Kiko settling into Germany nicely.
Kiko settling into Germany nicely.
Speaking of punishing the innocent, have the Chinese really pulled the Premiership coverage? lol they will be shitting it in EPL Towers.
Some pretty nauseating behaviour from China.
I'll tell you what, the equality lot have gone quiet since the military-aged men were conscripted, whilst women and kids were straight outta dodge.
Given the fate of Ozil after China had their say, I suspect the EPL will be unfurling massive tifos of Putin and the Russian flag by next week
It's up to them what they do, if they want to back the wrong horse they're free to do so although I'm not sure where it gets them, or really who gives a monkey whether they show it or not. I think the last lot of rights holders are currently being sued/have had judgment against them for not paying for them so it's hardly like the deals are money in the bank whether they show it or not.
China are just trying to nip the potential for protest in the bud. They control a lot of the narrative and at this point the Premier League coverage is probably as close to seeing anti-state rebellion as they’ll get. It’s much more about self-preservation than pro-Russia.
They could do what the Iranians were doing with that female linesman and just cut away from all the Ukraine/blue and yellow stuff. That might be easier than whichever Richard currently runs it trying to sue and collect from the Chinese state media company.
The blue and yellow will be everywhere this weekend, as they’re planning to really step up the “show of support” so it’ll probably be unavoidable.
Then again it might just blur to green through their eyes.
As far as my paltry research tells me, the Chinese welched on the last 'big money' rights deal, and the current one is basically worthless [wouldn't cover a single top top players' wages].
Ł6m a season for the Russian rights as well, they've already paid up front for this year.
The value of foreign tv deals is a bit of a myth [on a country by country basis].
They're worth about the same as the UK rights. I imagine BeIn, ESPN and NBC pay the big dollar from within that, so the Chinese and Russians would be a relative drop in the ocean.
I have a friend working in Dresden with several Ukrainian and Russian scientists and he seems quite convinced (although he's firmly against Russia in this whole shebang) that the fire in the nuclear plant was indeed done by the Ukrainians.
Whilst you obviously have to take everything with a big grain of salt, in the context of the 'information war' I find these Russian defection/surrender stories interesting. I was wondering to myself the other day if there were potential pitfalls in the strategy of either not telling your army what they are really up to and/or selling them a mad pack of lies, because, at some point, reality is going to manifest itself, chiefly when it turns out you don't appear to be liberating people from the Nazis and those very people you thought you were there to help are trying to kill you for attempting to do so.
In that sense (though probably not in many other senses), there's quite a parallel with the schmucks who were sent in the other way on Barbarossa. Even if you start off bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in the end you inevitably start thinking 'hmm', especially if your leader's lost the plot upstairs and won't pull you out when it's time.
I saw something mildly critical of how India are playing this earlier, and lol at the thousands of Indians whatabouting every possible issue from the previous four centuries. Aren't they like this with cricket? Are British-Indians the same, or are they the non-mental ones by definition?
€1.47 a litre quote tonight for heating oil
Modi and crew are a shameless bunch of ethno-nationalist gangsters, and the Indian military is mostly Russian-equipped, so that explains them.
All the cricket writers on my twitter (who I take to be representative of the educated elite there) are just 'what about Iraq' and making smarmy points about race.
India have always been 'non-aligned' meaning pro-Soviet, especially as the Americans got right up Pakistan's arse, but the scale of the seethe made me lol out loud.
'India could probably be doing more to...'
'WHAT ABOUT THE KOHINOOR WHAT ABOUT VELLORE FORT THANK YOU SIR?!'
They will also want another crack at Kashmir at some point, and although I can't imagine Twitter decking itself out in Pakistan flags, it probably won't make them very popular. They are also having a border dispute with the makes-yous, which complicates matters further for them. All in all, not really a country anyone wants having international heft at any point.
Fuck India. Especially the cricketers.
The service stations are Ł1.99 for diesel.
Just seen that the thread's eponymous figure told Olaf Scholz that the videos of them shelling Kharkiv/other cities are 'gross propaganda fakes'. The heads have gone hypothesis is getting stronger.
https://news.sky.com/video/share-12557676
This is pretty fucking wild.
Whilst that is indeed wild, my overwhelming thought is: play with feathers, you’re going to get your arse tickled.
Lol at them thinking their journalist status would protect them from the people they are portraying as SS stormtrooper tribute acts.
President Matey blaming NATO for the dead kiddies smells a bit like getting his excuses in early. Soz ard lad.
If Tronnie was still president this war would not have happened.
Shows you how clean the United Kingdom is if we can only find sixteen things to sanction.
You can understand why the Ukrainians are all screeching for planes and that (since they couldn't be in much more of a war), but unforunately they just need to be patient with this.
They've probably already surrendered and backdated it to 1991.
I'm not giving up my Coke Zero.
Sounds like the Serbs are hungry for some war crimes again.
Drinking fizzy drinks as an adult is bizarre.