Fernandes to keep United captaincy, says Ten Hag

MATT HARDY

MANCHESTER United manager Erik ten Hag has come out in support of his club captain Bruno Fernandes despite being part of the humiliating 7-0 loss to Liverpool on Sunday.

The Portuguese midfielder also faced calls to be banned from football for a number of games for an alleged “nudge” on an assistant referee on Sunday afternoon.

“Yes, definitely,” Ten Hag said when asked whether Fernandes would continue to captain Manchester United going forward.

“I think he’s playing a brilliant season. He’s had a really important role in why we’re in the position where we are because he’s giving energy to the team.

“He’s not only running a lot at the highest intensity but also in the right way and right direction.

“He’s pointing and coaching players. He’s an inspiration for the whole team but no one is perfect. Everyone has his mistakes and everyone has to learn.

“I have to learn and he will learn.

“I’m really happy to have Bruno Fernandes in my team and I am really happy that Bruno Fernandes, if Harry [Maguire, former captain] is not on the pitch, is our captain.”

United face Real Betis tonight in the first leg of their Europa League round of 16 tie.

Ed Warner

DAZZLED by Great Britain’s three golden moments at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul last weekend, you’ll likely have missed the home nation’s unexpected victory in the women’s triple jump.

Reeling from last month’s earthquake devastation, Turkey will have drawn some comfort from Tugba Danismaz’s winning leap. And she was only ranked ninth in Europe heading into the championships.

Istanbul last hosted a major athletics event 11 years ago. The World Indoors were just months before London 2012 and came at the height of a tabloidconfected furore about the composition of Great Britain’s Olympic team.

I was chair of UK Athletics at the time and our captain at the Indoors was Tiffany Porter.

The hurdler, born in the US of British and Nigerian parents, was labelled a “Plastic Brit” by some in the media convinced that UK Sport’s drive for medals was leading to home-developed athletes being displaced by others imported from overseas.

The nadir of the debate – if the mudslinging could be dignified with that name – came at our pre-event press conference. Porter was asked whether she could recite any of the national anthem. No matter the legitimacy of her British passport.

The hurdler went on to win silver in Istanbul, one of eight medals for Great Britain, and later a Commonwealth Games silver for England before her retirement last year.

An analysis by one newspaper at the time concluded that 11 per cent of Britain’s Olympic team were born overseas. That is rather a low number to my mind given the fluidity of mankind and the make-up of the United Kingdom’s population.

Yes, our coaching team did have a keen eye out globally for talented athletes eligible to wear a GB vest. And the luxurious UK Sport performance programme was certainly a magnet.

But we were far from alone. One of Turkey’s two medallists* at those World Indoors was İlham Tanui Özbilen, born in Kenya as William Biwott Tanui. His change of name and national allegiance had come only a year previously, inside the two-year window that the international governing body usually applied to such switches.

I remember well his infield interview after his silver medal. Of necessity, it was conducted in English rather than Turkish.

Thankfully, the distasteful “Plastic Brit” episode now appears like a period piece. Subsequent research indicated that 2012 represented no more than a small bump up in the proportion of British Olympians drawn from overseas.

More importantly, sport-watching society seems to have moved on. Perhaps it’s the continued flow of “outsiders” into England’s cricket and rugby teams, an influx that has been evident for far longer than a decade now.

I’d like to think that greater acceptance of diversity – especially ethnicity – is a major factor. Nothing I can prove, but certainly a sense I have from operating within sport.

Of course, there is still quite some distance to travel in this regard, which makes the upcoming James Graham play at the National Theatre, Dear England, intriguing to say the least.

With Joseph Fiennes playing Eng-