BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said he spoke with Donald Trump late Sunday, inviting him to visit the Balkan country while pointing out that in Serbia the U.S. president-elect had the highest level of support of all European states during the election campaign.
The populist Serbian leader said the phone call was “very cordial” and added that Trump “knew many things about Serbia.” He expressed hope the ties between Serbia and the United States will “further improve in all areas” during the next Trump administration.
Vucic said on Instagram he "expressed hope that he (Trump) would visit Serbia, because Serbia is a country where support for the election of President Trump was the largest in all of Europe.”
Vucic and other Serbian leaders had openly supported Trump during the campaign, hoping his Balkan policies would shift from the previous U.S. administration’s efforts to keep in check the expansionist goals of Serbian nationalists against neighboring states.
Although formally seeking European Union membership, Serbia has refused to introduce international sanctions against its traditional Slavic ally Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Serbia has avoided major criticism in the West by reportedly supplying Ukraine with weapons that are exported through third countries.
Vucic said Trump thanked him for the support he received from the Serbian people and expressed his belief that he will be able to discuss further improvement of relations between the two countries in all fields with Trump in the coming period.
Serbia had maintained close relation with Trump’s associates even during Joe Biden’s administration.
Earlier this year, the Serbian government approved a multi-million-dollar contract with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on plans to build a luxury hotel on the site of the former defense ministry in Belgrade. The downtown building was bombed during a NATO-led military intervention to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999.
The project, which has caused a lot of controversy in Serbia, was reportedly proposed to Kushner by a former Trump aide and Balkan envoy, Richard Grenell, who is said to be destined for high office in the new Trump administration.
Vucic decorated Grenell with a high medal of honor in 2023 for “distinguished merit in developing and strengthening peaceful cooperation and friendly relations between Serbia and the U.S..”
FILE - President Donald Trump listens to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speak during a signing ceremony with Kosovar Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — An arbitrator upheld five-year suspensions of the chief executives of Bad Bunny’s sports representation firm for making improper inducements to players and cut the ban of the company's only certified baseball agent to three years.
Ruth M. Moscovitch issued the ruling Oct. 30 in a case involving Noah Assad, Jonathan Miranda and William Arroyo of Rimas Sports. The decision became become public Tuesday when the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a petition to confirm the 80-page decision in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The union issued a notice of discipline on April 10 revoking Arroyo's agent certification and denying certification to Assad and Miranda, citing a $200,000 interest-free loan and a $19,500 gift. It barred them from reapplying for five years and prohibited certified agents from associating with any of the three or their affiliated companies. Assad, Miranda and Arroyo then appealed the decision, and Moscovitch was jointly appointed as the arbitrator on June 17.
Moscovitch said the union presented unchallenged evidence of “use of non-certified personnel to talk with and recruit players; use of uncertified staff to negotiate terms of players’ employment; giving things of value — concert tickets, gifts, money — to non-client players; providing loans, money, or other things of value to non-clients as inducements; providing or facilitating loans without seeking prior approval or reporting the loans.”
“I find MLBPA has met its burden to prove the alleged violations of regulations with substantial evidence on the record as a whole,” she wrote. “There can be no doubt that these are serious violations, both in the number of violations and the range of misconduct. As MLBPA executive director Anthony Clark testified, he has never seen so many violations of so many different regulations over a significant period of time.”
María de Lourdes Martínez, a spokeswoman for Rimas Sports, said she was checking to see whether the company had any comment on the decision. Arroyo did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.
Moscovitch held four in-person hearings from Sept. 30 to Oct. 7 and three on video from Oct. 10-16.
“While these kinds of gifts are standard in the entertainment business, under the MLBPA regulations, agents and agencies simply are not permitted to give them to non-clients,” she said.
Arroyo's clients included Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez and teammate Ronny Mauricio.
“While it is true, as MLBPA alleges, that Mr. Arroyo violated the rules by not supervising uncertified personnel as they recruited players, he was put in that position by his employers,” Moscovitch wrote. “The regulations hold him vicariously liable for the actions of uncertified personnel at the agency. The reality is that he was put in an impossible position: the regulations impose on him supervisory authority over all of the uncertified operatives at Rimas, but in reality, he was their underling, with no authority over anyone.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
FILE - Bad Bunny appears in the press room at the Oscars in Los Angeles on March 10, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
