Czech Republic punishes national team for ignoring fans after World Cup qualifier
Prague (AP): The Czech Republic soccer association stripped Tomáš Soucek of his captaincy and denied financial bonuses to national team players as punishment for ignoring their fans after their final World Cup qualifier against Gibraltar.
The Czechs, who had been assured of second place in Group L, won the home game 6-0 in Olomouc on Monday, but the players didn't go thank the diehard fans who were critical of their performance in the qualifying campaign.
The team will be seeded in Thursday's draw for the 16-team playoffs next March for four remaining European spots at next summer's World Cup.
The association Tuesday apologized to fans and said the players won't receive the financial bonuses for the game. Instead, the money will go to charities. Soucek will lose his captaincy for the team's next match.
“The fans have a full right to express their disagreement with the unsatisfactory performance in the recent games,” the association said in a statement.
“The reaction of the players should have been quite the contrary. They should have thanked the active fans.”
In Monday's, supporters repeatedly chanted “Fight for Czechia.”
The Czechs struggled in the qualifying campaign and fired coach Ivan Hašek following a humiliating 2-1 defeat to Faroe Islands last month.
Hašek's assistant Jaroslav Köstl led the team to a 1-0 win over San Marino in a friendly and against Gibraltar.
A new coach could be named for the playoffs.
The Czechs last qualified for the tournament in 2006.
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President Trump wants to impose 15% tariff, up from 10% he announced after Supreme Court decision
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15 per cent, up from 10 per cent he had announced a day earlier.
Trump said in a social media post on that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday,” by the US Supreme Court.
After the court ruled he didn't have the emergency power to impose many sweeping tariffs, Trump signed an executive order on Friday night that enabled him to bypass Congress and impose a 10 per cent tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.
Trump's post significantly ratcheting up a global tax on imports to the US yet again was the latest sign that despite the court's check, the Republican president was intent on continuing to wield in an unpredictable manner his favourite tool to for the economy and to apply global pressure. Trump's shifting announcements over the last year that he was raising and sometimes lowering tariffs with little notice jolted markets and rattled nations.
Saturday's announcement seemed to a be a sign that Trump intends to use the temporary global tariffs to continue to flex.
“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.
Under the order Trump signed Friday night, the 10 per cent tariff was scheduled to take effect starting February 24. The White House did not immediately respond to a message inquiring when the president would sign an updated order.
In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15 per cent, the president said Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law which require an investigation by the Commerce Department.
Trump made an unusually personal attack on the Supreme Court judges who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, including two of those he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump, at a news conference on Friday, said of the two justices: “I think it's an embarrassment to their families."
He was still seething Friday night, posting on social media complaining about Gorsuch, Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled with the majority and wrote the majority opinion. On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent. He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who were in the minority, and said of the three dissenting justices: "There is no doubt in anyone's mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
