England winger Nikita Parris apologised to former teammate Eniola Aluko on Wednesday for her public display of support to former England coach Mark Sampson.

The moment occurred when Parris scored for England against Russia during a match in 2017. Sampson had been accused of racially abusing Aluko and another player, Drew Spence, but Parris ran to Sampson and celebrated the goal with her boss.

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An inquiry into Sampson’s comments at the time ruled that he was guilty and was sacked from his position a day after Parris’ celebration.

Parris, who plays for Lyon in France, wrote an open letter to Aluko and posted it on her twitter page. It read: “Eni, I am sorry that my thoughtless actions caused you hurt.

“At the time I focused more on what I believed was showing unity when really it did nothing of the sort, it showed a lack of empathy, understanding and ignorance by singling out a voice who needed an ear to listen and a support system to help.

“I am now able to understand how I have been part of the problem which I aim to fight and eradicate.

“I am a proud black woman, I understand I have a social responsibility to help create change through my platform.”

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Immediately after the incident, Aluko called the celebration “naive”. She also said: “Some of them may have a special relationship with Mark Sampson and they have every right [to celebrate with him], but I think about the sensitivity at that time, and it wasn’t respectful.”

The FA sacked Sampson for what they described as “clear evidence of inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour by a coach”.

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They also apologised to Aluko and Spence, ruling that Sampson “made comments that were “discriminatory on the grounds of race”.

After England, Sampson went on to coach at League Two club Stevenage in July 2019. In September he was accused of using racist language in a coaches’ meeting. He was charged by the FA in November of that year, but in January 2020 that charge was dismissed out of court with an FA independent commission dismissing the claim.

The NCAA had a chance to do the right thing on Friday and, in a stunning turn of events, completely missed the mark.

Who saw that one coming?

The punishment that the Committee on Infractions handed down to Oklahoma State on Friday, a one-year postseason ban to go along with scholarship reductions and myriad recruiting sanctions, was wrong and should be utterly terrifying for the other programs that found themselves caught up in the FBI’s investigation into college basketball corruption.

Oklahoma State faced a single Level I violation. It was an unethical conduct charge levied at former assistant coach Lamont Evans, who accepted at least $18,150 in bribes from financial advisors in exchange for peddling influence over one player from Oklahoma State and one player from South Carolina, where Evans was coaching before accepting a job on Brad Underwood’s staff in the spring of 2016. Evans was also accused of giving Jeffery Carroll $300.

That’s it.

Evans provided no competitive advantage for Oklahoma State, unless you consider the $300 he paid to Carroll — who was already on the roster and suspended for three games as a result — a competitive advantage. Evans was lining his pockets. He was not doing this to benefit the basketball program. Technically speaking, the players Evans claimed to have the power of persuasion over were the victims of the crimes that got him sentenced to three months in prison on federal bribery charges. He steered them to financial advisors that were willing to shell out bribe money. He knew nothing about the people that he was telling these players to invest their money with. One of the men Evans accepted bribes from was Marty Blazer, who sparked this entire investigation to try and avoid prison when he was caught by the SEC embezzling millions of dollars from clients.

That’s where Evans was guiding players who trusted him.

The players were the victims.

Despite that, Oklahoma State was still hit with a one-year postseason ban. Evans has been gone for three years. Carroll has been gone for two. Neither the current head coach — Mike Boynton — or the head coach the violations were committed under — Brad Underwood — were mentioned in the Notice of Allegations.

“There were no recruiting or other major violations on the part of the institution,” Oklahoma State said in a statement in November. “There are no allegations involving current student-athletes or coaching staff.”

None of that mattered to the Committee on Infractions.

They dropped the hammer on Oklahoma State, effectively neutering what was the most anticipated OSU season since Marcus Smart returned for his sophomore year. So much for seeing Cade Cunningham play in the NCAA tournament. Hell, we may not see Cunningham play for Oklahoma State, period. He was offered the chance to join the G League prospect pathway program, reportedly for as much money as Jalen Green. If he’s not going to play meaningful games at Oklahoma State, maybe he reconsiders the offer.

“Whatever the best option is for him we’re going to support 100 percent without any reservations,” Boynton said.

This gets to the core of the problem when it comes to NCAA enforcement: They far too often punish players and coaches for violations that they took no part in. What did Cunningham, or anyone else on Oklahoma State’s roster, have to do with Lamont Evans accepting bribes from a white collar felon that had been flipped by the FBI? How was anyone associated with the Oklahoma State athletic department supposed to prevent one assistant coach from accepting those bribes?

“A postseason ban for a bunch of kids that were 15, 16 years old when a lot of this was going on? It’s completely, completely out of bounds,” Boynton said.

He’s not wrong.

A postseason ban is total overkill.

That is the most infuriating part is that the NCAA was actually able to punish the man responsible. That’s not usually the case. Evans received a 10-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA in addition to a three month jail sentence for pleading guilty. His coaching career is effectively over. He’ll never be a Division I head coach. He’ll never coach at a level where he is able to earn a couple hundred grand as an assistant. The person entirely at fault for this situation had his life blown up.

And Oklahoma State still got a postseason ban despite the fact that, as Larry Parkinson of the Committee on Infractions said, “the institution fully cooperated from the moment they learned about the circumstances.”

That should be a major red flag for everyone else caught up in this investigation.

USC, Arizona and Auburn all had an assistant coach plead guilty to similar charges as Evans. Louisville committed their violations while they were on probation from the last scandal the program was embroiled in. Oklahoma State faced one Level I violation. Kansas faces five, and they’ve made quite clear they aren’t going to be as cooperative.

If the Committee on Infractions has set the bar here, everyone else better be ready to catch the book that gets thrown at them.

A former Super Bowl champion defensive lineman accused JPMorgan Chase workers in Arizona of using racially charged remarks against him when he tried to secure and invest his earnings.

Jimmy Kennedy, who won a Super Bowl ring in 2011 as a member of the New York Giants, recorded interactions with one JPMorgan worker who suggested that he was “intimidating” because “they don’t see people like you a lot.” The recording was published in The New York Times on Wednesday.

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“You’re bigger than the average person, period. And you’re also an African-American,” Charles Belton, who is also black, told Kennedy in the recording. “We’re in Arizona. I don’t have to tell you about what the demographics are in Arizona. They don’t see people like you a lot.”

Kennedy played in the NFL from 2003 to 2011. The St. Louis Rams took him with the No. 12 pick of the 2003 NFL Draft from Penn State. He was with the Rams from 2003 to 2006. He then played for the Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings and the Giants.

He earned about $13 million in his career but when he tried to invest about $800,000 of his money and attempted to become a “private client” with JPMorgan to receive some additional perks the average client wouldn’t receive, the Times reported he was getting the runaround.

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Kennedy was initially paired with financial adviser Ricardo Peters, who had also complained about racial discrimination and felt like he had a target on his back by his superiors. Peters filed a complaint with the bank that he alerted his then-boss, Frank Venniro, he was being treated differently because he was black and was suggested that he work for a less-wealthy bank, according to the Times.

Two months after the complaint was filed, Venniro told Peters he was being fired. There was reportedly no reason behind the dismissal and that he was just given “marching orders.” JPMorgan, after a lawsuit was filed by Peters against the company, said the adviser was terminated for “improperly assigning credit for a new client to an employee who managers didn’t think deserved it.”

Kennedy was then left out in the open with no new adviser while some of his money was being held up. The former player said Belton became his new adviser but felt like he was inexperienced and was only assigned to him because he was black.

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According to the Times, Kennedy was not given the “private client” status when he was working with Peters and he complained to his new adviser and Venniro. Belton urged Kennedy not to talk to Venniro again. In the recordings published by the newspaper, Belton told Kennedy that he was a big black man in Arizona and that Venniro was afraid to tell Kennedy his “private status” was deleted after Peters was fired.

When Kennedy came back to raise questions about his private client status, Belton reportedly told the former NFL player that banks were scared of dealing with him and that he was better off only dealing with Belton.

“They’re not going to say this, but I don’t have the same level of intimidation that they have — you know what I’m saying? — not only being a former athlete but also being two black men,” Belton said, referring to Venniro, according to the Times. “You sit in front of him, you’re like three times his size — you feel what I’m saying? — he already probably has his perception of how these interactions could go.”

Belton added: “We’ve seen people that are not of your stature get irate, and it’s like, ‘Well, if this dude gets upset, like what’s going to happen to me?’”

Kennedy has since pulled out most of his money from the bank and filed a grievance with a watchdog group.

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A JPMorgan spokeswoman defended the treatment of Kennedy and Peters and wasn’t aware of the recordings until they were published in the newspaper. The spokeswoman said one of its executive directors was placed on administrative leave as the bank investigates the incidents.