah The 19-year-old wide player has signed a new contract until 2028. Ampah was a regular for our Under-21s last season and also made his senior debut for the Blues off the bench against Astana. Max Merrick The young goalkeeper was part of our UEFA Conference League squad last season, before gaining senior experience on loan at Hampton & Richmond in the second half of the campaign. He has signed a new three-year contract with the Blues. Jimi Tauriainen The Finnish midfielder extended his stay with Chelsea until at least 2027. He has featured regularly for our Academy over the last five years, and has made two senior appearances. Chelsea departures summer 2025 Mathis Amougou The France Under-20 international returned to his homeland in a permanent move to Strasbourg. He made his Premier League debut against Southampton in February and was part of our matchday squad for the Conference League final. Eddie Beach The Wales Under-21 international signed from Southampton in 2022 and was named on the bench for the men’s team for two Premier League fixtures during 2023/24. He moved to Scottish side Kilmarnock this summer. Lucas Bergstrom The goalkeeper brought his six years with the Blues to an end before signing for Real Mallorca. In addition to featuring regularly for our youth sides, Bergstrom was named among the substitutes for our senior team on a number of occasions, including our victory over Real Betis in last season's Conference League final. Bettinelli and Bergstrom celebrate our Conference League victory with their fellow goalkeepers Marcus Bettinelli The veteran goalkeeper moved on to join Manchester City after four years at Chelsea. He only made one first-team appearance during that time, but provided cover during our 2025 Conference League and 2021 Club World Cup victories. Luke Campbell Campbell featured regularly for our Under-18s as we won the Under-18 Premier League southern title in 2023/24. He joined Nottingham Forest after the expiry of his Chelsea contract at the end of June. Bashir Humphreys After it was announced in May that Humphreys' loan to Burnley would be made permanent, that switch was officially completed on 1 July. He helped the Clarets earn promotion to the Premier League last season. Kepa Arrizabalaga The goalkeeper moved to Arsenal this summer after spending the last two seasons on loan, at Real Madrid and Bournemouth, having won four major trophies with the Blues. Delap scores his first Chelsea goal Noni Madueke The winger completed a permanent move to Arsenal after two-and-a-half seasons at Stamford Bridge, in which he scored 20 goals in 92 appearances and helped us win the UEFA Europa Conference League. Djordje Petrovic The goalkeeper left for fellow Premier League side Bournemouth after two years at Chelsea. He made 31 appearances during his first season here, before spending last term on loan at Strasbourg. Zak Sturge Having made five appearances in the Championship while on loan at Millwall last season, the young full-back made that move permanent this summer. Marcell Washington The Under-18s defender left Chelsea after his scholarship contract ended this summer, and has since signed for Arsenal. Dylan Williams Williams' permanent departure to Burton Albion, where he spent last season on loan, has now been completed after being confirmed in May. Chelsea loans summer 2025 Teddy Sharman-Lowe The goalkeeper, who spent the summer at the European Under-21 Championship with England, signed a new Chelsea contract until 2028 before joining Bolton Wanderers on loan for the 2025/26 season.

how so?

Nicolas Jackson is a unique No 9 – but which teams would he suit if he leaves Chelsea? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6499756/2025/07/21/nicolas-jackson-transfers-Chelsea-newcastle-manchester-united/ It’s fair to say that Nicolas Jackson continues to divide opinion as a Premier League centre-forward. At his best, the 24-year-old is a bulldozing No 9; a tireless runner, lethal on the transition, capable of turning nothing into something with his all-action approach to the game. Catch him on an off day, and he can look clunky, untidy; a slightly chaotic striker who can snatch at his chances on goal. Chelsea’s decision to bring in Liam Delap and Joao Pedro this summer might suggest they are ready to move Jackson on, but those in the club remain convinced by his ability. Though their front line is starting to look slightly bloated, Jackson’s threat on the counter is unique — another attacking profile Enzo Maresca can lean on to overcome the different challenges the Premier League presents. There are several clubs who are on the lookout for a striker, including Manchester United and Newcastle United, while Aston Villa may be in the market too if Ollie Watkins were to leave this summer. So, what exactly is Jackson’s skill set, and what could he bring to each of the clubs linked? Looking back on his first two seasons in English football, it’s important to remember Jackson is still relatively inexperienced when it comes to top-flight minutes. He had only started 16 games in La Liga for Villarreal before Chelsea came calling, struggling to lock down a starting place for most of the campaign, before racking up nine goals in the final eight games. With that in mind, there is plenty of time for Jackson to refine his game. His time at Chelsea presented a steep learning curve, but the Senegal international has not been overawed by the step up, holding his own against tough Premier League defenders and clocking a respectable tally of 34 goal involvements along the way. The speed at which Jackson has adapted to new surroundings is impressive, and is appealing to suitors who believe they can tap into his potential further by providing him with space to continue flex his muscles on the break. In that respect, Newcastle’s interest adds up — they trailed only Liverpool for expected goals (xG) generated through counter-attacking sequences last season. According to advanced data provider Footovision, Jackson was the player with the most counter-attacking involvements via ball carries in the division, able to tear through teams with powerful, head-down dribbling and lead breakaways on his own. It’s something Eddie Howe saw first-hand as he took Newcastle to Stamford Bridge in October. Below, in frame one, Jackson drops deep to give his goalkeeper Robert Sanchez a passing option. With the opposition locked on man-for-man, Jackson spots the opportunity to roll his centre-back with a quick spin, before accelerating away and bursting through the middle of the pitch, eventually laying the ball off for Noni Madueke to cut inside and shoot. Inside his own half and facing away from goal, he turns a pressure-relieving pass into a chance in just under six seconds. Here is another example against Bournemouth; Jackson drifts into a similar position to get on the ball, but this time with Dean Huijsen much tighter to him. The broadcast footage cuts away, but returns with the defender desperately trying to pull the striker back. David Brooks tries to knock him off balance in frame three, but ends up on the floor, before Jackson powers towards the penalty area and thumps a shot off the base of the left post. Jackson works exceptionally hard without the ball to stretch opposition defences too, constantly looking to run at the defensive line. Only Watkins made more runs in behind per 30 minutes of team possession in the Premier League last season, going some way to explaining why he might be of interest to those at Villa Park. It’s not just the quantity of runs, but the speed and aggression with which he makes them that stands out. Jackson made 60 sprints in behind the defence — defined as SkillCorner as an off-ball run of at least 25km/h — nine more than any other Premier League player. Many of these, as highlighted below, led to a shot for his team within 10 seconds. It also helps to underline the selflessness of many of Jackson’s movements, happy to repeatedly run into the channels and break from deep to drag his team up the pitch and show for the dangerous ball behind a high defensive line. Here against Villa, for example, Jackson is quick to target the space after a turnover in possession, sprinting out to the flanks as the ball makes its way to Marc Cucurella, to provide an out ball for his team. The pass is difficult to bring down, and although Jackson gives away the foul after colliding with Ezri Konsa further down the line, he almost provides Chelsea with a lucrative escape route with the intensity of his running and that battering-ram approach down the wings. It’s not always neat with Jackson — there can be some quite scruffy passages of play where he charges in too hard, or is slightly too keen to start his run — but keep giving him the chance to get it right and the destruction he can cause is clear. The bar chart below illustrates the percentage of team runs in behind that were targeted with a pass from a team-mate last season. It suggests Newcastle could be a team that would make the most of his off-ball movement, a direct side who will be happy to seek out Jackson and get their other high-quality attacking players into the final third quickly around him. Jackson would be a potent addition — along with the electric Anthony Elanga — to increase their incisiveness on the break. All of the above will also be of interest to Manchester United, who are in search of a channel-running, physically dominant centre-forward themselves. They’re also looking for box presence, a forward who can generate high-value chances close to goal, as the team with the third-lowest proportion of shots inside the penalty area in 2024-25. Jackson is among the strikers being considered by United, but it is uncertain who they would go for — and they would have to sell first. A look to Jackson’s shot map since joining Chelsea points to a player who consistently creates danger, with his high xG per shot value of 0.2 — only bettered by four Premier League players across that time — outlining his ability to get into valuable goalscoring positions. Only six players have taken more shots from inside the six-yard box, too. That said, there are some concerns around Jackson’s ability to strike cleanly through the ball, particularly at speed, and when it is fed into his left side. Of his 24 Premier League goals, only four have come on his weaker foot — two of those simple finishes into an empty net— and he often struggles to keep his balance and lacks control as he looks to generate power. Below against Brentford, we see a great example of how Jackson can be incisive with his alert movement, setting off to attack the space as soon as the midfield line is broken with a pass into Enzo Fernandez. From there, the centre-forward does everything right — latching on to the through ball, setting himself, and taking it around the goalkeeper — but he is uncomfortable when it comes to wrapping his foot around the ball, taking too long to steady himself and he eventually drags the shot back towards the recovering defenders to clear. On his stronger side, Jackson generally strikes with power. His technique can be inconsistent — he sometimes leans back slightly when he strikes, occasionally to adjust his body and approaches shots at the wrong angle — but the volume of opportunities he carves out with his drastic movement allows him to keep up a good scoring rate. The chaos that follows Jackson around can see some incredible moments of poor fortune too, but when he does get it right, as he did below for the opener against Everton in April, he is a force to be reckoned with. Premier League rivals will likely need to pay a premium for Jackson’s services. While he is not yet a polished, clinical finisher at the highest level of the game, he makes things happen more relentlessly than many other players in world football. For a team willing to show patience in Jackson, the potential reward is clear.

Sources: Newcastle one of the clubs with surprise interest in Chelsea man Blues are still looking to sell the attacker https://siphillipstalkschelsea.substack.com/p/sources-newcastle-one-of-the-clubs Chelsea are now working hard on a number of outgoing transfer deals this summer and it’s safe to say that they have a huge workload here and many players who they want to sell and who could still be sold. There are plenty of things bubbling up now and potential deals on the cards as Chelsea take interest in a number of their players. Some are ‘up for sale’, but others are not actively being pushed out yet the club will listen to offers for them, Nicolas Jackson being one of those. But a player who is actively for sale still is attacking midfielder Christopher Nkunku, and there is a new club showing some interest in him. According to an SPTC source, Newcastle are the latest club to have expressed an interest in signing the France international with his future still very much being up in the air. Chelsea are very much looking to replace Nkunku still this summer, but they have a specific and pretty big price tag on his head right now. The attacker has interest from a number of other clubs but nothing has yet advanced. Newcastle are just showing an interest for now and it’s unclear whether they will push ahead with a move or not.

IF PSG keep fucking about with the Ilya Zabarnyi transfer (and they deffo are), we should swoop in for the lad. From all that I have read, he only wants PSG, so it will not be easy. Obviously I would have rather had Huijsen, but Zabarnyi is also a rock-solid CB and young (22).

wild card right footed CB we should be looking into Kevin Lomónaco

I am also crazy frustrated that we agreed to pay him that insane salary, and that is on Boehly, and has been of many things that has put us under the cosh of UEFA and their bollocks FFP. IF he refuses a buy-out, then I absolutely want him in the reserves though. It is an all-round bad situ. The best solution is that he agrees a deal (salary-wise) with some other team, then we just make up the difference (for his last 2 years on his contract with us) with a buy-out, plus get a small fee (£20m seems unlikely, but who knows) in terms of a transfer.

IF we cannot (and I doubt we can) sell him I want Sterling sent to the reserves permanently let him rot for 2 years and then he will have fuckall left in terms of top level football (he will be closing in on 33yo when his contract ends) that cunt turned down multiple offers from KSA that would have paid the lickrish bitch even more than he is bloodsuckering us for now (thanks Boehly!) of all the buys he was arguably the worst, when you factor in his £91m in salary, plus the £47.5m in t-fee £138.5m (almost 190m USD for our American friends here) down the shitter for that rotter as you can tell, I really do not like him, lol in the past 10 years, the only Chels player (speaking personal dislike on a human level) I detest more was Lukaku I have zero against players I do not rate all, like Disasi. He is a fine bloke, stand up fellow, just a shit CB. KDH, wonderful person, just not Chels quality at the end of the day. But Sterling, from all that I can see, is a right proper twat, same as Rom was.

motherfucker fuck