07-14-2017, 03:18 AM
ZURICH, Switzerland -- Latvian hockey player Vitalijs Pavlovs has been banned for 18 months after testing positive for a banned stimulant at the Sochi Olympics. The International Ice Hockey Federation says Pavlovs avoided a two-year sanction because he acted "without significant negligence in failing to verify the safety of the supplements he was taking." The 24-year-old forward with KHL team Dinamo Riga is suspended through Oct. 30, 2015. The IIHF says another Latvian player, Ralf Freibergs, is provisionally suspended and excluded from next months world championships in Belarus while his doping case is heard. The 22-year-old Freibergs tested positive for a steroid in Sochi. Both players were caught after Latvias 2-1 loss to Canada in the quarterfinals on Feb. 19. Both were disqualified by the International Olympic Committee. 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The Brazilian heads into Saturday afternoons race coming off a close runner-up finish to Ryan Hunter-Reay in the Indianapolis 500.Fletcher Moss Rangers have produced a host of Manchester United stars. So shouldnt they get help? Adam Bate talks to the clubs development officer Dave Horrocks to discuss the struggles of a grass-roots success story and an alternative vision for the future... Dave Horrocks cried tears of pride when Marcus Rashford burst onto the scene for Manchester United. The development officer at Fletcher Moss Rangers, Rashfords boyhood club, was understandably proud, but he wasnt shocked. And thats not just because of the forwards extraordinary talent. Its because Horrocks has seen it before.This one club in Didsbury has also been a home away from home for Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Tyler Blackett. Before them there was Danny Welbeck and Wes Brown. And thats just those at Manchester United. In total, Horrocks reckons there are 73 youngsters whove been taken on by professional clubs at home and abroad. Marcus Rashford has made a big impact for Manchester United this season I dont want to sound blasé, he tells Sky Sports, but, no, Im not surprised. Im not surprised because of the talent thats out there in the big wide world. There are a lot of kids out there and because of the organisations theyre with, theyre not being put in the shop window correctly.Thats precisely what Fletcher Moss Rangers do. On the back of our signing-on forms for the parents, we have a one liner that says development is winning, he adds. We are not interested in the scores or winning games. Development is the win. While Horrocks feels the club is about far more than its stars, their recent successes speak volumes.Professional scouts have become a familiar sight at the club. Rochdale even wanted to take their entire Under-13 team after one friendly game. We played them off the park, says Horrocks. In the end there was a compromise. At the end of the season, they took six of the players - and the coach. Rashford (second from left) aged 6 with Fletcher Moss Rangers Theres a determination not to jump into bed with any one organisation for the honourable reason that all kids can be assessed fairly by everyone, but the pressures are still there. Five years ago, one Premier League club threatened to flood all of the games with scouts and take the lot anyway unless they agreed to affiliate with them. They will bully us until the FA realises that these kids come from somewhere before they get to the academies, says Horrocks. Its a recurring frustration. Heres a grass-roots coach doing a much-needed role in development but hes hardly acknowledged as being part of the process by those in power.Theres the memory of Trevor Brooking glazing over when discussing their conflicting definitions of grass roots. People who are in influential positions such as Trevor Brooking have forgotten where they came from when they were first kicking a football, he says. It worries me. I realise how English football has got itself into the state it has got itself into. Cameron Borthwick-Jackson has emerged in the United first team this season Its a disconnect thats a particularly sensitive issue right now for Fletcher Moss Rangers as they try to find the investment that will help the club to continue. After all, its not a cheap business running 20 teams and the facilities are far from ideal. At the moment our facility serves a purpose but its not fit for purpose, explains Horrocks.Its a communal changing room and from there, theres the ladies showers, the gents showers, the ladies toilets and the gents toilets. We have an adult disabled team thats men and women so that particular group of players cant get changed at the same and we cant have any children or ladies walking through to go to the toilet. Its a matter of decency.Plans are afoot but the quest for investment hasnt been easy. Its been a frightening time, he admits. When the figures came out it put the fear of God into me. I was almost in tears because I was thinking that theres no way we can do this. I felt I was banging my head against the wall because I was thinking, Where are we going to find this money? Tyler Blackett made his Premier League debut for Manchester United in 2014 Its particularly sad when Fletcher Moss is so obviously at the heart of its community. The aim is to galvanise a group of stakeholders that includes local residents and schools in order to construct some facilities that will serve a wide range of people. For Horrocks, the importance of that can hardly be overstated.Although we are in a ward that is termed an affluent area in Didsbury, so we cant get any council funding, the kids who come to us and use the facility are not from this area, he says.dddddddddddd They come from all the deprived areas of Manchester. Blackley, Chorlton, Whalley Range, Fallowfield, Moss Side, Withington, you name it and weve got them.These are often single-parent families with two or three kids who dont have two pennies to rub together. They come to us without any football boots and we have a recycling system whereby we give the kids the boots and when they grow out of them they give them us back. We are very conscious of maintaining that community identity. Danny Welbeck was an earlier example of the Fletcher Moss conveyor belt The kids pay £2 a week to train and £2 to play. But if you go up the road its different. We played a team last month and in the car park you had a Rolls Royce and a baby Bentley. At that club, those kids are paying £150 a month. And yet, I dont know of one player who has come from those clubs and gone on to be signed by a club.There are those who argue that Fletcher Moss is just a stopping point for these youngsters on their way to the big time; that their talent would emerge regardless. But engaging these children is half of the battle and the club is clearly doing something right - something that others are not.The kids who come to us have a bit more about them and are a bit hungrier to want to win, he adds. When theres a bit of talent, those things shine through. So what price can be put on the role played by the club that harnesses that talent before allowing it to flourish? Horrocks thinks its a question worth asking. RoShaun Williams could be the next former Fletcher Moss boy to star for United We are trying to open up a national debate, he says. Ive had emails from quite a lot of clubs around the country. We went up to Wallsend to meet the officials there because there are quite a lot of similarities. We know were not the only club because we know that all the players came from somewhere, so there are others in the same debate.What should be forthcoming to clubs for players going into one of the richest businesses in the world in the Premier League? One newspaper recently reported that Fletcher Moss were asking Manchester United for £2m in investment but thats a figure Horrocks rejects. What he would propose is something altogether more modest but far more widespread. Rise of Rashford How good is Marcus Rashford? We speak to former coaches to find out the full story. We are interested to know whether we could alter the FIFA solidarity rule, he says. When a player moves from one football association to another, the club that he started with is entitled to compensation. It happened with Fraser Forster. When he went from Newcastle to Celtic, Wallsend were entitled to five per cent of the fee as he was over 12 years old.This is a regulation thats been in place since academies were only taking players in at 12. Now they are taking kids as early as nine years old. We are trying to open the debate so that the rule doesnt only include transfers from outside football associations but within them. Could we get the FA and FIFA to change those regulations? We are not talking about millions of pounds but when I look and see that there are 73 players around the world that have been in our system, we wouldnt need to be asking people to sponsor our trophies. Dave Horrocks, Fletcher Moss Rangers If you were to say that a player who goes from Fletcher Moss Rangers or any other grass-roots club to an academy as a nine-year-old, in that first year, if the grass-roots club is paid £500 for arguments sake but then paid £500 for the second year and consecutive years, If he moved to another league club academy or school of excellence then they could take on that expense. It could go up to £1000 when he became a scholar and so on.By doing that, every year that he is in the system there would be a recompense. We are not talking about millions of pounds but when I look and see that there are 73 players around the world that have been in our system, we wouldnt need to be asking people to sponsor our trophies. The money would be there.The current system isnt broke. Rashfords emergence proves that. But perhaps it is flawed, particularly when a club like Fletcher Moss Rangers isnt obviously sustainable. Ive been with the club for a long time, concludes Horrocks. And I feel like someone somewhere is missing a trick. Given their development successes, its difficult to disagree. Also See: Rise of Rashford Stats LVG wont want to see Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys Jerseys From China Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys ' ' '