News — Football

Keilani Contreras fell in love with football after watching her brother play. Seeing the sparkle in her eyes during football matches, her father signed her up to play the game. Now, she has taken the game to a whole new level, becoming the first girl in her league to score a touchdown, according to Action News Jax. The Jacksonville, Florida native is the first-ever girl to score a touchdown for the Arlington Football Association.

“I was inspired by my brother ever since I was little,” said Contreras. “And one day my Dad said, ‘Do you want to play football?’ So, I said, ‘Sure!’ So, he signed me up, and ever since that, I loved it!”

In the ESYFL, a local spring youth football league, Contreras has now become the second girl in the league’s existence to score a touchdown.

The 11-year-old is proud of herself for scoring the touchdown for her team, which won the game 26-0 on Saturday.

“Yeah, that was like my first touchdown,” said Contreras. “… I felt amazing. Like, I felt really proud of myself.”

Contreras, who has had a traumatizing year, did not let it weigh her down. In March, she was at a Youth Football tournament when an armed man began shooting in Greenland Park. Luckily, there were no casualties. Two months prior to that, she lost her best friend, Deaurra Nealy, who died from MIS-C, a COVID-19 related condition. Nealy died at age 8 so Contreras chooses to don the number eight on her jersey to honor her dear friend.

]“I wear the number eight because my best friend, she was like my little sister, she passed away and she passed away at the age of eight,” said Contreras.

“And so, when I was wearing eight, I felt like I had to make her proud, and have to show my honor for her. So, I made that touchdown and I made sure I made that touchdown, and nothing else could stop me there.”

According to her parents, Contreras is an all-around student who has straight A’s in school, and aside from football, she is an amazing artist. She is also very much aware at her age of the inhibitions of many girls to go for what they truly want. Her advice is to not fear to be the determining factor no matter the circumstance.

“Girl power, I feel like that’s a lot because, girls sometimes they’re scared to go out for stuff and sometimes boys might be like, ‘Oh, you can’t do this because you’re a girl. You can’t do that because you’re this,’ or something like that. Well, look at me, I’m a football player!” said Contreras.

The humbling, beautiful yet tragic end of Senegalese-French man Jean-Pierre Adams is as riveting as it is melancholic. Before Marcel Desailly from Ghana, Kylian Mbappe from Cameroon-Algeria, Paul Pogba from Guinea and Mali’s Ngolo Kante had a path to the French national football team-Les Bleus (The Blues), Jean-Pierre Adams from Senegal had already begun that path.

He became a professional footballer with African ancestry from the West to join the Les Blues as prior admissions had come from North Africa or Martinique.

Adams, born on March 10, 1948, was a central defender who has been in a coma since March 17, 1982, due to medical negligence following an operation handled by a trainee at Lyon Hospital. What is outstanding is the love displayed by his wife Bernadette who has refused to order his euthanization (assisted suicide or painless death) believing that he will rise from his coma one day.

Despite it being tasking, Bernadette has devoted her time, resources and life to tending to Adams. She changes his clothing, speaks to him and has even informed him that their two children Laurent (born 1969) and Frédéric (1976) have children of their own making him a grandfather.

Bernadette’s resolve must have stemmed from Adams being able to breathe on his own without the assistance of a machine despite being in a vegetative state.

The man from Dakar, Senegal, had wrapped up his playing years with 22 caps for the French team. His footballing career began when his family sent him for further studies at Collège Saint-Louis. He was hosted by a Jourdain family in Loiret and here, his love for football which was suppressed back home for studies flourished so much that he was nicknamed the “White Wolf”.

After basic schooling, a factory work followed at Montagris but Adams has had his fair share of crashes and mishaps, including a serious knee injury which could have scuppered his professional football hopes. A stint with l’Entente Bagneaux-Fontainebleau-Nemours (EBFN) followed. He subsequently headed to Military service and then a recommendation to Nîmes.

At a party, he found the lovely Bernadette and although a Black man and a European marriage was frowned upon even if decriminalized, their love triumphed with their 1969 marriage. Of his physical attributes, Adams was described as a force of nature; strong physically, patriotic and determined.

It was, however, his central defensive partnership with Marius Trésor forming the “Garde Noire” – “Black Guard” – that became famous.

Adams played for Paris Saint-Germain and Nice, narrowly failing to win the French title with the latter again, while also knocking Barcelona out of the 1973-4 UEFA Cup. According to Bernadette, Adams loved Brazilian music, cigars, clothing and bling, adding that he was humorous and lived life to the brim. Ending his career in the French divisions, Adams reckoned he could forge a path with youth coaching, thus, on March 17, 1982, he set off to Dijon for three days of studying and training. However, Adams damaged a tendon in his leg.  

He went to Lyon hospital where he met a doctor who loved football and assured him he had to undergo a knee operation on an agreed date but when Adams showed up on the appointed day, there was a strike by doctors and nurses.

Not being an emergency, Adams, aged 34, should have returned but he was given an anaesthetic. This was to numb him for the procedure for a few hours but rather Adams slipped into an eternal coma when the anaesthetist made a mistake which starved the footballer’s brain of oxygen.

Since a strike was in effect, it emerged the anaesthetist was overseeing eight operations at once. Compounding the issue, a trainee also put Adams in a wrong bed.

It’s been 37 years since the once jovial man has been in a coma. His last word to his wife before he left for the surgery was “It’s all fine, I’m in great shape.” But soon Bernadette was summoned on phone; she remained by her husband’s bedside for five days and five nights hoping for a change in his condition. By November, he was moved north to Chalon, where Bernadette was by his side on a daily basis.

When the hospital said they could no longer look after Adams, he was moved to a custom-built home Bernadette had set up, naming it Mas du bel athléte dormant — the House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete. Support came from Nîmes and PSG, both offering 15,000 francs ($15,000) while the French football federation gave her F6,000 per week after an initial contribution of F25,000 in December 1982.

In addition, Adams’s former clubs played charity matches. The Variétés Club de France, a charitable organisation still running today and backed by Platini, Zinedine Zidane and Jean-Pierre Papin, played a fixture in the comatose player’s honour against a group of his footballing friends. Legally, it took seven years before the Seventh Chamber of Correctional Tribunal in Lyon found the doctors guilty of involuntary injury. The anaesthetist and trainee were given a one-month suspended sentence and a fine that translates to $815.

Each day, Adams, now 71, is washed and dressed by Bernadette, who maintains that her husband still has some cognitive function.

“Jean-Pierre feels, smells, hears, jumps when a dog barks. But he cannot see,” she said in 2007.

Although Adams suffered significant damage to his brain, he curiously does not age.

What of ending it all so she can be free?

“It’s unthinkable! He cannot speak and it’s not for me to decide for him,” Bernadette said, rounding up a tale shining light on human endurance on Adams part and devotion on his wife’s part.

Perhaps the true test will come should Bernadette die before Adams, then the fate of the French man from Senegal will be decided.

South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe is well known in the business world for his numerous businesses. What is not known to many is that he is a sports investor, particularly in football and rugby.

The billionaire is the bankroller and founder of South African football club Mamelodi Sundowns. Sundowns play in South Africa’s elite league and are onetime champions of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League. On the domestic front, they have won the South African Premiership a record 10 times.

Also, the billionaire is the joint major shareholder with a 37 percent stake in the Pretoria-based Bulls, currently the most successful rugby team in South Africa, according to reports.

Motsepe is now set to become the first South African to lead Africa’s football governing body, CAF. The billionaire started the race with three other candidates, including current CAF president Ahmad Ahmad.

Incumbent Ahmad is ineligible to seek a second term because he is serving a two-year FIFA ban over “governance issues” while all of Motsepe’s rivals have stepped down for him to be presented as the sole candidate at the next CAF Congress this Friday.

According to the AFP, the plan to have Motsepe run as the sole candidate was brokered by FIFA. He will have as his deputies Senegalese Augustin Senghor and Mauritanian Ahmed Yahya.

Motsepe, 59, was the first Black African to be listed on the Forbes list of billionaires. He is worth $3 billion on the 2021 Africa billionaire net worth, making him the ninth richest man on the continent. 

He is keen to build partnerships and sponsorship within the private sector to boost Caf. He outlined his ten-point manifesto in Johannesburg, South Africa, in late February, according to the BBC.

Below is his profile

Motsepe is South Africa‘s first Black industrialist and billionaire. He said he was inspired by his grandfather and father, who were both entrepreneurs as well as his mother, a businesswoman who ran the family business at the time.

In 2013, he also became the first African to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half his fortune to charity.

Motsepe is the founder of African Rainbow Minerals Ltd (ARM). The company mines iron ore, manganese ore and alloys, platinum group metals, copper, nickel and coal. ARM also has an investment in gold.

He has been acknowledged by Forbes as one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” in the world. Motsepe, who is also a member of the Board of Directors at insurance company Sanlam, believes that a lot of hard work, sacrifices and persistence has gotten him where he is today.

Apart from being an international businessman, Motsepe is an expert in governance, law and compliance. He is also the founder and chair of Ubunto-Botho Investments. In a recent interview with CNN, the African billionaire stated that his first passion was entrepreneurship. “Growing up in a business environment in a family, standing behind conflicts at a young age, and I wanted to pursue my first passion which was entrepreneurship,” he said.

He said it took many years of looking at which opportunity to explore and he realized that his country did not have a history of small-scale mining. Then he decided to venture into small-scale mining.

Motsepe has a BA law degree (University of Swaziland), LLB (Wits University), Doctor of Commerce (honoris causa) (Wits University), Doctor of Commerce (honoris causa) (Stellenbosch University), Doctor of Management and Commerce (honoris causa) (Fort Hare) and Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) (University of Eswatini, formerly University of Swaziland).

He was a partner in one of the largest law firms in South Africa, Bowmans, and was also a visiting attorney in the USA with McGuireWoods.

Motsepe is a member of the International Business Council (IBC) of the World Economic Forum, which is made up of 100 of the most highly respected and influential chief executives from all industries. He is also a member of the Harvard Global Advisory Council and the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). Motsepe is a recipient of numerous business and leadership awards and recognitions, including the Sunday Times Lifetime Achiever Award, 2017.

His love for sports led him to own the national soccer champions and in 2009, Motsepe acquired a 37% stake in the Blue Bulls Co., South Africa’s Top Rugby Team.

Through the Motsepe Foundation, founded in 1999, he is giving back to society. The foundation’s aim is to improve the quality of life for all, including the unemployed, women, youth workers and marginalized communities in South Africa; support projects that have the potential to assist beneficiaries to become self-reliant and building non-racialism in South Africa; promote respect for diversity and encourage all races and all people of different faiths and cultures to move forward.

Georgian and College Football Hall of Famer Herschel Walker told a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday that Black Americans should not get reparations, citing moral and other reasons.

“We use black power to create white guilt. My approach is biblical: how can I ask my Heavenly Father to forgive me if I can’t forgive my brother?” asked the former NFL player who campaigned for former President Donald Trump last year.

“America is the greatest country in the world for me, a melting pot of a lot of great races, a lot of great minds that have come together with different ideas to make Americans the greatest country on Earth. Many have died trying to get into America. No one is dying trying to get out,” he said in the virtual hearing.

Walker joined the discussion in the session of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which debated H.R. 40, a piece of legislation that would establish a federal commission to look at the issue of reparations to Black Americans. The legislation was first introduced by the late Rep. John Conyers of Michigan in 1989 but it has never received a floor vote in the House.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas reintroduced it in January. Walker on Wednesday was joined by Hilary O. Shelton, head of the NAACP’s Washington, D.C., California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and others in discussing the bill, which has 162 co-sponsors. 58-year-old Walker, who played in the old USFL and NFL for over 15 years, asked during the hearing how Blackness would be measured if such a bill were passed.

“Reparations, where does the money come from? Does it come from all the other races except the black taxpayers? Who is black? What percentage of black must you be to receive reparations? Do you go to 23andMe or a DNA test to determine the percentage of blackness? Some American ancestors just came to this country 80 years ago, their ancestors wasn’t even here during slavery. Some black immigrants weren’t here during slavery, nor their ancestors. Some states didn’t even have slavery.”

The former Dallas Cowboys star said before the hearing, he asked his mom what he thought about reparations. “…Her words: I do not believe in reparations. Who is the money gonna go to? Has anyone thought about paying the families who lost someone in the Civil War, who fought for their freedom?”

“Reparation is only feeding you for a day. It is removing a sign ‘for whites only’ and replacing it with the sign ‘no education here,’” he said. The football star does not think White people should have to atone for slavery. “Who is the guilty party?” Walker, who is a 1982 Heisman Trophy winner asked. “Should we start at the beginning where African Americans sold your African American ancestors into slavery? And to a slave trader who eventually sold African American ancestors to slave owners?”

“I feel it continues to let us know we’re still African American, rather than just American. Reparation or atonement is outside the teaching of Jesus Christ.”

The issue of reparation for slavery has been raised by descendants of slaves in the Americas and the Caribbean for several years now. The belief that white Americans owe black Americans a moral debt for compensation for slavery, Jim Crow and long-standing racism has been ongoing since emancipation.

Critics of reparation say that it would be difficult to make fair calculations as to how much victims would take and in what form, considering the years involved. Those who have supported reparations say it is necessary to help redress the wrongs of slavery and racial discrimination. It would also help to resolve the continuing troubles of America’s black community. It is documented that “black Americans’ continuing poverty is a result of America deliberately frustrating the efforts of black Americans to accumulate and retain wealth until the 1980s.”

Nationwide polling shows, however, that compensation for those affected by slavery is an unpopular policy. In the journal Social Science Quarterly, a University of Connecticut researcher, Thomas Craemer estimated that it would cost between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion to give historical reparations.

The journal, cited by Newsweek, said Craemer came up with those figures by tabulating how many hours all slaves worked in the United States from when the country was officially established in 1776 until 1865 when slavery was officially abolished. He subsequently multiplied the amount of time they worked by average wage prices at the time, and then a compounding interest rate of 3 percent per year to calculate the reparation figure.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Jackson Lee chastised Republican lawmakers for selecting two Black conservatives to speak against reparations.

“Like our last hearing, the minority has selected two African-American witnesses to speak against HR 40. That is their privilege. But we know that justice, facts and that life that was led and continues to be led by African Americans is on our side,” she said.