San Francisco 49ers the next NFL franchise to buy into Premier League?

Co-chairman and former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, John York, has been speaking to the British media about the 49ers upcoming game at Wembley Stadium.

San Francisco will play the Jacksonville Jaguars on October 27 in London and York?s primary reason for visiting the UK was to talk about the upcoming game.

He suggested there?s strong potential for an NFL franchise based in London in the future, and a few interesting soccer tidbits came from Mr. York?s interview too.

First of all, he was asked about the recent influx of American owners in the Premier League and if San Francisco would ever consider buying a PL team.

?I don?t know that we would not,? York said. And the former owner, whose son Jed is now the 49ers Team President and Owner, said no deals have been initiated. ?We have not done so thus far, but it could be an interesting opportunity.?

(MORE: A quick look back at why Fulham FC have long been known as ?Fulhamerica?)

So, in true PR style, York somewhat dodged the question. But he did go on to explain that owning a Premier League franchise is an extremely viable opportunity and didn?t rule it out.

?I think it depends on the individuals and the opportunities that exist. I?m sure that there will be other people [NFL owners] interested in the Premier League franchises if they are ever available,? York said. ?There are tremendous opportunities, it is a great sport and has a broader attention than American Football does outside of the United States.?

However any potential 49ers owned Premier League side will have to go on the back burner right now, as the co-chairman insisted that all of San Francisco?s focus is on opening their new $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara.

And he also had some words on new Fulham owner Shahid Khan too. ?He?s an interesting person,? York said. ?He?s got a lot of enthusiasm, he?s been a hardworking man throughout his life and has made a small fortune in his own business. He loves sport and he is new to the NFL as well as being new to football in the UK. ?

(MORE: Shahid Khan is American, bought Fulham, probably not the end of English soccer)

As York was non-committal on San Francisco buying a Premier League franchise, his positive words on the league and the pluses behind owning a PL team were numerous and it seems as though the NFL owners and American businessmen are increasingly looking to England?s top tier for investment opportunities. Six American owners and counting.

Whether that?s a good or bad thing remains to be seen. But as the money continues to pour in from all over the globe, expected plenty more NFL owners to be answering more questions like this in the future.

Source: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/31/san-francisco-49ers-the-next-nfl-franchise-to-buy-into-premier-league/

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Manning's disclosures imperiled U.S. troops, ex-general says

FT. MEADE, Md. ? A former top Army officer who oversaw the Pentagon's secret intelligence gathering testified Wednesday that Pfc. Bradley Manning's disclosures to WikiLeaks "affected our ability to do our mission" and endangered U.S. ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Robert A. Carr, formerly at the Defense Intelligence Agency and now an executive at Northrop Grumman, was the government's first witness in the sentencing phase of Manning's court-martial. Military prosecutors hope to win a maximum prison term of 136 years for the 25-year-old soldier.

Manning was convicted Tuesday of violating the Espionage Act but acquitted of the more serious charge: aiding the enemy by making the material available to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Carr said the U.S. military was stunned to discover that so much material had been given to the anti-secrecy website. The disclosures comprised more than 700,000 documents, including combat strategies, State Department cables and terrorism detainee assessments.

"There was nothing about [the] WikiLeaks [situation] that was normal," said Carr, who spent much of his 31-year military career directing Army intelligence-gathering operations.

Releasing so much classified material, he said, put countless people at risk. "It's a nasty world," Carr said. "In some cases, lives will be harmed." But Carr did not specify anyone who was harmed by Manning's disclosures.

Carr said sources of information dried up and "quit talking to us as a result of the releases."

He said some countries began registering complaints after reading the detainee assessments for terrorism suspects held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the time, Carr said, "we were trying to move people out of Gitmo," and the compromised records stalled negotiations with foreign countries.

In addition, he said, U.S. supply lines were compromised because details of military logistics were divulged and secret surveys of local communities in Afghanistan were jeopardized.

Carr left the Army in 2011 after running the Pentagon's equivalent of the CIA. He previously oversaw intelligence-gathering efforts during the Persian Gulf War and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When the Pentagon learned in 2010 of the magnitude of the disclosures, Carr said, the secretary of Defense formed an Intelligence Review Task Force with Carr as its head to assess soldier safety, national security and foreign alliances. Often Carr reported directly to the Defense secretary, updating him each day on how badly the breach was affecting the war effort.

"These were our documents that we had in our possession securely for a long period of time, and now all of a sudden this massive amount of material is available to the public and our adversaries," Carr said.

"One thing that hit us in the face," he said, was 400,000 pages of Iraq logs that detailed the U.S. force structure there. Other material gave specifics about U.S. battlefield injuries, down to "how they lost a limb or how they might have died."

From detainee assessments on Guantanamo Bay, Carr said, Al Qaeda learned for the first time how individual detainees were captured, interrogated and imprisoned.

"These are pretty dangerous people who have a number of dangerous allies and friends they are working with who are sworn to do us harm," the retired general said. "Up until the release of this material, the adversary had no idea how much data we had on them."

Another government witness, John Kirchhofer, deputy chief financial officer at the DIA who worked under Carr at the task force, described meeting with angry NATO partners in Europe the week that WikiLeaks posted classified material about the war in Iraq.

"There were some unpleasant comments directed at me and some accusations directed at the U.S.," he said. "They were aggressive. People got chesty."

richard.serrano@latimes.com

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-manning-trial-20130801,0,3249325.story?track=rss

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