Thursday 6 June 2024

I've seen that badge before, but for the life of me I can't remember which team. I know it's French, but that's as far as I can take it.

 

Ohio Athletic Conference, where my beloved Heidelberg Student Princes compete.

 

Olympique Alès is a French association football club founded in 1923, based in the commune of Alès; currently plays in Championnat National 2, the fourth division of the French football league system

 

Suing over Messi playing or not playing a game seems like a lost cause. Although I'm not up on Canadian laws I can't imagine this being successful.

 

https://phillysportsnetwork.com/2024/06/05/5-union-ii-players-to-watch/
The Philadelphia Union are loaded with talent in their academy and second team. Union ll currently sit top of the table in MLSNP playing mostly teenagers. Here is a good article speculating who might make it to the first team besides Cavan Sullivan.

 

The case seems like a sure loser, but there's enough meat on it to at least make it interesting.

First of course there's the specific advertisements. What do they say and how do they say it? For example, if they were stupid enough to day "Come buy a ticket to see Messi" then I'd sweat it a bit, but if they just ran ads with a picture of Messi and invited you to come see Inter Miami, you've likely got some breathing room.

HOWEVER I think there's something else here, namely that said players were not held out because they were injured, a risk that a reasonable person accepts when they buy a ticket to a game.

Rather, they claimed that all three big stars auddenly needed rest, which is quite the coincidence.

I'd hate, for example, for discovery to demonstrate that in fact this "coincidence" was planned for weeks even months before. What with MLS being a single corporate entity, what Miami does behind closed doors is relevant. Vancouver can't claim innocence due to ignorance. In a situation like this, that won't wash.

Either way, there's another vulnerability, namely that the players were not held out because they were suddenly exhausted. Rather, and it was widely speculated at the time, the real reason they were left in Miami (where, incidentally, at least two of them were seen taking their kids to a water park on game day) because it's a seven hour flight each way in order to play on a pretty bad fake turf pitch which was designed for a CFL team.

If I were Miami, I wouldn't put my aging stars through 14 hours in the air to play on painted concrete either. )And honestly I'd fire whoever even scheduled that match; Miami to Vancouver might be the longest away game trip in world history, and since they're not in the same division it wasn't at all necessary.)

And if the plaintiff can show anything like that being even a part.of the consideration, then The Caps might have to make everyone whole.

And it's telling that they've been madly tossing around free food and free tickets ever since. It's usually considered an admission of guilt when you start in compensating people .

Like I said, it would be a surprise if the suit goes anywhere but stranger things have happened.

 

Well at some point that trip would be necessary. Eventually (over multiple seasons) every team plays every team home and away.

And there is a longer road trip, or at least there was, when one of the Russian teams in/around Vladivostok has to play a Moscow team.