Harry Kane ‘looked despondent towards the end of Chelsea thrashing and knows Spurs aren’t going to challenge for the top four this season, claims Gary Neville
Gary Neville discusses how alarm bells will start ringing after Harry Kane’s despondent demeanor during the defeat against Chelsea and provides his thoughts on the penalty drama at the London Stadium.
Gary Neville says Harry Kane knows Tottenham won’t challenge for the top four. Kane was left frustrated as Tottenham was beaten 3-0 at home by Chelsea. The striker was heavily linked with a move away but ended up staying at the Spurs
Kane was denied a big-money move away from Spurs over the summer after a very public push to join Manchester City.
Chelsea manager, Thomas Tuchel revealed last week that discussions had been held over the possibility of bringing Kane to Stamford Bridge, but Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy would not budge on interest from any suitors.
The 28-year-old is yet to score in the Premier League this season and cut a frustrated figure, playing deeper and wider than usual as Spurs fell to the Blues on Sunday.
“It’s never easy when a player wants to leave your club, and everybody in the dressing room in the ground knows that he wants to leave,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast.
“I think that there will be some questions coming out of that game because he looked despondent towards the end.
“He was playing against a very, very good team. He will have been part of a Tottenham team over the years where Chelsea has a good record and he will be thinking, ‘I’m here again, playing at Tottenham. We’re not going to challenge for titles or get into the top four.
“He wanted more, he wanted to go and challenge for titles. This Chelsea team will challenge for titles.”
The FA and SFA have been invited to a summit on September 30, along with all other member associations in world football, to discuss the international football calendar and Arsene Wenger’s proposal to host the World Cup every two years.
FIFA has invited member associations to an online summit on 30 September in next stage of planned reform of international match calendar, inc Arsene Wenger's biennial WC plan. FIFA: "There is a broad consensus within the game that the IMC should be reformed and improved."
The main topic of discussion is expected to be the proposal to reshuffle the international calendar by hosting a biennial World Cup, a plan led by FIFA’s head of world development, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.
“There is broad consensus within the game that the international match schedule must be reformed and improved,” read a statement released by FIFA on Monday.
“Following invitations to interested parties, including all confederations, in early September, discussions are being organized in the coming weeks.
“This is one of several opportunities to establish a constructive and open debate, at a global and regional level, over the coming months and FIFA is looking forward to it.
“As this is a football project, in which the global interests of football should come first, this process started with players and coaches from all over the world. The debate will also involve fans from around the globe.
“FIFA is committed to being a forum for meaningful debate by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including fans and looks forward to discussions on the sustainable growth of football in all regions of the world, at all levels.”
The proposed changes to the international calendar would mean a major final being held every year, alternating between World Cups in even years and the continental finals such as the European Championship and the Copa America in odd years.
FIFA invites FA, SFA to the online summit to discuss biennial World Cup proposal and international football calendar
Under the proposal, the number of international windows in a season would be cut to one or two in October and March, with no national team playing any more than seven matches, including playoffs.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has voiced opposition to the proposal, while the South American confederation CONMEBOL called the plans “highly unsustainable”.
However, FIFA released results of fan surveys last week, which showed most favored a two-year gap between World Cups, though the popular choice was to retain the current format in each age category.
As India develops into a global tech powerhouse that currently hosts the second largest internet market. Global tech giants have been flocking into the market to capitalize on the opportunity.
Google is no exception, over the last decade antitrust lawmakers from various countries have been coming to grips with the search engine giant’s presence.
The latest setback came from India’s the Competition Commission of India. They basically control the complex world of business competitive dynamics within the country. To maintain some level of sanity among competitors who will do anything to win.
In the probe, they are accusing the Android maker of reducing local device makers’ capability of producing phones that run alternate versions of android. Additionally, they found a problem with the fact that Google recommends their apps to come preinstalled with the mobile operating system.
Another area of suspicion comes around the handling of Google’s play store laws which looks like a bit grey area where they can muddle with the rules to suit their agenda. It will be interesting to see how they will maneuver their way out of the mounting lawsuits.
As countries start to improve their local technology infrastructure that can compete with global companies, look to see the competitiveness of these “uber” companies weaken.
Opensea finally succumbs to the pressure of banning employees who were profiting off insider information. A high-level executive was accused of profiting off artworks quickly after they were promoted on the website’s front page.
In the report, they said that they are going to take the necessary measures to ensure that team members cannot use confidential information to profit from trades. They will also make certain that they cannot buy or sell from the featured collection.
“Yesterday we learned that one of our employees purchased items that they knew were set to display on our front page before they appeared there publicly,” said Devin Finzer, the co-founder and chief executive of the site.
“This is incredibly disappointing. We want to be clear that this behaviour does not represent our values as a team. We are taking this very seriously and are conducting an immediate and thorough third-party review of this incident so that we have a full understanding of the facts and additional steps we need to take.”
Blockchain framework takes center stage
This came to light after it was meticulously traced on the blockchain platform where everyone can view all the transactions. Traders noticed that an anonymous user was “strategically” purchasing items from the public marketplace shortly before they were promoted on the site’s front page.
To make it even more obvious, the anonymous user would then sell the assets. This allowed the user to rake in huge sums within a short period of time, often time within hours.
This whole cheeky operation was linked to Nate Chastain, OpenSea’s head of product.
Overall, this is an interesting piece of insight and kudos to those who noticed it. It goes to show how we can use the blockchain to connect the dots and solve financial schemes. This might be a drop in the bucket to what is probably going on behind the scenes of these NFT companies.
As regulators start to sniff their noses in the honey pot. Incidents like these will give them further validation as to why the whole market needs to be regulated.
We are now close to the end of the 3rd quarter of 2021 and while our governments are still grappling to get our society to some level of normalcy, a lot of changes have happened.
Depending under which guise you look at society whether it be social, economic, psychological, etc. Almost every compartment has been impacted.
It’s not the first our society has been through a period like this. Albeit, the challenges are a bit unique due to the underlying complexity of our current society: globalization, economical inequality, technological change, etc.
From a technological standpoint, we are at a unique inflection point. We are seeing various fields of thought being combined.
These “synergies” are creating new areas of innovation that can lead to economic growth: Artificial Intelligence, cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies, precision medicine, etc.
At the moment, the whole rave about whether it’s justified or not is around cryptocurrencies. Most tech enthusiasts including the average layman want to get a piece of the pie.
It has not yet penetrated the everyday public but it’s getting there. Even if countries don’t want to accept bitcoin as their main currency, they would’ve to find some way to adapt to the whole digital paradigm.
At the moment, superpowers of this planet are trying to find ways on how to properly get a grip of this “crypto thing”. Some are already creating their own alternative currencies which they hope their general populace will accept.
Even though it’s not decentralized, they still got the underlying ideas and even architecture from cryptocurrencies.
Current NFT Craze
At the moment within the crypto culture, deep within the confines of this “movement”, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are all the rage. Unsurprisingly, teenagers are getting rich overnight by selling digital items on the blockchain.
These items can be in the form of pictures, sound, and other forms of digital media. If anyone could predict these 5 years prior, they could’ve made a good sum of money. But it’s still early in the market and can be fruitful for those who have the skill and know-how to do it.
When persons think about NFTs today, they might think of the financial motivation behind it such as digital art images being sold for exorbitant prices. But that’s just the first phase, NFTs will go through multiple iterations and use cases before it reaches the public.
Before I do a deep dive into NFTs and why they might be necessary. I think it’s only fair to take a step back and look at the fundamentals of this entire thing and slowly build our way up.
What are NFTS (Non-Fungible Tokens)?
NFTs are basically digital items that can come in many various forms that are integrated within the blockchain ecosystem. Due to this integration, it is assumed to be secure and finite.
Meaning that if I was to put a picture of a cat on a digital blockchain, for example, I own the rights to that image.
Thus, If I intend to send that image to my friend, he might have a copy but I am still the original owner. I have proof due to the authentication factor provided within an NFT.
Additionally, it cannot be exchanged or traded and that’s where the non-fungible part comes in.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are fungible similar to most real-world financial assets. They can be traded or exchanged. I can exchange my bitcoin for another bitcoin or trade it for another cryptocurrency if it can be executed.
With NFTs, that’s not the case. Each individual NFT is immutable and unique due to the identification system built-in. This very factor is one of the main motivations as to the applications it will be able to provide in the foreseeable future.
Types of NFTs
As explained above, NFTs can come in various digital media types: Sound, pictures, videos, collectibles, Gifs, Art, etc. At the moment digital art is all the rage.
Artists are able to make good money selling their digital art. A most recent example of this is Beeple, who sold a piece for $69 million back in March when the market was very speculative.
Brands are also waking up to the fact that they can use NFTs as a means to sell exclusivity or communicate with customers. See the types of media grow as the overall market matures and the current hype wanes off.
Digital Certificates of Authenticity
In the barest bone terms, NFTs can be seen as digital certificates of authenticity. Once an item is on the blockchain, it becomes an NFT.
The overall assumption is that it becomes unique and immutable. It cannot be muddled with, thus there is a level of safety in the overall platform.
Where safety is concerned, blockchain developers are slowly improving their technology to combat fraud but we are still some way off.
This idea of authenticity can spur through many different layers of society. If we want to think way ahead, we can look at fraud detection as a major use case.
For example, assume that our passport is now digitized and stored on an NFT platform. In theory, it would be hard to change the passport data which makes it difficult for a subject with malicious intent to execute fraud.
At the moment this idea of authenticity is flaunted about by the crypto wealthy, who can purchase art pieces that can make them the direct owner to the digital rights of art.
NFTs and Applications
NFTs will impact our society, it’s not a matter of how but it’s a matter of when. Within this decade and more to come, we will see the full implications of this novel technology which is a spun-off of the whole cryptocurrency movement.
Many layers of society will be impacted by identity, regulations, finance, etc. In the examples below, I hope to get the creative juices flowing within your mind to visualize the different applications of this technology. The ideas are speculative but can be made concrete.
Once the market has matured and applications can be built sustainably and reliably.
Finance
At the moment, cryptocurrencies are already changing the way how we perceive money.
The real changes are yet to happen, but we are edging ever closer up the tumultuous mountain of financial regulations and stripping away the conservative barriers of doing things.
NFTs will impact areas within finance such as identification, loan, insurance, fraud, etc.
Identification and Verification
Customer identification could be stored as an NFT which makes the onboarding process easier. Typically onboarding process can take a while which consists of lengthy procedures and backend flow.
Once a person’s information is stored as an NFT, banks could easily look up that individual and probably even automate the onboarding process by linking directly to the NFT platform.
A person doesn’t necessarily need to interact with anyone within the bank, they could simply signup, the platform will do all the analysis and verification.
Contracts
Contracts could be stored on an NFT platform which could make it hard for others to directly manipulate it. This one innovation could prevent a lot of fraud within a financial institution.
For example, loan agreements or insurance policies. The entire process could happen on a platform. Once the agreement is signed, it will be stored on the blockchain and can be brought up sometime later for verification.
This main concept could even be spun off into contracts of various types within various industries.
Entertainment
The entertainment industry could use NFT as a way to sell exclusive items to the buyer who deemed that particular item valuable. This could be an exclusive movie, album, song, etc.
It all depends on the creativity involved and the overall vision for the project. Below is a list of ways the entertainment industry could use NFTs.
Games
NFTs for games is going to be huge. Just imagine someone purchases a certain asset that can be used within a video game that can give them an unfair advantage or help them solve a problem.
This could be a car that can be rented in a car game that is unique to that user only. The thing that makes this is interesting is that, imagine if that person could rent his car to other players for a fee.
Over time the price that he or she paid for the car could be more than worth it. At the moment, game studios are integrating NFT technology within their platforms.
This can prove to be a new stream of income for them.
Music
Artists could find new ways of making money, by allowing their fans to make exclusive purchases. These purchases could be used as a form of investment by the fan who could sell it at a later date or probably pass it on to their grandkids.
Persons do this all the time in the physical world. Once the user purchases the music, he or she has exclusive rights to the item so they can do whatever they want with it.
Government
NFTs could definitely be used within the governmental system which is usually bureaucratic and opaque to us outsiders. Additionally, it could prove to be productive as well.
It could be used to reduce the use of papers that tend to clutter up the day-to-day process. If I should take an overview of the entire apparatus. NFTs could be used almost everywhere within the governmental system from identification, contracts, and overall governance.
Similar to what was discussed above, identification could be used to create a national identification system or national contractual system.
When most contracts are stored on the blockchain, this could help reduce corruption within governments. Especially times when contractual information is sometimes changed and footsteps are neatly covered.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the perceived opportunities, challenges are needed to be overcome. At the moment the market is still quite new and lots of issues are not yet ironed out.
Those who can manage the complexities within the different markets and tie up the loose ends are the ones who will be economically rewarded.
Below is a list of challenges I think will need to be overcome before NFTs hit mainstream.
Lack of Current Talent
Similar to what is happening now in the blockchain market. We don’t yet have a lot of talented developers who are ready to develop industry-ready applications.
Most of the processes and standards of operations are not yet organized.
To overcome this, the government will have to invest in the social capital of the people. This will help them to develop homegrown individuals who can build these applications.
Regulation
At the moment regulation is one of the major bottlenecks to blockchain adoption. Governments are just not moving fast enough to use the technology.
It’s either they are moving too slow or they are thinking about where to move forward. It will probably take decades for certain ideas to be materialized.
Especially the governmental applications, but progress is better than no progress at all.
Adoption
For NFT to truly take off, it will mainly be in the citizen’s hands. At the moment one of the reasons governments are finally taking initiative isn’t because they are so smart and futuristic.
It’s because they are feeling pressured by the citizens who use perceived “alien” technology to do financial transactions that are not a part of their law. Now they are rushing to see how they can use this technology within their country and drive economic growth.
This will be the same for NFTs as well. Once the public starts to use technologies created by international companies, governments will have to rush to create their local prototype.
In Conclusion
NFTs will prove to be a useful technology. It’s only a matter of time before the name starts to buzz around in the local media. Similar to how bitcoin is making the rounds now.
It will be pretty interesting to see how it matures over time and the use cases it will have within the confines of our society.
Cristiano Ronaldo hailed the magical Old Trafford support that greeted him after he scored twice on his Manchester United return in the club’s 4-1 win over Newcastle in the English Premier League on Saturday.
The 36-year-old was playing his first match in United colours for more than 12 years when he struck either side of half-time to send the Red Devils to the top of the premier league for a few hours at least on Saturday.
There was a tap-in from Ronaldo in the first half and a low strike after the break to restore the lead after Javier Manquillo equalized. Ronaldo’s compatriot, Bruno Fernandes, scored the third and Jesse Lingard completed United’s third win in four league games in stoppage time.
The masses of United fans arriving at Old Trafford in their new jerseys with Ronaldo on the back got what they hoped for when the lineup was revealed an hour before kickoff.
It’s been an eventful last few weeks for the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. After completing his sensational return to Old Trafford following three seasons at Juventus, Ronaldo became the all-time men’s international goal record holderduring the international break with his 111th goal for Portugal.
An unknown buyer purchased 101 NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) on Sotheby costing 24.4 million. These NFTs are all based around “bored apes” from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. Each ape is deemed to be unique with different characteristics: bored apes in glasses, bored apes with dogs, etc.
The collection of NFTs was created by Yuga Labs and it consists of 10,000 unique NFTs.
To put these numbers into perspective, it means that each of these apes was sold for approximately $241,500 each. That’s a lot of money if you consider the fact that the layman might see it as just a digital image.
It shows you where we are right now, the overall idea of what we value is being changed.
Although the overall cost of the NFTs might seem like a large sum of money. It’s still not the most expensive NFTs sold to date. That belongs to Beeple who sold an NFT for $69.3 million in march. That price was definitely a reflection of that particular point in time.
Back then, NFTs initially started to gain traction in the public and everyone wanted a piece of the market. This was fundamental to the inflated prices being tossed around in the market.
Even though the market seems like it has died down after that period, we have seen an uptick in sales during august which signals that we might be in for another bull run. Let’s see how the market performs during the remainder of the year.
Barcelona is in more than £1bn in the red, has let Lionel Messi leave on a free transfer, made a £68m loss on Antoine Griezmann in two years, and has a squad depleted by their mismanagement and financial problems. Will things get worse before they get better at Nou Camp?
Barcelona has offloaded players left, right, and center – including Lionel Messi – and is still shackled by more than £1bn of debt.
Where do they go from here? Some eight senior players have left the Nou Camp amid a fire sale to bring the club’s wage bill towards something vaguely approaching La Liga’s new rules on financial prudence.
None of those departures will be felt anywhere near as much as Messi, who even himself did not expect to move on until the morning it was announced.
In 2018, Barcelona became the first club in professional sport to post annual revenues in excess of $1bn (£723m).
Three years on and forced to sell for what they can get, Barca has made an €80m (£68.6m) loss on Griezmann in just two years. The pandemic has obviously played its part, but if any club were not ready for a rainy day, they were at the top of the list.
Things may still get worse before they get better. Last month Laporta announced Barcelona’s debts amounted to €1.35bn (£1.16bn), partly accrued from years of lavish spending under Bartomeu, partly due to the pandemic, and partly down to the cost of keeping Lionel Messi at the Nou Camp throughout most of his career.
While Fortnite may have just moved into Chapter 2 Season 7, there is no reason why we can’t look towards Season 8 already.
When does Fortnite Season 8 start is the question on everyone’s lips right now as current proceedings begin drawing to a conclusion, as well as wondering what new items and overall theme will run through the Season 8 Battle Pass.
The recently leaked Fortnite dubbed Operation: Sky Fire looks like it will mark the culmination of these efforts, as Epic has previously confirmed that the invasion will finish when the current season ends.
Epic Games have named the event, Operation: Sky Fire and will get underway on 12th September 2021 at 9 pm BST. It will center around Slone and his plans to end the alien occupation once and for all, with players being encouraged to be online 30 minutes before it begins due to difficulties joining previous events.
After the alien-infested season comes to an end, what changes shall we find in Fortnite Season 8? Although there’s no information on the upcoming theme or any specific features yet, we can name at least one thing we don’t expect to change in Season 8: the Battle Stars.
This is everything we know so far, from the Fortnite Season 8 release date to the Season 8 Battle Pass cost. Keep in mind that more updates will follow, and everything is still subject to change.
The Mothership's sights are set on the IO's base. Slone has a plan to end the Invasion for good. Are you ready?
Prepare for the live event, Operation: Sky Fire on Sep 12 at 4 PM ET.
Epic added on their official website that you are to join a strike team to help deliver a final message to the aliens on board the Mothership itself.
Latest News
UPDATE September 8th: Epic Games are putting preparations in place to ensure that Season 7 goes out with a bang.
August 20th: In recent weeks, waves of rumors have circulated around social media regarding the possible inclusion of an anime hero in Chapter 2 Season 8.
August 10th: Epic Games are expected to move away from the intergalactic edge to something more spooky for Halloween.
August 8th: Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins talks about the current state of Fortnite in 2021.
August 4th: Epic has announced that two new Street Fighter skins will be coming to the game.
August 2nd: With Season 8 on the horizon, players are embracing Ariana Grande coming to Fortnite after online leaks emerged last week.
July 29th: Players have already started speculating what Season 8’s map will look like.
July 27th: Fortnite has revealed that the Plasma Cannon weapon will be making a return to the battle royale franchise.
As the crypto market starts to evolve and countries are starting to use it as legal tender, most countries are still figuring out what to make of it. On one hand, they cannot avoid it as a large distribution of wealth is now taking place.
On the other hand, they can’t yet find a reliable way to pluck it and play with it enough to tame it. It will be an interesting decade ahead of us.
Economic giants such as China have been aggressive in sweeping bitcoin from out of the country. A move that is puzzling both armchair and institutional analysts. Will America follow suit? That question is yet to be answered. One thing is for sure is that it will not be an easy battle.
The waters started to get muddled, as SEC chair Gary Gensler wants to regulate the $2 trillion crypto market.
An Uphill Battle
An ambitious move but not exactly surprising. It was going to come sooner or later given the upcoming disruption ahead of the financial market. It just happens that someone of his caliber is making it known that we should think more about regulating the crypto market.
Although this move might seem ambitious, he faces many uphill battles. All of them are going to be as exhausting and meticulous.
One that pokes its hairy head out is decades of securities law, especially the Securities Act of 1933 that dictates what he can do as SEC chair. He might find wiggle room to make some changes.
In order to materialize the entire vision, he might have to burn down the entire house of cards. Next, rebuild with new financial laws that map to our current society.
In recent times, Ripple came under heavy scrutiny from the SEC. They brought a case against Ripple Labs for distributing its digital currency that they claimed were illegal unregistered securities. The battle still remains in court. At this moment anyone with the skill to do it can create their own cryptocurrency. How will SEC or any country be able to regulate that?
If they charge persons who are performing crypto transactions, the populace could easily push it back underground. Initially, that’s where it was used and popularized with transactions of all sorts.
Decentralized Regulation
At the moment there are many cases for crypto regulation such as the inherent pump-and-dump schemes and whales that control large amounts of crypto assets. They can basically dictate the market to a certain degree given their large amount of holdings.
This year there’s been a growing trend, where the value of certain cryptocurrencies is directly correlated to a celebrity or a large business that accepts them.
The perfect example of this was Elon Musk, earlier in the year bitcoin (BTC) plunged on news that his car company Tesla Motors stopped accepting bitcoins. Additionally, during that time, the market was also sensitive to his tweets.
It was as if he couldn’t have said anything without some sort of reaction from the market. He was in the market at that point.
We could find cases where regulations can be fleshed out. But it shouldn’t be made within a vacuum which would normally have a handful of academics and industry leaders getting together in a centralized fashion and dictating the policies to their liking.
It should be decentralized to those who are involved in the crypto space. Initially, the main idea behind crypto is decentralization, thus it would be polite to follow that current model.
America’s current SEC chair will face a battle that will take a lot of stakeholders and time to get it right.
