Despite their new £5.1 billion (Dh27.8b) television rights deal, the blanket failure of Premier League clubs in the Uefa Champions League has left England looking like Europe’s poor relation.
After Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal fell, Manchester City’s elimination by Barcelona on Wednesday left England with no quarter-final representatives in Europe’s elite club competition for the second time in three years.
For a country that supplied three of the four semi-finalists in 2007, 2008 and 2009 — and eight of the 16 finalists between 2005 and 2012 — it appears to represent a startling fall from grace.
And with Hull City, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur having all fallen short in the Europa League, Everton were the last English team still standing in Europe prior to the second leg of their last-16 tie against Dynamo Kiev last night.
In the Champions League, English clubs have acquired a certain queasiness about progressing beyond the last 16.
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Since 2009/10, 18 of the Premier League’s 24 participants have made it past the group phase, but only eight have progressed to the quarter-finals and only three have gone on to reach the last four.
Attempts to explain the malaise have fallen back on old concerns about England’s draining midseason schedule, which once moved Uefa president Michel Platini to observe that English clubs were “lions in the winter, but lambs in the spring”.
"This round [of 16] is particularly difficult for English teams," City manager Manuel Pellegrini told The Guardian this week. "Not having a winter break gives other leagues' teams an advantage.
“Boxing Day is non-negotiable, a wonderful tradition, and changing it would be absurd, but you can’t play nine games in December and nine in January. It’s a heavy load.”
But although the jam-packed festive programme undoubtedly takes a toll, English teams have not played significantly more games than their continental opponents.
Chelsea have played 44 games this season — one fewer than Paris Saint-Germain, the team who eliminated them from the Champions League. Arsenal have played 45 times to Monaco’s 44, and City 42 times to Barcelona’s 44.
Besides, the Christmas schedule did not appear to be an encumbrance during England’s 2004-2009 continental peak.
For others, the explanations lie elsewhere, with former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher claiming the Premier League’s vast wealth has allowed sloppiness to creep into clubs’ recruitment practices.
“With the new TV deal, the clubs get a lot of money,” he said. “You can bring a player in, but if it doesn’t quite work out, you still have the money to bring another in.”
Any evaluation of the English teams’ woes in this season’s Champions League must, however, also take into account the club-specific failings that led to each side’s elimination.
Chelsea showed complacency by electing not to press home their advantage following the dismissal of PSG’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the second leg of their last-16 tie, enabling the French champions to claim a 2-2 draw that sent them through on away goals.
Arsenal paid the price for reckless attacking — a habitual failing — in their 3-1, first-leg loss to Monaco, while in setting City out in a porous 4-4-2 formation, Pellegrini allowed Barcelona to take control of their tie with a 2-1, first-leg win.
Success is also cyclical, and with Manchester United in transition following former manager Alex Ferguson’s retirement, England have lost their dominant European force of the last 20 years.
According to Steven Gerrard, who saw Liverpool bounce back from a fourth-round Uefa Cup exit in 2004 to win the Champions League the following season, it is too soon for soul-searching.
“I don’t think it has been our year, but I don’t think it is a crisis,” the Liverpool captain said.
“It has happened before where teams have gone out early and then come back the next year and won it.
“It’s not a major problem. It’s just that this season, English teams have not been good enough.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
Business Insights
- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
- SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income.
- Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
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Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
Asia Cup Qualifier
Venue: Kuala Lumpur
Result: Winners play at Asia Cup in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in September
Fixtures:
Wed Aug 29: Malaysia v Hong Kong, Nepal v Oman, UAE v Singapore
Thu Aug 30: UAE v Nepal, Hong Kong v Singapore, Malaysia v Oman
Sat Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong, Oman v Singapore, Malaysia v Nepal
Sun Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman, Malaysia v UAE, Nepal v Singapore
Tue Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore, UAE v Oman, Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu Sep 6: Final
Asia Cup
Venue: Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Schedule: Sep 15-28
Teams: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, plus the winner of the Qualifier
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
