The antics of PAOK Thessaloniki’s armed owner has resulted in the indefinite suspension of Greece’s top flight league.
PAOK owner Ivan Savvidis made international headlines when he carried a holstered pistol onto the pitch Sunday as he protested the referee’s decision over a disallowed goal.
With a handgun strapped to his waist, Savvidis made his way onto the pitch to join PAOK supporters who also invaded the pitch in the final minutes of Sunday’s encounter with AEK Athens.
Greek Deputy Culture and Sports Minister Georgios Vassiliadis revealed Monday that the Superleague will cease until reforms are implemented in order to curb similar incidents.
“We have decided to interrupt the championship … It won’t start again unless there is a clear framework, agreed by all, to move forward with conditions and rules,” Vassiliadis said, according to Michele Kambas of Reuters.
Savvidis entered the field of play twice Sunday surrounded by his own bodyguards. He was wearing an overcoat the first time, but opted to ditch the jacket to presumably reveal the gun on his waist as he attempted to speak with the match official after Fernando Varela’s 89th minute goal during a goalless draw was disallowed, denying a win for PAOK.
The decision over the disallowed goal was overturned two hours later, and PAOK was awarded the victory.
Savvidis did not remove the weapon from its holster.
The NFL officially starts the new league year on Wednesday. Free agents such as Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Graham and Case Keenum will all be on the open market.
Here’s a rundown of what’s happened, sorted by team.
The Bills have signed running back Chris Ivory, who played the past two years for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and cornerback Vontae Davis. Read more.
The Panthers re-signed place-kicker Graham Gano, who has been with the team since 2012, to a four-year, $17 million deal. Read more.
The Bengals signed defensive tackle Chris Baker, who played last season for the Buccaneers. There’s a reason the Buccaneers were quick to cut ties with Baker one season into a three-year, $15.75 million deal. He comes with baggage. Read more.
The Rams signed cornerback Sam Shields, a former Green Bay Packer who spent most of the past two years away from the NFL because of concussions. Read more.
The Saints got a jump start on free agency, agreeing to a three-year contract with veteran safety Kurt Coleman. They also re-signed veteran defensive end George Johnson to a one-year deal. Read more.
The 49ers agreed with cornerback Richard Sherman, who was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round of the 2011 draft, on a three-year deal worth up to $39.1 million deal Saturday. Read more.
They re-signed veteran quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who spent last season as the Bucs’ backup to Jameis Winston. Read more.
Paulo Dybala had no choice but to learn to be patient. His father loved to play chess, and was only too happy to share that passion with his son. What he was not content to do was to lose. “He taught me how to move kings, queens and pawns,” recalled Dybala in an interview with Vanity Fair last December. “But he never let me win.”
“Chess teaches you to use your brain, to not rush, to move in a harmonic way,” continued the Juventus forward. “The same things happen in football. Sometimes, to succeed, you need to reflect. You need to understand what point you are up to in a game, get to know your opponent’s weaknesses, wait for others to make their move so you can exploit your own quality and strength to the maximum.”
Dybala has had to bide his time an awful lot this season. After starting the campaign in scintillating form, he struggled badly through a frustrating autumn, scoring just twice in 16 games. At times, a player who had been billed as a future Ballon d’Or winner could not even get into the starting XI. And then came a hamstring injury that sidelined him for five weeks – costing him the first leg of Juventus’ Champions League tie against Tottenham.
A less resolute individual might have succumbed to defeatism and despair. Not Dybala. He returned from injury and, after a pair of lacklustre cameos, found his way back into the starting XI against Lazio on Saturday. Anonymous for the first 90 minutes, he then popped up with a brilliant winning goal deep into injury time, slipping two defenders and holding off Marco Parolo before lifting the ball into the roof of the net. It was Juve’s first shot on target all game.
Tottenham, then, cannot say it wasn’t warned. The Premier League side had drawn 2-2 against Juventus in Turin, and took an aggregate lead when Heung-Min Son bundled the ball in from close range in the 39th minute at Wembley Stadium. That advantage was richly deserved, in a game the host had dominated right from the start.
And yet, Tottenham failed to build on it. Juventus, just like the young Dybala playing chess with his father, accepted its own limitations and stayed patient. When Spurs finally started to get sloppy, the Bianconeri punished their mistakes with aplomb.
Gonzalo Higuain grabbed the equaliser, redirecting a Sami Khedira header into the bottom corner. Criticised for missing a penalty, as well as several other opportunities during the first leg, this was nevertheless his third strike of a tie in which Juventus had often been on the back foot. Those critics looking for evidence to support his “big-game bottler” tag wouldn’t have found it here.
It was Dybala, though, who scored the winner. He had struggled to get into this game, just as he did against Lazio on Saturday. Despite being granted freedom to roam in the first half, he couldn’t find his way onto the ball during a chastening first half, and was quickly bundled off it when he did.
Tottenham could feel proud of the job it had done containing a player that its own manager had placed casually in the same breath as Lionel Messi. But here another quote from that Vanity Fair interview comes to mind.
“Building something is difficult, and destroying it very simple,” Dybala told the magazine. “It only takes a couple of screw-ups and you can demolish a whole life’s work.”
Or, more modestly, to destroy a promising Champions League campaign. Still reeling from Juventus’ first goal, Tottenham’s defenders allowed their focus to drift. For a moment, they lost sight of Dybala. That was enough for him to slip behind them and onto Higuain’s through ball.
He finished as coolly as a man removing chess pieces from a board. “Ball: left foot to right corner. Checkmate.”
Remarkably, this was Dybala’s first goal in European competition since last April, when he struck twice in Juventus’ 3-0 rout of Barcelona in Turin. The Bianconeri hope they won’t have to wait another 11 months for him to increase his Champions League tally.
For now, though, Juventus can celebrate and look ahead to the quarter-finals. It isn’t playing as well as it did on the way to two finals in the past three years, but perhaps it doesn’t matter? We were reminded again tonight that the team that plays the best football doesn’t always prevail. And, as Dybala continues to remind us, good things come to those who wait.
SEATTLE — The Seahawks plan to release DeShawn Shead in a procedural move but hope to re-sign the versatile defensive back and former starter.
The move, which is expected to happen on Monday, has nothing to do with the purge of veteran Seahawks defenders that has already claimed Richard Sherman, Michael Bennett and Jeremy Lane. Instead, the Seahawks are honoring the promise they made to Shead that he would become an unrestricted free agent.
Shead’s free-agent status had been in question after he spent all but two games of this past season on the physically unable to perform list while working his way back from a torn ACL. Per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, that would technically require Shead’s contract to toll, or to roll over to 2018 on the same terms.
The tolling rule applies to players who, in the final season of their contract, remain on PUP as of their team’s sixth regular-season game. As in Shead’s case, that includes players on one-year deals. A restricted free agent last offseason, Shead signed a one-year deal worth $1.2 million. So if his contract were to toll, he’d be signed for 2018 at the same amount.
Shead’s agent, Cameron Foster, told ESPN that the NFL recently informed the Seahawks that Shead’s contract was going to toll. But general manager John Schneider had already ensured Shead that he would be an unrestricted free agent.
“John Schneider called me saying they were going to release DeShawn on Monday because per the league rule, it’s the NFL’s position that DeShawn’s contract is to toll,” Foster said. “But it’s our position, the NFL Players’ Association’s position and the Seattle Seahawks’ position that it does not toll. John had already informed DeShawn that his contract was expiring after this year, and the Seattle Seahawks are just living up to their word.
“They called me and they said, ‘just giving you a heads up that we’re going to release DeShawn on Monday, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want him. That means we are living up to our word and we’re going to release him, otherwise his contract would be required to toll.’ So kudos to the Seahawks for doing the right thing. It’s them living up to their word, letting DeShawn test the free-agent world, but they have said they’d like to have him come back.”
Once released, Shead would be eligible to sign anywhere without having to wait until the start of free agency on March 14. He already has a visit lined up with the Detroit Lions, according to Foster.
Shead, who turns 29 in June, started for a season and a half opposite Sherman at right cornerback before he tore his ACL in a playoff game in January of 2017. He has experience at all five positions in Seattle’s secondary since the team signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2012. That includes one start at strong safety in 2015 while Kam Chancellor was holding out.
With Chancellor’s football future in jeopardy because of a career-threatening neck injury, the Seahawks have approached Shead about possibly playing strong safety next season.
“He’s such a versatile player, he’s played both for us,” coach Pete Carroll said last week at the scouting combine. “We’ll see what happens. We know he can play corner and we like the way he plays at corner, but everything is open. I have not talked directly to him about that, but we have mentioned it to him.”
Cornerback has suddenly become a position of need for Seattle following Sherman’s release and that of Lane, which had been expected for some time. Byron Maxwell, who was brought back following Sherman’s season-ending Achilles injury, is also a free agent. Of the four cornerbacks the Seahawks have under contract for 2018, only one — 2017 rookie Shaquill Griffin — has started for Seattle.
