In July 2023, American defender Reggie Cannon, who earned 28 caps with the US men’s national team between 2018 and 2022, gave an interview to ProSoccerTalk about his troubles with the Portuguese Primeira Liga club Boavista and his decision to leave after three seasons—two years before his contract was set to expire. One of his major grievances was that he was only paid on time once in three years, leading to issues with Portuguese immigration and tax authorities. This turmoil affected his performance, and Cannon believed he had “unilateral just cause to terminate my contract.” The ProSoccerTalk story did not mention that Boavista had refused to pay transfer fees to Cannon’s previous club, MLS side FC Dallas. By September 2023, Cannon had joined Queen’s Park Rangers (QPR) in the English second tier, with the explanation that he was allowed to sign outside of the transfer window because he was a free agent. However, these reports did not mention his treatment by Boavista.
It is worth noting that Cannon—who is Black and whose 87-year-old grandfather, Warren M. Washington, is a prominent climate change scientist—has a history of standing up for himself. In August 2020, during a game against Nashville SC, Cannon and his FC Dallas teammates knelt during the national anthem (which is played even before club games in the US) to protest police brutality against Black Americans. His own fans responded by booing and throwing hard objects from the stands. When Cannon criticized their actions, he received death threats and racist comments. He later revealed to The Guardian that FC Dallas had dictated an apology they wanted him to post on social media, but he refused. This experience was one of the motivations behind his decision to accept Boavista’s offer.
However, Cannon's troubles with Boavista didn’t end there. The club vowed to take him to court, and this week, on August 8th, I saw, via Reddit and a Portuguese football site, ZeroZero, that FIFA had ruled on the dispute between Cannon and Boavista. According to the ruling, Cannon “would have to pay a fine of €1,287,000 to the Bessa club for terminating his contract without just cause, with the addition of 5 percent interest,” and QPR would be responsible for paying the respective compensation. As part of the settlement, Boavista must pay Cannon €45,000 in back wages plus another €33,000. ZeroZero noted that QPR has appealed the decision. After scouring FIFA’s website, I could not find the statement, and neither Cannon nor QPR has posted anything on social media. I have also not seen any statements from FIFPRO, the players’ union, which raises concerns about the power imbalance between clubs and players, the issue of player abuse (Boavista has been under a FIFA transfer ban for the last three years for failing to pay transfer fees to clubs in at least 30 cases), and what it means for players standing up against errant clubs.
Notably, in July 2024, Boavista was taken over by a new ownership group. The new club president is Fary Faye, a former Senegalese international and club legend who was the sporting director since 2015. It remains unclear what role he played in the transfer ban, but in his new role, Faye has publicly acknowledged that the club is “financially destroyed and severely damaged in its credibility abroad.” Faye may be one of the only Black club presidents in Europe’s top ten leagues; the Primeira Liga is usually ranked sixth or seventh among Europe’s top leagues.
One final footnote on the Primeira Liga and its terrible treatment of players: Remember in 2018 when Rafael Leão unilaterally terminated his contract with Sporting CP? That after a 50-strong mob claiming to be supporters stormed the club’s training facility and attacked players and staff. Leão, who had come up through the Sporting youth system, felt unsafe and that the club had left the players exposed to violence and signed for Lille on a free transfer. He spent a few months there before joining AC Milan. Sporting took him to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). In 2020, the CAS ruled against Leão and ordered him to pay Sporting €16.5 million for breach of contract.
• You may have seen some of the incredible videos circulating on social media of Mouloudia Club d'Alger (MC Alger) celebrating its 103rd anniversary. MC Alger holds a unique place in history as the first Muslim football club established in colonized Algeria. Founded in Algiers, MC Alger quickly became a symbol of Algerian independence, particularly through its choice of club colors: green, representing Islam, and red, symbolizing love for the nation. The earliest football clubs in Algeria were formed by French settlers, known as "pieds-noirs," at the end of the 19th century. MC Alger also made history as the first Algerian club to win a continental competition, securing the 1976 African Cup of Club Champions (now the CAF Champions League) by defeating Hafia Conakry from Guinea in the final.
• Remember when, over a year ago, the Spanish police accused FC Barcelona of corruption for paying €7.5 million to José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) in Spain? All along, Barcelona's president, Joan Laporta, claimed that these payments were for refereeing reports Negreira prepared for Barcelona, which he said was "common for teams at the time." However, the Civil Guard, the police unit investigating the payments, has now revealed that “no such reports ever existed.” Additionally, they discovered €3 million in the accounts of Negreira’s wife, which the couple cannot explain. According to Football España, this story has not been covered in recent weeks. Instead, the Spanish sports press headlines have all been about transfers.
• Dear lord. ESPN has a story about how Ángel Di María wanted to end his career at his hometown club, Rosario Central, but he changed his plans due to threats against his family related to drug wars in that part of Argentina. Among the tactics used to intimidate him and his family was the delivery of a pig's head with a bullet in its forehead. Additionally, his sister and her family received a package containing a written death threat against his daughter. Per ESPN: “Rosario and the surrounding area are experiencing increased violence tied to narcotrafficking, which has given way to intimidation tactics against regional and national figures.” De Maria retired from the Argentina men’s national team after they won the 2024 Copa América. He made the threats public after Rosario fans claimed he abandoned the move for spurious reasons.
• Staying with the Copa America: CONMEBOL officials, the body that organizes football in South America, reacted to the complaint at the tournament that Bolivia did not have access to training facilities: “It’s fine; it’s Bolivia.” The tournament, seen as a dress rehearsal for the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico, was beset by controversy and mostly considered a disaster.
• In the weeks following Labour's landslide electoral victory in the UK, I recalled an August 2023 article in The New Statesman that explored British politicians' tendency to capitalize on football's popularity. The new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, claims to be an Arsenal fan. Clive Martin, a regular sports writer for The New Statesman, concluded: “In recent British political history, leaders from all parties have tried to channel that earthy relatability that football provides—attending games, pouring pints at grassroots clubhouses, and tweeting… Yet often, when politicians talk about football, it fails to convince.” Martin then reviewed a video that Starmer made to celebrate his Arsenal fandom. He concludes that in the video, Starmer talks about football “… with all the ineptitude of a US president being asked a throwaway question about the ’‘soccer World Cup.” Martin concludes the video is “cliche-filled ” and Starmer comes across as “evasive, circumspect and [his presentation] probably run through an expensive focus group” Ouch.
• As a fan of football art, I am curious about this exhibition on football shirts, running until September 28th, at the Oof Gallery, which is located inside Tottenham Hotspurs’ stadium in north London. In his review of the show in The Times, Waldemar Januszczak notes that the earliest shirt in the exhibition is from 1923:”“Designed by the Russian constructivist Varvara Stepanova, the black, white and yellow footballing onesie — shirt and shorts combined in a single garment — was a Bolshevik sports outfit with ambitions to change the world.”
The image is from the series "Mogo té sé, Allah dé bé sé" by Émile-Samory Fofana.