Gheorghe Explains: Footy Fraud

Those of you that are casual soccer fans, especially those of the American variety, may be forgiven if you're not up to speed on the drama that's gripping the game in England. From a scriptwriter's perspective, it really has it all: greed, avarice, riches beyond imagination, geopolitical intrigue, an honest-to-God Viking, lies, deceit. It's missing sex, but given the parties to the drama it's hard to imagine that's in short supply.

Buckle up. We're headed down some rabbit holes.

Let's start with the boring stuff, shall we. In 2020, UEFA banned the Premier League's Manchester City from European competition for two years for violations of the confederation's Financial Fair Play rules (basically, you can't spend more money than you take in over a certain period of time). That ban was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which still chose to level a €10 million fine for the club's actions. Notably, many of the charges were dismissed due to the expiration of the the statute of limitations in UEFA's rules.

Leaked emails and other information from UEFA's investigation prompted the Premier League to initiate its own inquiry into the matter. And in February 2023, the league announced it was charging City with 115 breaches of its own financial regulations from 2009-2018. Importantly, the EPL rules regarding the statute of limitation are different than UEFA's, so that defense no longer served City.

After three-plus years of legal machinations, chest-beating, and denials, an independent three-person commission released its findings ten days ago. They are, in legal parlance, a doozy. The commission found City guilty of 114 of the 115 charges, finding (with copious evidence) on 80 of 80 counts that the club conspired to disguise more than £900m (~$1.2b) of direct ownership investment as sponsorships, allowing it to invest far beyond its permitted cap on player investment. 35 of the charges related to failure to cooperate with the EPL investigation, and the commission found City guilty on 34 of those. In its findings, the commission pulled no punches, saying that the club the fabricated "sham contracts" and "rel[ied] on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs". In addition, the findings said that "a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence". Not great, Bob.

TL;DR City intentionally, repeatedly, and persistently violated a shitload of financial regulations and then sought to cover it up via lies, obfuscation, and delays.

Okay, y'all. Take a little break. Enjoy this photo of the aforementioned honest-to-God Viking, City (and Norway) striker Erling Haaland. He's the best finisher in the world right now. City paid around £51.2m in transfer fees to bring him in from Borussia Dortmund (which was a very good deal given his age and talent).

A number of very good football writers (and an increasingly large group of business and hard news scribes) have written extensively on this story, and I don't intend to break any news here, so please seek out Tariq Panja of The New York Times, Rory Smith of The Observer, David Ornstein and Sam Lee of The Athletic, and Miguel Delaney of The Independent. Tom Rennie of SiriusXMFC has been very good on the broadcast side. Trent Crimm is right out.

If you stayed here, we're going to do a shallow dive on Manchester City's history and why this story matters so much from a soccer perspective, then broaden the scope to include figures as far-flung as Liam Gallagher, the richest man in Abu Dhabi, and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

First, the club. Manchester City was founded in 1894. Since that time, the club bounced around among the first three tiers of English football for the most part, landing in the Premier League for good in 2002. Prior to 2008, City won a total of nine trophies in 108 seasons: two first-division titles, four F.A. Cups, two League Cups, and one European Cup Winners Cup (the predecessor to the Champions League). The aforementioned Liam Gallagher and his brother Noel are counted amongst the club's most prominent supporters, are were such long before City's fortunes changed. [That pun was not intended as it was being written, but it is now.]

Since 2008, the club has arguably been the most successful in the world, having brought home eight Premier League trophies, four F.A. Cups, seven League Cups, one Champions League title, and one World Club championship.

Pray tell, what happened in 2008, you ask? You're very smart, reader. 2008 is when everything changed at City, in the midst of a global explosion of football-targeted capital flowing from oligarchs, petrostates, and generally filthy rich folks into what had historically been a sport owned and operated with and by local money.

After a couple of years of financial precarity, City found footballing salvation in August of that year in the form of new ownership. Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (hold on to that little nugget), became one of the first Persian Gulf state-associated entities to buy into the global game. Sheikh Mansour's group followed the path first trod by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who purchased middling Chelsea in 2003 and quickly put that club on a path to on- and off-field growth.

As soon as ADUG purchased City (and named the company City Football Group), it began a spending spree that has continued unabated to present day. The club immediately broke the British transfer record by purchasing the great Brazilian Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5m (that figure seems quaint now), then a summer later splashed over £100m on Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz, Emmanuel Adabayor, Carlos Tevez, and Joeleon Lescott. They brought in Eden Dzeko the following year (2011), and finally broke through to win a trophy, beating Stoke City to claim the F.A. Cup.

One year later, they won the Premier League in one of the most thrilling final days ever, scoring twice in stoppage time to pull out a win over Queens Park Rangers and cause Noel Gallagher to react like this from a bar in Chile (hold that thought, part two):

The rest is history. Even at this moment, City (who dropped a record £472m on transfers this summer WHILE THEY WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR FINANCIAL FUCKERY) sit atop the Premier League standings, perfect through five matches.

TL;DR Piles of Emirati cash transformed an underachieving locally-supported club into a global behemoth

Okay, I think we're good on the prelude. We've talked about the charges against City and taken a bit of journey back in time to show some context. Shall we talk about where all of this gets a mite bonkers? Oh, we shall.

In the span of little more than 20 years, high-level professional soccer has changed radically from the sport of passionate fans and local communities to a worldwide commercial juggernaut. According to a Forbes analysis, the 20 EPL teams are currently valued at around $30b. Precise valuations from the time Abramovitch bought Chelsea in 2003 are hard to come by (largely because very few people gave a shit about such things), but a bit of conservative (read: we're rounding high so as not to be accused of fudging the numbers like Man City) estimation suggests that the entire league was valued at around $4.9b. 

With that kind of explosive growth comes more interest, and not just in the game. In the case of City Football Group's ownership in Abu Dhabi, that investment included far more than just football. Since 2014, ADUG has invested more than $1b in real estate development projects in Manchester, to generally positive effect. Manchester has been lauded as an exemplar of the potential for smart public-private partnerships to transform cities and communities. Former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has branded the partnership as "Manchesterism".

Andy...Burnham. That name sounds familiar. Ah, yes. He's the new Prime Minister of the UK, having taken office a few short months ago. Just last week he said this at a major Labour Party event: “I intend to take what I did in Manchester, our plan for good growth, and drive it from the very centre of government into every postcode in Britain.”

It is no stretch to say that Burnham, who was mayor of Manchester from 2017 until early this year when he stepped down to run for Parliament, owes his entire political rise to ADUB. And when someone owes something, favors tend to get called in when the time is right. Here's an excerpt from an extremely detailed story from The Athletic on Abu Dhabi's complicated links to England:

As he sought to balance a multitude of interests, Burnham ended up in a bind when asked for his view on the possibility of City’s owners being forced out of English football.

“I would be really concerned to lose them,” Burnham told the BBC. “They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is.

“I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad (City’s home stadium) and the campus around it but also into the city.”

The BBC reported that Burnham said “it would be wrong for him to intervene”, yet by giving a view at all, had he already made life more difficult for those adjudicating on City’s sanctions?

I wonder why Burnham would say something like that when, "The initial judgement is serious and there can’t be any suggestion that anyone is above the rule. If wrongdoing is affirmed upon appeal, those responsible should face the appropriate consequences*.” was right there. 

*This is the statement his spokesman put out in her third attempt to sorta walk back Burnham's initial comments.

The value of trade between the UK and the UAE is estimated to exceed $25b a year. If the EPL hammers Manchester City, which is essentially owned by the UAE, how many wealthy Emiratis (and their less wealthy though still pretty comfortable English business partners) will scream bloody murder. 

Here, right in our face, is a stark example of how nation-states are using sport as a way to insinuate themselves into polite society and create immense leverage over the most powerful institutions in that society. The fucking Prime Minister is in a bind, and there's a real possibility he'll lose his job over it. Holy Sportswashing, Batman!

For a fun and interesting conversation on this particular element of the scandal, I commend to you this conversation between Roger Bennett and Rory Smith on the Men in Blazers media network.

TL;DR This thing has fucking tentacles, man! It's like a real-life episode of The Diplomat, only with soccer and without Rufus Sewell's gleeful scene-chewing.

Go on to the kitchen, grab a beer or coffee, or whatever time-appropriate chemical enhancement makes sense for you. Here's a shot of Everton fans celebrating a close escape from relegation two seasons ago. Same Everton (the club that Andy Burnham has long supported - another tentacle) that was penalized by losing total of eight points in the standings in 2024 for breaches of financial regulations on this order:

• Penalized 10 points by an independent commission for a £124.5 million loss over the three-year period ending in 2021–22, which exceeded the £105 million threshold stipulated in the rules. That deduction was reduced to six points upon appeal.
• The Toffees were hit for an additional 2 points in April for overspending by £16.6 million during the assessment period ending in 2022–23.

For the sake of journalistic integrity, we must point out that City Football Club has appealed the independent commission's findings, saying in part that the ruling contained "clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe".

Those formalities done and dusted, let's talk crime and punishment. First in the abstract and then applied with the acknowledgement that this is very complicated web City's weaved with literal global economic and political implications.

Everton, as we learned above, had to forfeit eight points (while in a relegation scrap) for infractions worth around £36m. If we apply simple math, where each £4.5m improperly applied is worth a point in the standings, City should be on the hook for 200 points.

But Everton was lauded by the Premier League for being forthcoming and cooperative during the investigation, and their issues stemmed more from an accounting fuckup than a coordinated and prolonged fraud.

In a separate similar incident, Chelsea was assessed a two-window transfer ban (meaning they were not allowed to purchase new players at all for over a year) for financial irregularities a few years ago. That after the club itself came forward after the sale to Todd Boehly's Clearlake team to tell the EPL that they'd found some problems while reviewing the books post-transaction. By that scale, City should go a generation or so without being able to purchase players.

The EPL has a few options in terms of remedies in cases like this one, the most extreme of which is expulsion from the top four tiers of the professional football pyramid. The league can choose to deduct points from City's tally (and can do so over multiple seasons). Or, they could relegate the club within the pyramid. (In 2006, Italy's most famous club, Juventus, was implicated in an egregious match-fixing scandal known as calciopoly, relegated to Serie B, docked nine points and stripped of two league titles. A pair of club executives were given lifetime bans from working in Italian soccer.) Finally, any number of financial penalties are on the table, from fines to transfer limitations.

Before we get to what we think will happen, let's discuss WWGD, shall we? Simply put, the punishment for City should be commensurate with their transgressions. That means City Football Group should face consequences far beyond any ever levied at the highest levels of the game.

The scale of the alleged rule-breaking is massive, orders of magnitude beyond any previously uncovered. It was clearly done with intent in full knowledge that it was against the rules of the competition. During the investigation, City and its hired legal guns obfuscated, delayed, and prevaricated while ADUG and Emirati leaders made thinly-veiled economic threats against the UK. City approached the entire process with arrogant disdain, as if they were confident that there would be little to no consequence to its actions.

In our perfect world, the punishment, then, has to hurt. On the field, on the balance sheet, certainly, and in a way that lays bare the UAE's naked attempt to burnish its global credentials through sporting achievement and tarnishes its image in the same way sport elevated it in the first place.

Recognizing that there's no practical way to remove City from the league in the middle of a season, here's what Gheorghe would do:

• Immediately apply a 40-point penalty to City for the 2026-27 season. They'd stand at -25 points with 33 matches to play and need 60 points from those matches to have any chance to avoid relegation, which as we'll see will be fruitless.
• Announce that regardless of where they finish in the final standings, City will be relegated to the English League Championship for the 2027-28 season, where they'll begin with a 20-point deduction.
• Apply that same 20-point preseason deduction at the beginning of each of the following four seasons, regardless of what league City found itself in.
• Allow all City players who wish to unilaterally void their contracts and become free agents at the next transfer window. Don't blame a players one iota. They shouldn't be punished.
• Prohibit any new transfer activity for the next four windows, other than signing free agents.

Those are all in the Premier League's jurisdiction. I assume we can get the English Football Association (FA) and UEFA on board, so we'd add these punishments.

• Effective immediately, City should be banned from all non-EPL competitions in England for the next four years. Effectively, the FA Cup and the League Cup.
• Additionally, City should be dismissed from the 2026-27 Champions League and banned from the next three.

That seems a hefty price to pay, but I don't think it unwarranted.

TL;DR Gheorghe would throw almost all the books at City.

Now, back to the real world. What will actually happen?

The Premier League is in a bind. On the one hand, they're already facing pressure from political forces to account for ADUG's good works and the UAE's status as a key trade partner for the UK in their decision-making. And on the other, the integrity of the competition is at stake. If City receives something perceived as a slap on the wrist, every other club will know the rules don't matter for the rich clubs, and the lawsuits will fly thick and fast. 

Consider Tottenham Hotspur, which finished fifth in the EPL (and behind City) in 2010-11, 2012-13, 2014-15, and 2023-24? In each of those seasons, that finish missed Champions League qualification by one place, costing Spurs millions of dollars that meant they couldn't compete in the transfer market for the kind of talent that could take them to the next level. Over and over again. Would they have cause to sue?

What about any one of the dozens of teams relegated between 2009-2018 in what would have been proven a rigged competition? Leicester City's in the third division now. Think they're not ripshit?

And on and on. Individual players who lost out on wages and bonuses because their team didn't qualify for European competition? Cause for action, maybe? Coaches who were sacked because they couldn't compete with City? See you in court, motherfucker!

No, I don't envy the EPL at all.

After all those words (3,150 of them, dashed off in a rush. Meth is a hell of a drug.), I think the final answer comes down to the same thing it always does. As the bards of Staten Island sing, cash rules everything around football. Once the appeals are exhausted and City found guilty, ADUG will come to the table with an offer. They'll agree to accept guilt, sacrifice a couple of executives, and pay a massive fine. Money is truly no object to them.

The EPL will have leverage, but not all of it. They can't face the rest of the teams and the public without extracting some kind of concession. So the sides will agree that City will take a 20-point penalty this season to spare the EPL from the embarrassment of City hoisting the trophy too soon, and spend the next season in the League Championship, roster intact, with no points penalties going forward. Two windows of transfer bans will round out the consequences. So it's not a slap on the wrist, but it's nothing close to what City deserve.

And Andy Burnham and Sheikh Mansour will enjoy a really excellent cigar at some point not too far in the future.

TL;DR C.R.E.A.M.

Elephants, Acid, and Exploring the Inmost Cave

I just finished Act Two of my new Pig on the Wall series (The Long, Long Road: The Secrets to Tom Petty's Sustained Success). 

As usual, the length and content have gotten away from me-- this was supposed to be a one-episode exploration of creativity and the interesting story behind the track "Don't Come Around Here No More."

Honestly, it was a G:TB assignment and post from 2014 that inspired me!

But now I'm deep in the thick of something monstrous again. 

If you don't have the time and energy to listen to the whole thing, there is a quiz in this episode early on . . . for rock aficionados only. 

But the thing I am most proud of in the episode occurs just past the 23-minute mark. 

I had to make several montages to get a certain point across. Oddly, these montages did not exist on the internet, so I had to make them myself. 

This section also turns into an oddball one-question quiz-- give it a listen and tell me if you got the answer in the comments; I am genuinely curious

EMERGENCY TRIBE SPORTS POST

Marls texted me on Sunday in the wake of W&M's dispiriting 41-14 home loss to Holy Cross on Saturday with a take that requires further inquiry.

"This could be the worst team in Tribe history."

To which I replied "Onassis!"

In my defense, we were in the midst of a comedy rhombus with London-based Whit riffing on the fact that the Commanders' third-string quarterback is a fella with Greek heritage. Speaking of dispiriting losses.

Marls got me thinking, and one doesn't have to go too deep to determine that - at the very least - this Tribe team is in the conversation for worst team in the lifespan of Gheorghie's as Tribe fans. That dates back to the autumn of 1988, when Whit, Jersey Dave, and I first walked the sylvan grounds of The College of William and Mary.

That year, the ninth of Jimmye Laycock's 38 seasons in Williamsburg, the Tribe was an independent playing at the I-AA level. W&M left the Southern Conference in 1977 when the NCAA divided its top division into I-A and I-AA.

The 1988 edition of the Tribe had an up and down campaign. Two years removed from Laycock's first NCAA Tournament appearance, W&M lost a close opener at UVA before running off three wins in a row, including a 10-3 win on the road against 17th-ranked JMU. They lost a heartbreaker at no. 9 Delaware, beat New Hampshire and tied no. 17 Villanova before heading to Sanford Stadium in Athens to take on Georgia.

That game against the Bulldogs is one of the vivid memories of my freshman year. We listened to it on the radio in my dorm room. I assume Whit and Dave were there, but I can't be certain of that part. W&M was tied with mighty Georgia, 7-7, at the end of the first quarter and we could dream. Fate had other ideas, and UGA outscored us 35-10 in the second frame on the way to a 59-24 victory. Still, there were positive takeaways from the game. Only Mississippi State scored more points against Georgia that season. And the Tribe generate 462 yards in total offense to a team that allowed an average of 355 against an SEC schedule that year.

Lots of offense and not a ton of concern with defense, the hallmark of the Laycock era, made for an entertaining rooting experience during my time in Williamsburg. W&M finished the 1988 campaign with home wins against Wofford and Colgate before falling to Richmond in the oldest rivalry in the South. That year, the school decided to decline a bid to the I-AA playoffs and accept the opportunity to play against a team of Japanese All-Stars in the first-ever Epson Ivy Bowl in Yokohama, Japan, where W&M won, 73-3.

W&M had two more excellent seasons in 1989 and 1990, reaching the NCAA Tournament both years and advancing to the quarterfinals in my junior year before falling to Central Florida. The 1991 team lost all five of its games against ranked opponents (including a 59-35 Natrone Means-led doozy of a game against I-A no. 20 UNC) and missed out on the postseason. That season did have a silver lining, though. I spent the season working in the press box for home games, responsible for tracking each drive and compiling the drive chart for the working media. One of those ink-stained wretches was Dave Fairbank of the Daily-Press. After the final home game of the season, a 35-13 hammering at the hands of a much-faster Samford squad, my Sports Information Office colleagues and I adjourned to Paul's Deli with the aforementioned Fairbank and a few other scribes, where I got my first taste of drinking beers with professionals. No idea if OBX Dave remembers that afternoon, but I certainly enjoyed the parts of it I recall.

Jesus. Where was I? Right, the really terrible 2026 William and Mary football squad. Sorry, got wandering down memory lane for a minute. 

Bottom line: this is the worst W&M team of my Tribe-rooting lifetime. The 2012 and 2017 teams went 2-9, but both of them were competitive. The 2012 team lost six games by a touchdown or less, led Maryland until the final minutes in College Park, and lost in double-overtime on the road against no. 4 JMU. The 2017 squad was bad, but they were in the game in the fourth quarter on all but two occasions (against top-ranked JMU and no. 21 New Hampshire).

The insane ending to W&M's season-opener notwithstanding, the campaign has been one miserable outing after another. To wit:

• A week after benefitting from four Villanova turnovers and 15 Wildcat penalties in their wild win, W&M nearly blew a 22-0 fourth quarter lead at home against Delaware State, stopping the Hornets on downs in the final 90 seconds to preserve a 22-15 win. The Tribe was outgained by a 366-187 margin, recorded 10 first downs to DSU's 26, and almost lost despite a +5 turnover advantage.
• Two wins in two and feeling good headed to Lehigh. Until the Mountain Hawks scored 30 points in the game's first 21 minutes and cruised to a 44-20 win. Only got outgained 486-342 in this one, so...progress?
• Not so fast, my friend. Woeful Fordham came to town the following week, their 0-3 record in tow, and proceeded to put 52 points on W&M. They've scored 37 in their other five games combined. The Rams rushed for 428 yards that day. They've gained 417 total in their remaining contests to date. Their win against the Tribe remains their only victory on the season.
• The less we say about the following week's 62-7 loss at Duke, the better. We will note that Marls was in Durham with his Duke-alum wife and chose not to wear green and gold. No dummy, Marls.
• Holy Cross coming to town at 1-4 with a defense that had allowed at least 30 points in each of its first five games seemed ripe for a get-well opportunity for W&M. Ah, well, nevertheless. The Crusaders led, 31-7, early in the third quarter and won, 41-14. The Tribe gained 31 yards on 29 carries and 253 total yards against a team that had allowed an average of 412 coming into the matchup.
• W&M is being outscored by an average of 20.17 points per game (and they've fucking won twice!). Opponents are outgaining the Tribe 479.2 to 294.3 yards per game (269.0 to 91.3 on the ground). Jesus (William) Mary and Joseph.

It's not so much that the Tribe are losing. That happens. It's more that they've been absolutely uncompetitive for four consecutive weeks, the last two against dreadful teams at home. It's frankly embarrassing, and we've never been able to say that about W&M football in my 38 years of rooting for the Green and Gold.

Maybe it gets better, as the Tribe face a poor N.C. Central team and winless Georgetown in the next two. There's no evidence that it will though, and in fact, it sure seems that this staff is ill-equipped to deal with the realities of modern college football, which means we could be in for a long stretch of dismal football.

Onassis!

The Protect College 'Administrators' Act, Part Next

Technically, the legislation aimed at providing stability to college sports is halfway to becoming law. In practical terms, however, it may be much further from the finish line. The Protect College Sports Act passed the Senate last week by a 77-22 margin, which nearly qualifies as a landslide in today’s polarized Congress. Now it must pass the House of Representatives, no small feat among the larger, more diverse legislative body. 

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said he thinks the House will reconvene in the coming days to take up and pass the legislation, though Speaker/weasel Mike Johnson, the Republican from Louisiana, sent representatives home early last month until after the November mid-term elections and said himself that reconvening is unlikely. 

One Democrat House staff member told Yahoo Sports college snoop Ross Dellenger, “That bill is dead.” Another told him, “We have no intention to return to take up this bill before the mid-term elections.” The contentiousness appears to be both procedural and personal, with a heaping helping of disapproval of the bill itself. The House doesn’t routinely rubber-stamp legislation passed by the Senate, and one Congressional expert told Dellenger that there are plenty of House members cheesed off at Cruz for holding up House-passed legislation in the Senate. Some are also peeved that several proposals from a similar, House-authored bill called the SCORE Act that couldn’t garner enough support for a floor vote aren’t included in the PCSA. 

If House members do indeed take up the Senate’s bill, they could and likely would insert changes and amendments that the Senate would have to sign off on before final approval. Meanwhile, Democrats hold out hope of taking control of the House in November, so why would they reconvene under the current slim Republican majority? Also, there’s the optics of reps assembling to take up college sports legislation while ignoring issues such as the war with Iran, tariffs, inflation, foreign policy and any number of more pressing matters. And then there’s the bill itself. 

The PCSA purports to create Federal, uniform guardrails and guidance amid the shifting landscape of athlete payment and movement. Instead, it’s likely to give back, or curtail, many of the benefits and freedoms athletes won in numerous court cases over the past couple decades and return control to the suits and administrators. The biggest gift is granting the NCAA an antitrust exemption, a shield against action or lawsuits brought on behalf of athletes or schools. Because yes, by all means we should greenlight the restaurateur with a track record of health code violations and salmonella outbreaks to open another eatery. 

The NCAA fought tooth-and-nail for years to uphold amateurism as its foundation, while schools and conferences and coaches made tens of millions of dollars, and conference realignment caused its own brand of upheaval. Courts regularly struck down NCAA limits and opened the door for athletes to earn money and to transfer more freely in search of both money and playing time. The PCSA, as currently worded, would create a strictly regulated revenue-share salary cap; would limit athlete transfer policy (one transfer without penalty); create a five-year eligibility limit for athletes; create an agent registry with a five-percent maximum fee; limit conference expansion; create a path for Football Bowl Subdivision conferences to pool media rights; prohibit coaches who leave before a season ends from performing duties at their new school (the so-called Lane Kiffin Rule). 

Proponents of the bill say these measures will replace the patchwork of state legislation and bring stability to a sporting landscape that’s become chaotic, as well as expensive. Critics point to the questionable wisdom of Federal oversight of college sports – for example, see Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt’s gaffealicious inability to differentiate between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, while attempting to grill former prosecutor Jack Smith. Critics also take issue with the potential limitation of athletes’ freedom and earning potential, and rewarding the NCAA with renewed powers after decades of feckless and shortsighted management. 

Though there’s bipartisan support of the bill (50 Republicans and 27 Democrats approved) there’s also bipartisan opposition. The 58-member Congressional Black Caucus, a group of Democrats, opposed the SCORE Act, as did a sizeable number of the 30-member, conservative GOP Freedom Caucus – albeit for different reasons. The CBC has already come out publicly against the current legislation. As Dellenger pointed out, both the Congressional Black Caucus and Freedom Caucus have members on the powerful House Rules Committee, which must approve any legislation for it to reach the floor for a full vote. If the bill doesn’t pass before the end of the calendar year, it goes back to square one and must be re-submitted and re-approved by both chambers. 

Even if the PCSA passes and President Trump signs it into law, which he’s said he’ll do, it won’t magically and immediately transform college sports. Expect any number of legal challenges related to salary caps, earning caps, transfer limits, agent fee limits, Title IX considerations and pre-emption of state laws on eligibility and NIL payments to athletes over Tenth Amendment concerns, which states that the Federal government only has the powers granted to it by the U.S. Constitution and that the states have power over everything else; the Framers were notably silent on college athletics.

The Gheorghie Caper

Ostensibly, the news from ComicBook.com that arrived earlier this month seems bleak. The headline alone is enough to make a person of a certain age sadly nostalgic: "The Muppet Show’s Disney+ Future Gets Grim Update Despite Multiple Emmy Nominations".

I'm here to tell you, friends, that we didn't watch 120 episodes of The Muppet Show, eight Muppets feature films, four made-for-TV movies, and a shitload of Mylo the Cat Muppet rap videos to watch the Muppetverse fade into oblivion. 

If we learned nothing else from The Great Muppet Caper, we know that when things seem at their darkest, when our luck seems to have run out, when the cement mixer we stole after we broke out of prison to steal back the diamond from the villainous models runs out of gas, as long as we believe and have really good writers who aren't afraid of a seeming coincidence, there's always hope.

Conservatively, we've written 1.7 million words in more than 5,600 posts over G:TB's 20+ years as a content factory. Exact figures are hard to come by, but it's safe to say we've mentioned and/or featured Muppets in 10% of that output - we know, love, and honor the source material. Whitney and Dave have written at least one screenplay. I was once cast as Christopher Robin in a touring production of Winnie the Pooh (true story, and a real what-might-have-been moment for your boy). The Teej stars in a recurring role as McFisty on the interwebs. We have writers, actors, and vaguely Muppet-looking dudes in abundance.

All of which is to say: we have the talent, the background, the mindset, and the opportunity to do something the world desperately needs. Our namesake is a movie star, and definitely friends with Muppets, for Chrissakes!

Put differently, in a way more theatrically fitting: Gheorghies, we've trained our entire lives for this moment. 

The Muppets will not go out quietly. Not on our watch. Today, we announce a brand new feature film from the people that brought you Gheorgasbord, Whitneypedia, and zbouillabaisse: coming to theatres near you at some point in the near-to-distant future, Gheorghe: The Muppet Adventure (working title).

Three Reasons to Listen to Sweeping Promises

rob demanded content to entertain him while his battered bits mend so content he shall have--content that I intend to become a recurring bit.  Let's see if I follow through.  The premise: I give you three songs to motivate you to check out a band you might not know.  Today that band is Sweeping Promises.

Wikipedia says "Sweeping Promises is an American post-punk duo from Boston, Massachusetts, now based in Lawrence, Kansas, consisting of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug."  I first heard their song Pain Without a Touch a few years ago.  It was released as a single and I heard it in passing and didn't drill down on the band, but I really enjoy it.  Here's a live version.

I love it when people who do not look conventionally cool do incredibly cool stuff.  Their first album, Hunger for a Way Out, has a very similar vibe to Pain Without a Touch.  It's a bit one-dimensional but worth taking a spin through.  Here's a live version of Cross Me Out.

They released a new album last month, You Say I Romanticize, and it's cool too.  It features songs with very Greasetruckian titles like My Friend's an Entomologist and Does He Want To Be The Weatherman?  My favorite at the moment is Accent.

They're doing two shows in Medford (ahem, Squeaky) then DC and Richmond, all in November.  Check 'em out!

WWDD, an Anti-Political Prescription

I found it heartening, if not surprising, that the news of Dolly Parton's passing was met with an outpouring of emotion and love, and a flood of fond memories from every corner of the globe - geographically, sure, but culturally, as well. Rock stars, actors, authors, everyday people, and politicians - everyone that had anything to say about Dolly did so in an overwhelmingly positive way.

Been thinking about that last category of folks ever since Dolly left us.

Nearly everything you could see on the surface about Dolly would suggest a conservative-coded person, politically speaking. From her upbringing in a poor family in a very rural environment to the way she presented herself visually as an old-school sex symbol - curvy and coiffed but never tawdry - to her accent to her "aww-shucks-I'm-just-a-little-ol'-girl-from-Tennessee" manner to the music she wrote and released, it would be easy to imagine a right-wing lean in her personal politics. I suspect more than a few MAGA folk thought she was one of them.

Just as the face Dolly showed the public belied a whip-smart businesswoman with interests far beyond music, so too did her less-obvious actions open a window into how she actually saw the world. Among many other things, Dolly Parton:

• Gave families $1,000/month for 6 months in 2016, when wildfires hit her Smoky Mountain hometown
• Supported flood survivors in Middle TN with a $700,000 donation in 2021,
• Donated $1M to fund COVID vaccine research in 2020
• Gave $1M in 2024, after Hurricane Helene, and her foundation matched it.
• Supported the LGBTQ+ community way before it was fashionable, once saying, "I've had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are and love who they love."
• She included lyrics about supporting gay family members in her 1991 song, "Family"
• She came out in support of marriage equality in 2009
• Was openly supportive of queer people visiting Dollywood, her Pigeon Forge, TN resort and amusement park
• True story: Dolly once entered a drag Dolly-lookalike contest...and lost!
• Speaking of Dollywood, in 2021, as housing prices climbed in its Smoky Mountain region, Dolly's company (motto: "Lead with Love") built a 750-unit apartment complex for seasonal, international, and temporary employees who would otherwise have difficulty affording lodging. 
• Famously donated more than 300 million books (and counting) to children across the world through her Imagination Library program.

I'm quite sure there are scores of other examples, public and private, of how Dolly lived her truth. A truth that hewed a lot closer to Jesus' teaching than does much of what passes for today's American Christianity and "conservative" values. She famously and conspicuously avoided taking public political positions, but as an online commentator said after she died, "Dolly Parton’s life is a political statement for those with eyes to see and ears to hear."

If I may be so bold, here's a short list of how I'd answer the question What Would Dolly Do?, as a personal and political prescription:

• Be yourself
• Laugh with your whole body
• Love your people fiercely, and love everyone else, too
• Care for the least among us
• Tell bigots and misogynists to go fuck themselves (in the "bless your heart" sorta way)
• Lift up children
• Support science
• Sing, dance, make music, and make fun.

I tell you what. If someone ran for office on that platform, they'd get my vote.