MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Pep Guardiola has told elite soccer players they are the only ones who can force change in a growing dispute over the number of games they are being asked to play.
Manchester City midfielder Rodri says players are close to going on strike because of an increasingly congested schedule that will be added to next year by an expanded Club World Cup in the United States.
City manager Guardiola said on Friday the game's stars might have to "take a voice and do something” if they want to make a stand.
“If something is going to change, always (it) must come from the players," Guardiola said. "That business (soccer) can be without managers, can be without sporting directors, can be without media, can be without owners, but without the players (it) cannot be played.
“So the only (ones) that have the power to do it is them.”
Players’ unions have legally challenged FIFA over the expansion of the Club World Cup, which will be a 32-team event for the first time next year, up from seven. It is slated for the offseason for many major leagues in June-July.
World players union FIFPRO has raised concerns about the increasing physical and mental demands on players, but the competition has been welcomed by the European Club Association, which represents the continent's top clubs, including City.
Unions in England and France filed a claim against FIFA at the Brussels Court of Commerce in June and challenged FIFA’s “decisions to unilaterally set the international match calendar.”
The Champions League has also been expanded this season with two more games in the new-look group stage.
Spain international Rodri played in 10 different competitions in 2022-23 when the campaign was further congested by a midseason World Cup. He followed that last season by playing 64 times for club and country, including a run to the final of the European Championship, which Spain won.
This season will end with the Club World Cup, which could include seven more games if City reaches the final.
Rodri, who has been nominated for the Ballon d'Or, said strike action may have to happen.
“If it keeps this way, it will be a moment when we have no other option, I really think," he said. "It’s something that worries us because we are the guys who suffer.”
Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany believes a cap should be placed on the number of appearances a player can make in a season, putting an onus on coaches to limit the demands on their top stars.
“It’s not just the load for the players but the travels. Some of these guys, they go from playing in the Champions League to playing a national team game in Korea or something and then back," Kompany said. “If you do that for 70, 75, 80 games, there’s a point where it’s not realistic any more, so to this point I can only support the feeling of the players.”
Staging the Club World Cup in 2025 means top players face three straight years of major competitions during the usual offseason, given the Euros and Copa America were held this year and the next World Cup is in 2026.
Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso said players need to be consulted about the demands being made of them.
“The calendar is very intense,” Alonso said. “They need to be heard, they need to participate in these decisions because we want good football. ... Rodri, he is totally right to have this opinion.”
James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Manchester City's Rodri attends a press conference at the City Football Academy in Manchester, England, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola reacts during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brentford at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppel)
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola attends a press conference at the City Football Academy in Manchester, England, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola looks prior to the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brentford at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppel)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will not speak or appear at former President Donald Trump 's rally on Saturday in the eastern part of his state following a CNN report about his alleged posts on a pornography website's message board, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.
Robinson is not expected to attend the event in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Robinson has been a frequent presence at Trump's North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids" and long praised him. But in the wake of Thursday's CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn't mention Robinson and instead spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign's efforts.
With the deadline now passed for him to withdraw, Robinson remained the Republican candidate for governor on Friday. His decision to keep campaigning could threaten GOP prospects in other key races, including Trump's efforts in a battleground state he twice won.
Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn't be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.” While Robinson won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, he's been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state's attorney general.
“Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he told supporters in a video released by his campaign. “You know my words. You know my character.”
State law says a gubernatorial nominee had until Thursday night to withdraw as a candidate, the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. The State Board of Elections is unaware of any such withdrawal notice, spokesperson Pat Gannon said. State Republican leaders could have picked a replacement had a withdrawal occurred.
“We are staying in this race," Robinson said in the video. "We are in it to win it."
Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could help Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris win the state’s 16 electoral votes.
“The fallout is going to be huge,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said Friday.
Losing swing district races for a congressional seat and the General Assembly would endanger the GOP's control of the U.S. House and retaining veto-proof majorities at the legislature.
CNN, which describes a series of comments that it said Robinson posted on the message board more than a decade ago, sent tremors through the state’s political class. While the state Republican Party came to Robinson’s defense, individual GOP leaders raised concerns and suggested Robinson needed to address the allegations more fully.
CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.” CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
The state GOP said in a statement late Thursday that while Robinson has “categorically denied the allegations" it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”
But U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who endorsed a Robinson rival in the primary — citing Robinson's lack of legislative and business experience — said on X that Thursday “was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win."
“If Harris takes NC, she takes the White House," he added. "We can't let that happen.”
Democrats jumped on Robinson and other Republicans after the report aired, using every opportunity to show on social media photos of Robinson with Trump or with other GOP candidates attempting to tarnish them by association.
Stein and his allies have highlighted past comments by Robinson, such as a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” And there's a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.
Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a top surrogate for Harris, said late Thursday on X that Trump and state GOP leaders “embraced Mark Robinson for years knowing who he was and what he stood for ... They reap what they sow.”
Price reported from New York.
Robinson will not appear at Trump's North Carolina rally after report on alleged online comments
Robinson will not appear at Trump's North Carolina rally after report on alleged online comments
FILE - North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Asheville, N.C., Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
