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Thibault Camus / THE ASSOCAITED PRESS FILES Former Girondins de Bordeaux defender Paul Baysse (left) has been hired as the club’s assistant coach. Baysse is part of Bordeaux’s rebuild after the team was sold early last month for one euro.

Rock bottom best thing to happen to Les Girondins

Jerrad Peters 4 minute read Friday, Oct. 16, 2026

You know things are dire when hitting rock bottom is a relief. You might be at your lowest point, but you still exist. The ground hasn’t swallowed you up, and while you lay prostrate, humiliated, you eventually understand that the only way is up.

Girondins de Bordeaux is at rock bottom — and lucky to be there. It is still, just barely, a football club. But it exists. And given how close it came to oblivion, existence is good enough for now. Not that it doesn’t hurt.

The dizziness of the drop, and pain of the landing, is felt in relation to the height from which you fell. Bordeaux fell from the top of the mountain.

On May 30, 2009, Les Girondins won its 11th match in a row and was crowned Ligue 1 champions for the sixth time. A month earlier, it had lifted the Coupe de la Ligue — a competition in which it drubbed Paris Saint-Germain at Parc des Princes in the semifinal.

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Opinion

JON SUPER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Manchester City’s Antoine Semenyo (left) and Liverpool’s Florian Wirtz fight for the ball the last time the two sides met back in April. The Sky Blues are certain to get a rough welcome by Reds fans as the two clubs meet at Anfield next Sunday for the first time since Man City’s guilty verdict of breaking more than 100 Premier League financial rules between 2009 and 2018 — a span that saw Manchester take the league title and Carabao Cup over Liverpool.

Premier League would be all too relieved if Blues simply went away for a while

Jerrad Peters 6 minute read Preview

Premier League would be all too relieved if Blues simply went away for a while

Jerrad Peters 6 minute read Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

Manchester City will face Liverpool in the Premier League next weekend.

That is a statement of fact. The match will kick off Sunday, October 11 at 4:30 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m., CT, FuboTV) at Anfield, though the 90 minutes that follow will be more a spectacle than a game, if not a circus.

By now the football world — as well as the general news cycle and relevant authorities — has had more than a week to absorb the shock of the sport’s biggest tremor of recent times.

Man City, according to the findings of an independent commission, broke more than 100 of the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018. Its breaches, per the ruling, were deliberate, premeditated and at industrial scale.

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Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

Opinion

ANDREW MEDICHINI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Defender Leonardo Balerdi (right) has been superb in his just 129 minutes in a Roma shirt, drawing applause from teammates and being compared by his manager to AC Milan legend Franco Baresi.

AS Roma’s perfect start unexpected storyline of Serie A

Jerrad Peters 4 minute read Preview

AS Roma’s perfect start unexpected storyline of Serie A

Jerrad Peters 4 minute read Friday, Sep. 18, 2026

Be honest — who had AS Roma first place in Serie A, and with a 100 per cent record through four rounds, on their calcio bingo card?

Or how about Donyell Malen? Anyone have the Dutchman scoring six goals in three weeks, including a trio of game-winners?

Leonardo Balerdi, maybe? Any chips on the defender, on loan from Marseille, being compared to the late, great Franco Baresi by his Giallorossi manager?

There’s a Jennifer Lawrence GIF for all those with their hands raised.

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Friday, Sep. 18, 2026

Opinion

Alastair Grant / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Despite the departure of Manchester City’s storied manager Pep Guardiola at the end of May, how the Sky Blues perform in Sunday’s Manchester Derby is just one of the storylines the former bench boss is impacting.

All about Pep

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

All about Pep

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

He won’t be involved, but Sunday’s Manchester Derby (10:30 a.m., FuboTV) will be all about Pep Guardiola.

It was 10 years ago that the ex-Bayern Munich and Barcelona manager, hired that summer by Manchester City, oversaw his first local clash against Manchester United. Then, like now, the match came early — on Matchday Four. And then, like now, it was played on the enemy patch at Old Trafford.

United is hoping the comparisons end there, because City prevailed 2-1 back in September 2016 and Guardiola went on to win 16 derbies to the Red Devils’ nine. He also shifted the balance of power away from a club that was only three years removed from Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement and still expecting a quick return to glory.

In Guardiola’s glittering decade in English football he guided the Sky Blues to six Premier League titles and, in 2023, the league, FA Cup and Champions League treble — a feat theretofore achieved only by United.

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Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

Opinion

STEW MILNE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Spain is captained by Rodri, who won the Ballon d’Or two years ago. The reigning European champions enter Sunday’s World Cup final without a defeat over 90 minutes in 37 matches.

Poise versus passion for historic World Cup final

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

Poise versus passion for historic World Cup final

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Friday, Jul. 17, 2026

All things considered, and despite the howls of partisan rivals and conspiracy theorists, Sunday’s World Cup final is probably the right World Cup final, and for all the right reasons.

Never before have the reigning champions of Europe and South America gone head-to-head for global football supremacy. Never, that is, until Sunday. Only twice before has each finalist featured a previous Ballon d’Or winner. Sunday will be the third.

Spain, the European champion captained by Rodri, who won the Ballon d’Or two years ago, enters the final without a defeat over 90 minutes in 37 matches. Argentina, the South American champion captained by Lionel Messi — who boasts of a record eight Ballons d’Or — enters the final with 14 straight wins.

We could go on, but pretty much any way we’d slice it would leave us with Spain and Argentina. They are the best teams in the world in this moment, the most worthy World Cup combatants.

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Friday, Jul. 17, 2026

Opinion

ETHAN CAIRNS / THE CANADIAN PRESS Just eight of the World Cup’s 48 teams entirely native-born. From left: Brampton’s Promise David, Nigerian-born, Mississauga product Tani Oluwaseyi, Toronto product Ali Ahmed and Langley, B.C., product Joel Waterman practise at Team Canada’s Friday camp.

World Cup a mosaic of the human experience

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

World Cup a mosaic of the human experience

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Friday, Jun. 26, 2026

On June 13, the third day of the ongoing World Cup, Morocco played more than a quarter of its Group C match against Brazil without a single Moroccan-born footballer on the pitch.

Instead, the starting eleven deployed by manager Mohamed Ouahbi between the 64th and 89th minutes included players from Belgium, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada. (Goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was born in Montreal.) Ouahbi, himself, hails from metropolitan Brussels.

According to the BBC, nearly 25 per cent of the players at this tournament were born in countries other than the ones they’re representing.

One of the more prominent examples of this experience is Luca Zidane.

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Friday, Jun. 26, 2026

Opinion

Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press Canada manager Jesse Marsch sits on the sideline during the first half of the Canada-Switzerland match on Wednesday. A change of field formation for Canada would go a long way in Canada’s bid to continue to the Round of 16 and beyond.

Push for Canada came too late: Shame if country’s historic bid died on hill of principle

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

Push for Canada came too late: Shame if country’s historic bid died on hill of principle

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2026

This is already a historic World Cup for Canada’s men’s national soccer team.

First point? Check. First win? Check. First progression to the knockout rounds? Check. All of it on home soil, no less.

And yet, for all that, it also risks being a big disappointment. It can be both things at once.

To say that Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Switzerland complicated the Canadian campaign would be an understatement. A win or draw in Vancouver would have secured top spot in Group B and a Round of 32 match — as well as a prospective Round of 16 encounter — in the same city.

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Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2026

Opinion

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde (left) won’t be on the bus for Sunday’s Clásico in Barcelona after a Thursday punch-up with teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni.

Real Madrid president Pérez’s apathy like a wound in salt

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

Real Madrid president Pérez’s apathy like a wound in salt

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Friday, May. 8, 2026

You know the schoolyard is out of control when parents’ phone calls to the office are the least of the principal’s worries.

Fisticuffs that end up requiring wheelchairs and trips to the hospital? Now those are actual problems. And when a third of the students simply refuse to acknowledge their teacher’s existence, you’ve got something deep-rooted on your hands.

Administration can only do so much. At some point the little brats must learn to play nice. Otherwise, they risk suspension from Escuela de Valdebebas.

Already, Federico Valverde and Dani Ceballos won’t be on the bus for Sunday’s field trip to Barcelona.

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Friday, May. 8, 2026

Opinion

LUCA BRUNO / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Inter Milan is on the verge of its third Scudetto in five years win on top of making it to the Coppa Italia final, but other Italian soccer scandals have detracted from the club’s exceptional run.

Nerazzurri on brink of 21st Scudetto… not that anyone’s talking about it

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Preview

Nerazzurri on brink of 21st Scudetto… not that anyone’s talking about it

Jerrad Peters 5 minute read Friday, May. 1, 2026

Inter Milan will likely win its 21st Scudetto on Sunday. And if not Sunday, then next Saturday. And if not then…well, it will have.

Should Napoli and AC Milan lose to Como and Sassuolo, respectively, it would even be champions before kicking off against Parma at San Siro (1:45 p.m., FuboTV).

Typically, an imminent title would be the main talking point — and by some distance — in the days before that title is won. It would also be expected that this Inter group would get its flowers, what with the next few weeks being a sort of last hurrah.

Goalkeepers Yann Sommer and Raffaele Di Gennaro, defenders Stefan de Vrij, Francesco Acerbi and Benjamin Pavard (who has spent this season on loan to Marseille), wing-back Matteo Darmian and playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan are all out of contract in June. Federico Dimarco and Hakan Çalhanoglu have another year remaining on theirs, but the latter will almost certainly depart at that point, if not before.

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Friday, May. 1, 2026

Opinion

Building natural gas power plants, such as the Manitoba Hydro generating station in Brandon, isn’t a move forward — it’s looking to the past, Scott Forbes writes. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun files)

Fossil fuels not where the puck is going

By Scott Forbes 5 minute read Preview

Fossil fuels not where the puck is going

By Scott Forbes 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 5, 2025

“Go where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”

Sage words from hockey great and erstwhile philosopher Wayne Gretzky. What works on the ice also works with energy.

In recent weeks, fossil-fuel boosters argued that more pipelines for expanded oil and gas production by Canada are needed, pooh-poohing renewables such as wind and solar as impractical, even calling for new methane (natural gas) plants to meet rising demands.

These arguments reflect a deliberate ignorance of a rapidly changing world. Renewables, either this year or next, will eclipse coal as the globe’s biggest energy source. The meteoric rise of renewables this century has surpassed all projections, a big reason being that wind and (especially) solar are now the cheapest energy on the planet.

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Friday, Sep. 5, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally in November 2024 in Reading, Pa. Trump, aided by images generated by artificial intelligence, accepted an endorsement from Taylor Swift that he never actually received. (The Associated Press files)

How AI threatens democracy

By Abbas Yazdinejad and Jude Kong 5 minute read Preview

How AI threatens democracy

By Abbas Yazdinejad and Jude Kong 5 minute read Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025

Imagine receiving a robocall, but instead of a real person, it’s the voice of a political leader telling you not to vote. You share it with your friends, your family — only to find out it was a hyper-realistic AI voice clone. This is not a hypothetical.

In January 2024, a fake Joe Biden robocall reached New Hampshire Democrats urging them to “stay home” ahead of the state primary. The voice may have been synthetic, but the panic was real — and it’s a preview of the threats facing democracies around the world as elections become the most valuable targets for AI‑driven disinformation.

AI‑generated content — whether deepfakes, synthetic voices or artificial images — is becoming shockingly simple to create and near‑impossible to detect.

Left unchecked, the harms posed by this new disinformation threat are myriad, with the potential to erode public trust in our political system, depress voter turnout and destabilize our democratic institutions. Canada is not immune.

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Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025

Opinion

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks in Parliament. (File)

Is this a PM in waiting?

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Preview

Is this a PM in waiting?

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024

Pierre Poilievre appears destined to be Canada’s Prime Minister. It’s time he starting behaving in a manner worthy of that office.

Last week, the Conservative Party leader was touring a bakery in Aurora, Ontario when he was asked about a proposal by many Ontario local governments that calls for a portion of the GST from new home sales to be transferred by the federal government to municipalities.

Poilievre recently proposed cutting the GST on new house sales for homes sold for less than $1 million. He argues that the cut would save home buyers money, lower home prices and incentivize higher levels of home construction.

Given the fact that Poilievre is apparently willing to have the federal government walk away from all that GST revenue, it should surprise nobody that many mayors would see all that foregone money as an opportunity to help solve their budget challenges. After all, their thinking goes, if Poilievre doesn’t want the money, they can put it to good use.

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Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024

Opinion

Quebec Premier François Legault holds a news conference before question period, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, at the legislature in Quebec City. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

A troubling plan — but is it a sign of the future?

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Preview

A troubling plan — but is it a sign of the future?

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024

This may be the future of health care in Canada. If so, it’s going to scare a lot of people.

Last month, Radio-Canada revealed that the Quebec government is considering changing Quebecers’ rights to have a family doctor. According to the report, “only patients with complex or chronic conditions such as cancer, mental health issues, cardiovascular disease or diabetes, would be assigned a family doctor.”

Those in good health or with minor health problems would lose their family doctors, and would instead be assigned to a provincial service “that is currently meant to give Quebecers without a family doctor access to medical appointments.” Under the terms of that service, patients are only allowed to discuss one health issue per visit, and it could be a year or more between visits.

The proposed strategy is based on a government-commissioned report that found that, of the 2.1 million Quebecers who did not have a family doctor in 2022-23, approximately 500,000 had major or moderate health problems. In order to address that problem, the report recommends transferring up to 1.5 million annual appointments from patients who have a doctor to patients who do not.

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Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024

Opinion

Emmanuel Ahaneku, executive director of the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation, makes a funding request for $25,000 to city council during Monday's regular meeting. Deveryn Ross writes that it's time to rein in the expectation that taxpayers are going to pay for business development, especially for questionable ideas and before the businesses themselves have made significant investment. (File)

Put risk with those who stand to make a profit

By Deveryn Ross 6 minute read Preview

Put risk with those who stand to make a profit

By Deveryn Ross 6 minute read Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024

If you’re frustrated by seeing your tax dollars wasted, don’t read this. If you’re infuriated by endless handouts by governments to corporations and business owners, you should probably turn the page.

Earlier this week, a report in the Sun (“City council defers BDDC request for $25,000,” Oct. 9) discussed a request made to Brandon City Council by the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation for $25,000 in additional funding.

In support of the request, BDDC executive director Emmanuel Ahaneku told council that the increase is needed to “continue to support existing businesses and attract new ones to the downtown.”

Ahaneku explained that “we are looking for an extra $25,000 from the city. Last year we received $350,000. That covers the grants we give, our payroll and operating costs. And now we are asking for $375,000.”

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Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024

Opinion

Deveryn Ross writes that it seems like the longer it takes the city to set new developer charges, the better the deal gets for some developers. (File)

Growth doesn’t pay for growth after all

By Deveryn Ross 6 minute read Preview

Growth doesn’t pay for growth after all

By Deveryn Ross 6 minute read Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024

If this “development charge review” saga drags on much longer, developers in Brandon won’t be paying development charges to the City of Brandon. We’ll be paying the developers.

For those unfamiliar with the situation, Brandon City Council passed a development fee bylaw in 2018 in order to force developers to contribute toward the cost of infrastructure maintenance and upgrades that often come with real estate construction in the city. The bylaw was implemented in 2019 and has remained largely unchanged since then, except for a few minor cost-of-living rate increases.

For at least the past three years, city council has acknowledged that the rates were too low, in that they only recovered a small fraction of the substantial costs incurred by the city with respect to most development projects. In May of last year, the city hired consultants to review the fees the city charges developers and make recommendations as to how the city should treat the issue going forward.

In December of last year, city staff unveiled the first draft of the consultants’ recommendations. On average, the fees would increase by about 400 per cent. Those new rates would reflect the city’s costs associated with each infrastructure project, along with the debt-servicing costs it incurs with respect to each of those projects.

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Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024

Opinion

Children's backpacks and shoes are seen at a daycare facility in Langley, B.C., on May 29, 2018. An analysis by a public-policy think-tank has found that federal funding meant to bring $10-a-day child care across Canada has stumbled with a

Universal daycare not a pipe dream

By Rochelle Squires 5 minute read Preview

Universal daycare not a pipe dream

By Rochelle Squires 5 minute read Wednesday, Jun. 26, 2024

Universal child care was never the priority when we formed government in 2016.

Creating more child-care spaces in a publicly funded system, more options in a private market, deeper subsidies for those who needed help with parent fees, and a better working environment were our PC government’s initial, lofty-yet-mostly-unrealized goals.

That all changed on July 19, 2021.

I’d been summoned to the office of the premier, who at the time was under fire for making unrelated comments. One cabinet minister had already resigned, and I’d just spoken to the media about my concerns as well. I’d assumed I was walking into the premier’s office for the last time as a cabinet minister and would soon be relieved of my duties.

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Wednesday, Jun. 26, 2024

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