WHAT’S HOT | WHAT’S NOT
HOT SPECIAL OLYMPICS
MUCH outrage this week and rightly so when Donald Trump’s administration publicly considered an $18million (£14.8m) cut in funding for the Special Olympics. Take a look closer to home, however, and the picture is bleak. The Great Britain Special Olympics confirmed our Government provides no funding for an organisation that provides year-round sports coaching and athletic competition for people with intellectual disabilities.
CASEY STONEY
MANCHESTER United’s women’s team manager Casey Stoney and her coaching staff are taking to the skies this weekend for a charity sky dive to raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. The United staff are supporting Manchester City captain Steph Houghton, whose husband Stephen Darby has MND.
LEROY SANE
RAHEEM STERLING has been praised for his response to racism in Montenegro but his Manchester City team-mate, Germany’s Sane suffered racial abuse from his country’s own supporters in Wolfsburg last week. His response? To score and star in a victory over Holland. Those ‘fans’ must feel rather foolish now.
NOT JESSE LINGARD
WITHDRAWING from the England squad seemed a peculiar decision when he then played for Manchester United in an FA Cup defeat at Wolves. After England scored 10 goals in two games and Ross Barkley, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Jadon Sancho sparkled, Lingard may not have a choice to make when Gareth Southgate picks his next squad.
SEBASTIAN COE
THIS week Lord Coe appeared to question Caster Semenya’s right to compete as a woman, yet the South African continues to stand her ground. She is a gifted athlete — she can’t help her genetic make-up. Yet the IAAF want to dictate whether she should be deemed a man or reduce her testosterone level. It sounds abhorrent and history will judge the IAAF.
JAMES McCLEAN
THE IRISH winger knows the unpleasant consequences of speaking openly about national identity in the era of splenetic social media. So it was dispiriting and reckless of him to fuel anger towards Declan Rice, who elected to play for England instead of Republic of Ireland. Rice is barely out of his teens and McClean should apologise.