Sports
Mikheil Kavelashvili used to play for Manchester City. Now he’s Georgia’s far-right president-elect
It was an April’s day in an era when Manchester City were still playing at Maine Road and a visit from Manchester United was a lot more daunting than it has been in recent years.
City were on the attack. The ball was swung over from the left into the penalty area. Gary Neville was never going to beat Niall Quinn, the 6ft 4in (193cm) City striker, in an aerial contest. Another player in blue was waiting for Quinn’s knockdown. And that was the moment Martin Tyler’s voice went up an octave in the Sky Sports commentary box.
“My goodness, what a story! Mikheil Kavelashvili! On his debut, in a Manchester derby. Well, it’s a long name to splash across the back of a Manchester City shirt. But it will be splashed across a few headlines if City go on from this…”
Mikhail Kavelashvili equalises against Manchester United — his high point at City (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)
It’s funny how it turns out sometimes. That was about as good as it got for Kavelashvili during his brief dalliance with the Premier League towards the end of the 1995-96 season. United won the league, as they often did in those days, and for the last three decades, Kavelashvili’s contribution has been largely consigned to the dustbin of history by those City fans who remember the era of tragicomedy that resulted in Alan Ball’s team slipping towards relegation.
Kavelashvili has been back in the news and you can probably understand the collective surprise among former team-mates to learn that the pale-faced wearer of City’s No 32 shirt has re-emerged as a far-right politician and president-elect of Georgia, known for his sympathetic stance towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
“That’s a story I didn’t think I’d ever hear,” was Quinn’s verdict when The Athletic broke the news to the striker who set up Kavelashvili for his derby goal. “He was a lovely, smiley, mannerly young lad and so happy to be in Manchester — no edges at all.”
Kavelashvili was nominated for the largely ceremonial role last month by the Georgian Dream political party, just a few weeks after its re-election sparked protests in the streets amid accusations the vote was rigged and influenced by Russia.
The 53-year-old, described by former team-mates as “quiet and unassuming”, was elected to parliament in 2016 and, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, set up a splinter group called People’s Power.
Opponents accuse Georgian Dream of being pro-Russian and say its hardline beliefs will cause irreparable damage to the nation’s chances of joining the European Union. Nonetheless, Kavaleshvili’s presidency is all but guaranteed, given the vote is made by a 300-seat electoral college dominated by his own party.
Kavelashvili is now a leading figure in the Georgian Dream party (AP)
The election takes place tomorrow, with the inauguration on December 29, ushering in a 46-cap ex-international striker who has become increasingly known for his anti-Western statements. In June, Kavelashvili used social media to accuse the United States of having “an insatiable desire to destroy our country”. His political opponents, he says, have been steered by U.S. congressmen who are planning “a direct violent revolution and the Ukrainisation of Georgia”.
All of which seems a long way from the days when City were grubbing around for points towards the bottom of the Premier League and the 24-year-old Kaveleshvili was signed for £2million ($2.5m at current rates) from Dinamo Tbilisi, with the job of scoring enough goals to keep his new team in England’s top division.
“It could be argued that Kavelashvili spent most of his time at City facing in the wrong direction, just as he now seems to be doing as the prospective Russia-apologist leader of Georgia,” says Simon Curtis, a City fan, writer and author.
“He was bought on the say-so of (fellow Georgian) Georgi Kinkladze who told the somewhat gullible Alan Ball that he was, ‘Even better than me’. It was a desperate throw of the dice, just after City had been tonked 4-2 at West Ham. There were six games left and he looked lightweight and confused (against United) but he did score our equaliser.”
Unfortunately for City, Andy Cole restored United’s lead within a minute of Kavelashvili making it 1-1 and United ended up winning 3-2. Kavelashvili’s first appearance in English football — also marked by him missing a good chance to score a second, only to shoot straight into Peter Schmeichel’s face — was equally memorable for a mutinous outburst from Uwe Rosler, the striker who had lost his place to the new signing.
Rosler, a former East Germany international who infamously wore a T-shirt bearing the message ‘Rosler’s Grandad Bombed Old Trafford’, was seriously unimpressed to be left out. Cue an angry flare-up when Rosler came off the bench to score City’s second goal and ran to the dugout, jabbing an accusatory finger at the home manager.
“It wasn’t the happiest camp at times,” says Quinn. “I was angry that I wasn’t in the team for long periods. Uwe was angry when he was left out.
“We had Kinkladze, who had very little English. Georgi did all his talking on the ball, he was a wizard. The best way to describe him was that Alan Ball didn’t call him Georgi, he called him the ‘little genius’ — ‘Give the ball to the little genius’.
“Then Mikheil came along and he was a totally different player. He didn’t have Georgi’s skill or ability but he was honest and hard-working and he had something that he fought for. I found him a lovely guy. He was proud and patriotic to be Georgian. He had a little more English than Georgi and I remember he seemed particularly happy and proud that he was playing for Manchester City.”
Kavelashvili with Niall Quinn on his City debut (Mark Leech/Offside via Getty Images)
Kavelashvili played in a 3-0 defeat at Wimbledon and a nervy 1-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday but was not trusted by Ball to start the final game of the season at home to Liverpool — an occasion that will always be remembered for City’s players wasting time by the corner flag when they were drawing 2-2, thinking that would be enough to save them from relegation.
They had been cruelly misinformed: another goal was needed to stay up. It never arrived and, in Curtis’ words, Kavelashvili “came on as a late sub to be part of the relegation party”.
“I remember the game against United when he scored on his debut,” says Keith Curle, the former City defender. “But I also remember he had two big chances in the Liverpool game that saw us relegated.
“If you watch it back, he had two chances inside the six-yard box in the last 10 minutes. That’s not to blame him, it’s just the plight of the centre-forward. You can have one touch and be the hero. Or you can miss a couple of chances and it’s all about the ifs and buts and what could have been.”
Quinn, who won 92 caps for the Republic of Ireland, has never forgotten that match, either. “I have a memory of our centre-half Kit Symons scoring (to make it 2-2) and almost getting another one late on. We were scrambling for a goal in the last couple of minutes. Kit got on the end of a cross. Mikheil was running out of the way but the ball hit him on its way in and rebounded out, when it might have been the goal that kept us up.”
Relegation led to Quinn leaving the club for Sunderland. Kavelashvili, meanwhile, hung around for a season in the second tier, then called Division One. He underwhelmed again and a recent post by the Monument City fan blog summed up his contribution.
“He was different at least to Quinn and Rosler and cleared the low bar of being better than (fellow striker) Gerry Creaney,” writes its author, Mark Meadowcroft. “But he was not the sort of player we needed in the second tier. It soon became clear his main role was, as we had suspected all along, to be Kinkladze’s pal.”
Kavelashvili did pop up with a goal in a 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace and, six months later, he headed in City’s equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Grimsby Town. That, however, was it from the man whose political party has recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
Kavelashvili was proud to represent Georgia (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Curle remembers his former team-mate being “very quiet, very unassuming, he mixed in well without ever being the star of the show or seeking the limelight… an intelligent man who never held court in the changing room or came across as politically minded”.
Sadly for City, the man in question was never a prolific scorer either, as City finished the 1996-97 season in 14th position, below Barnsley, Port Vale and Tranmere Rovers. “By the summer of ’97 nobody had even noticed he had gone, so little impact had he made,” says Curtis, author of City in Europe and a long-time authority on Mancunian nostalgia. “Kinkladze had his mum in Manchester cooking Georgian specialities for him, so there was definitely a worry he (Kinkladze) might be homesick.”
In total, Kavelashvili scored three goals for City in 29 appearances. It was not for him that a Georgian flag fluttered in the Kippax stand. But maybe, given his new occupation, he learned a thing or two about what constitutes good and not-so-good leadership. City did, after all, have five managers in his 12 months.
His first seven appearances came in Ball’s relegation XI. There were four with caretaker manager Asa Hartford, another four during Steve Coppell’s 33-day spell in charge, seven with Phil Neal and, finally, seven under Frank Clark, who remembers the Georgian as “a good character, a nice lad, never a problem for me in the dressing room” — and, unlike Kinkladze, never sent his parking fines to the club.
Kavelashvili, pictured with ex-France international Christian Karembeu in 2018 (Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images)
It was not enough to secure a renewal of Kavelashvili’s work permit and the rest of his playing career was spent at clubs in Switzerland and Russia, winning the 1998 Swiss league title with Grasshoppers.
“I don’t think I have had any other former players go into politics,” says Clark, reflecting on Kavelashvili’s imminent position as the second ex-City player after George Weah, the former president of Liberia, to become a head of state.
“I obviously didn’t have much of an influence on him. Good luck to him, though, if he is going to be dealing with Putin, although he might find Putin is easier to deal with than I was.
“I am joking of course… I hope I am a nicer person than Putin.”
Additional reporting: Paul Taylor
(Top photos: Dan Goldfarb for The Athletic, top image: Getty Images)
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Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz was involved in a terrifying moment during the team’s victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night.
Albernaz was struck by a line drive off the bat of Orioles second baseman Jeremiah Jackson in the fifth inning. The ball hit the manager’s left cheek and he left to be looked at by the team’s medical staff.
Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz talks to media in the dugout before a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago on April 8, 2026. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Albernaz briefly returned to the game after Jackson hit a grand slam to help the Orioles to the 9-7 win.
“He’s doing good. Just as a precaution, he’s going to get it scanned,” Orioles bench coach Donnie Ecker said.
Jackson said he had a sunken feeling when he saw Albernaz in pain after the errant liner.
“I hit and then I kind of saw Alby holding his face. My heart kind of dropped,” Jackson said. “I was able to see him afterward and see he was doing OK.”
AVALANCHE COACH TAKES PUCK TO THE FACE, WILL MISS FINAL REGULAR-SEASON GAMES
Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz stands on the field before the game against the San Francisco Giants at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Md., on Apr. 10, 2026. (Mitch Stringer/Imagn Images)
“Knowing he was OK helped. It made me feel a little bit better,” Jackson added. “I’m just happy he’s doing OK and in good spirits.”
Albernaz and Jackson embraced after the infielder hit the big home run in the sixth inning.
“That was awesome,” Jackson said of the impromptu embrace from his manager. “You never want to hurt anybody, and Alby’s awesome. It sucked. But he wore it well and he’s in good spirits so it made me feel better.”
Albernaz is in his first year as Baltimore’s manager. He served as a bench coach and assistant manager for the Cleveland Guardians in 2024 and 2025.
Baltimore Orioles’ Jeremiah Jackson rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the eighth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Baltimore on April 13, 2026. (Stephanie Scarbrough/AP)
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Baltimore improved to 9-7 with the win and are tied with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jerry West’s legend was so well established when he retired from the Los Angeles Lakers in 1974 that he’d already been the inspiration for the NBA’s logo. Half a century later, West remains seventh all-time in points per game and holds the points-per-game record for a playoff series, numbers even more remarkable because he did it without the three-point shot.
But, of course, West wasn’t done. As a scout and general manager, he was a key architect of the Showtime Lakers teams of the 1980s and later acquired both Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to build another dynasty. West also was an executive for the Golden State Warriors in their heyday, providing crucial advice on player personnel.
Through it all, however, West struggled with depression and a sense of self-loathing, and had trouble with intimacy, much of it a by-product of a hardscrabble childhood in West Virginia with a domineering father.
That dichotomy, his outer success and inner turmoil, are the heart of “Jerry West: The Logo,” a new documentary for Prime Video, from “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris, directing his first documentary.
Kenya Barris in “Jerry West: The Logo.”
(Prime)
“I’m from L.A. and was a fan of the Showtime Lakers growing up,” Barris says, so he put his name in for the project figuring he’d at least get to meet a hero. “But we immediately hit it off and I felt a kinship with him.”
That ability to connect was part of West’s magic, as attested to by the string of NBA legends who pay tribute to him in the documentary, including Lakers such as Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Pat Riley and O’Neal, along with Steph Curry and Michael Jordan.
Vlade Divac was traded by West to secure the rights to Bryant, but he selected West to introduce him at his Hall of Fame induction. In a recent phone interview, Divac praised West as “a father figure when you needed it and a friend when you needed it. He was very honest and he cared about people and helped you achieve your goals. He’s one of the best guys I ever met. Period.”
Barris, who did extensive interviews with West before the Laker icon died in 2024, spoke by video recently about making the documentary, which also includes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledging for the first time that West was the sport’s logo. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jerry had already opened up about his life in his memoir, “West by West,” but do you think this was still cathartic for him?
His book really drew me to doing the documentary because it was so honest. I think the idea of him actually saying these things out loud in front of a camera with his kids and his grandkids around was a catharsis for him.
Did he feel he was nearing the end?
Jerry would say, “I feel like I’m in God’s waiting room.” He didn’t like getting old because he was so much in touch with his body as an athlete — he could jump higher and run farther than his friends. When I first met him, he was on the treadmill and jogging with weights. He was in his 80s but was saying, “I used to be able to jog with more weights.”
He was feeling old but I don’t think that he thought he was about to pass.
Was he annoyed by his depiction in HBO’s Lakers series “Winning Time,” which generated controversy in 2022?
The show was entertaining, but it really bothered him and he didn’t think it was fair. I think that series might’ve pushed him into wanting to do this, if I’m being completely honest.
“Jerry would say, ‘I feel like I’m in God’s waiting room,’” said director Kenya Barris, who conducted extensive interviews with the Lakers legend before his death in 2024.
(Prime)
He and his family talk openly on camera about his mental health issues. Was it hard to balance that tonally with his great accomplishments in basketball?
I did not want to make something that was morose or a melodrama. But it would not be complete if he didn’t talk about the struggles. When I first met him, he was just coming out of a depression and anyone who’s ever been through that understands that it is actually a struggle. So forming a whole picture of who this character was was really important. And also it was important for his family because they lived through this with him as well. They were sad to see him suffer, but they had suffered through it too.
We wanted to really talk about who this character was and what formed him. Most of who we are is formed between the ages of 0 and 12 and in those years, Jerry saw a lot and went through a lot of stuff.
When his older brother was killed in Korea and his father put the casket by the Christmas tree …
That was crazy. If we could get the audience to understand who this man was, it would give them empathy for everything after.
As a GM [general manager], he was a white guy in this predominantly Black sport, but he came in with a chip on his shoulder, too, and he saw these young players who hadn’t had strong father figures and came from socioeconomically deprived places like he did and he was able to build real relationships with them.
He didn’t want to talk about it a lot in the doc, but he did a lot for civil rights and for players’ advocacy of the NBA, for the Black players, who didn’t have the same voice that he had. But he did it quietly.
Jerry West signed Shaquille O’Neal to the Lakers in 1996 after four years with the Orlando Magic. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
Jerry West, left, Kobe Bryant and Lakers head coach Del Harris in 1997. Bryant was acquired in a trade for Vlade Divac. (Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images)
One thing the documentary avoids is the contentious relationship with Phil Jackson — who isn’t even mentioned — and the cause of West’s departure from the Lakers right after he built that dynasty. Did he not want to discuss it?
We spoke about it. You can’t have that long a career and not rack up some controversial things. But I did not want this to be a salacious look at the negative accounts. I got in there the idea of a strain with the Lakers, but I wanted to make sure to not defile that relationship based upon certain things that I wasn’t going to dig into. It was not a gotcha sort of documentary. It was more of a tribute to him.
People have wondered if he had stayed on, whether he could have stopped the relationship between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal from going south, and I would have been interested to know what he thought.
We did talk about that. He believes that he could have got them to stay together and he said that he believes they could have gone on and won four or five more championships.
Sports
Mike Breen says fans ‘deserve to be thrown a bone’ as NBA cuts all local broadcasts from the playoffs
NBA playoffs begin, Will anyone stop the Thunder? | The Herd
The NBA playoffs are underway, with the Play-In tournament starting tomorrow. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the heavy favorite to repeat as champions. Colin Cowherd asks if the San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, or anyone else can stop the Thunder.
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Mike Breen, the New York Knicks’ play-by-play announcer and star NBA voice with ESPN, is not happy with a key league move heading into the NBA Playoffs.
And he didn’t hold back his frustrations during the Knicks’ regular-season finale on Sunday night.
For the first time in NBA history, all local network broadcasts are being pushed out of the playoffs for nationally televised games. Those networks paid a premium to air the playoffs, but the league had always allowed the local home broadcast to be aired as well as the national TV spots in previous seasons.
ESPN play-by-play sports commentator Mike Breen looks on prior to the game between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center on Feb. 25, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Celtics defeated the 76ers 110-107. (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
Breen, alongside his longtime partner, Knicks great Walt “Clyde” Frazier, ripped the league’s decision on the final day of his broadcasting duties for the Eastern Conference squad.
“First time ever that no longer can the home team announcers and broadcasters televise the first round,” Breen mentioned during the 110-96 loss to the Charlotte Hornets while broadcasting on MSG.
KNICKS BROADCASTER’S JOKE COMPARING BULLS’ ‘OBLITERATED’ DEFENSE TO IRAN LEAVES PARTNER STUNNED
“The entire playoffs are exclusive to national TV broadcasters. I mentioned this earlier this season. I think, personally, Clyde, it’s a poor decision. Fans want to hear their home team announcers, at least in the first round. For so many of us, they become part of the family.”
Breen added that he understands “the networks pay a fortune for exclusivity,” granted he works for one of those networks on ESPN.
“But fans deserve to be thrown a bone once in a while in terms of letting the home team have a little bit of the first round,” he continued.
The NBA reached a whopping $76 billion broadcast rights deal that kicked in at the start of this season, and it will last for the next 11 seasons. Like other pro sports leagues, the deal is carved out across various platforms, both long-standing networks and streaming.
ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Breen calls the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, on Jan. 17, 2024. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
While the NBA got together the deal it liked with Disney, Amazon and NBCUniversal, Breen hopes it would consider working something out to get local broadcasters back into the fold for the playoffs.
However, he knows how the business is at the end of the day.
“Somehow, if there’s any way they can work out some kind of compromise, I’m not hopeful for that, but it would be wonderful to have it because this is our final telecast of the season,” Breen said.
Breen, now, will focus on his ESPN duties as the lead commentator for the “Worldwide Leader” on the court. His famous “Bang!” call on clutch three-pointers has been synonymous with the biggest moments in the NBA Playoffs for years now, and that will get started very soon as teams in both the East and West gun for their shot at the Larry O’Brien Trophy and to call themselves NBA Finals champions.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, the reigning Finals champs, are the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference once again, while teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers will battle them to be crowned conference champions.
Mike Breen looks on before the game between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers during Round 2 Game 3 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals 2023 NBA Playoffs on May 6, 2023 at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles, California. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images)
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In the East, Breen’s Knicks own the No. 3 seed, while the Detroit Pistons (No. 1) and Boston Celtics (No. 2) had successful regular-season campaigns to earn a top spot heading into the playoffs.
The Play-In Tournament will be the first games for the NBA Playoffs, which will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Then, the first round will split its tipoffs on NBC/Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN.
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