Zlatan Ibrahimovics high-profile move to Manchester United was confirmed on Friday, headlining the first day of what likely will be the busiest and biggest-spending transfer window ever seen in English soccer.The arrival of 34-year-old Ibrahimovic at Old Trafford came after Manchester City signed Spain forward Nolito 13.8 million pounds ($18.3 million) and Crystal Palace spent about the same on England winger Andros Townsend.Its a sign of things to come this offseason as English Premier League clubs start to spend some of the 8.3 billion-pound ($11-billion) windfall from its record domestic and international TV rights deals for 2016-19. Thats an increase of around 70 percent from the last deal, meaning England will again dominate the European summer transfer window that opened for business on Friday.Ibrahimovic, who was a free agent after leaving Paris Saint-Germain, will play his club football in England for the first time in his trophy-laden career, in what could be his last big move.Ibrahimovic has also played Ajax, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Juventus, and won league titles in four different countries.The striker, who retired from international duty after Swedens exit from the European Championship last week, is reunited with new United manager Jose Mourinho. The pair got on well at Inter in the Italian clubs title-winning season of 2008-09.Zlatan needs no introduction, Mourinho said. The statistics speak for themselves. Ibra is one of the best strikers in the world and a player who always gives 100 percent.Nolito became Citys second signing under new coach Pep Guardiola -- after Germany midfielder Ilkay Gundogan -- when he joined from Celta Vigo on a four-year deal.The 29-year-old Nolito, who played under Guardiola at Barcelona from 2008-11, can play as a central striker or on the wing, and will freshen up Citys attack.He started all four of Spains matches at the European Championship.Pep Guardiola is one of the best managers in the world, Nolito said. He knows a lot about the game and hes going to help me progress as a player, and Im sure hell get the best out of me.City later announced Argentina defender Martin Demichelis has left the club after three years.Townsend joined Palace for a club-record fee of 13 million pounds ($17.3 million) on a five-year deal, with the winger ending his brief spell at Newcastle following its relegation from the Premier League.Townsend ensured he will not be starting this season in Englands second tier by securing a move back to London. The winger left Tottenham for Newcastle in January but couldnt stop the northeast team from relegation, despite scoring four goals in 13 games and being one of the form players in England in the second half of the season.Its fantastic that weve managed to get a player of Andros quality into the club, Palace chairman Steve Parish said.Striker Dwight Gayle went the opposite direction, moving to St. James Park on a five-year deal.Watford signed Belgium defender Christian Kabasele from Genk and announced that captain Troy Deeney had signed a new five-year contract, ending speculation that the forward might be joining Premier League champion Leicester.Everton signed Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg from second-tier Fulham on a three-year contract.Trent Thornton Jersey .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. R.A. Dickey Jersey . 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"The car balance is decent, but I think we can still improve," Vettel said.No issue has been more polarizing in college football recruiting over the past decade than satellite camps.Satellite camps have been a hot-button issue in the recruiting world for years. Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 teams have conducted them all over the country, but they reached national awareness after Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh conducted an eight-day Summer Swarm tour in 2015 that took the Wolverines deep into SEC recruiting territory. In early April, the NCAA Division I Council outlawed satellite camps after numerous ACC and SEC coaches pushed to get the recruiting rules changed. However, the NCAA rescinded the ban just weeks later, and virtually every major program in the country held some sort of satellite camp in June and July.While the debate over satellite camps was raging this spring and summer, a separate NCAA subcommittee was well into its second year of a holistic review of the entire recruiting model. When the NCAA reversed course with the satellite camp ban, it asked this subcommittee to look at potential modifications to camps and clinics participation. The subcommittee was initially asked to have these recommendations by Sept. 1, but the NCAAs Board of Directors told the group recently that it has until Nov. 1 to present its findings. Either way, were not far from some preliminary guidance on what satellite camps will look like in the future.Over a two-month period, ESPN.com interviewed more than 50 people who were directly impacted by satellite camps. This included everyone from recruits to high school coaches to head coaches to assistants from each of the Power 5 conferences.What became clear is that prospects believe satellite camps are a vital part of todays recruiting process, high school coaches are concerned the camps allow outsiders to interject themselves into prospects lives,and college coaches are torn on whats best for both the prospective student-athletes and their programs. Yet almost everybody involved believes a positive solution can be found, and there are plenty of solid ideas to go around.You have to go to satellite camps to get noticedOn a 100-degree, late June afternoon in Kansas City, more than 400 players crowded onto a single turf field at Blue Springs South High School for the Midwest Elite Camp. They were there with hopes of impressing Harbaugh.By the end of the satellite camp, one player, defensive end Anthony Payne out of Raymore-Peculiar (Missouri) High School, had caught the attention of the Wolverines coaches, and he earned a scholarship days later. Payne is one of summers best examples of a satellite camp success story. Because of his one-day performance at the camp in Kansas City, Payne became one of the most heavily recruited players in Missouri before he committed to Kansas State in late July.Yet there are many others who attended satellite camps this summer to earn Power 5 offers. Those success stories reinforce recruits belief that attending satellite camps has become a vital part of the recruiting process.I dont know where I would have gone had it not been for satellite camps, Payne said. They were a very positive experience for me, and it helped me get the type of attention I knew I deserved. I really didnt think it was that big of a deal to go to all of the camps. You have to go to satellite camps to get noticed. Thats what I figured. Thats why I went to all of those camps, and it turned out to be true.Even elite recruits, prospects ranked in the ESPN 300, are fans of satellite camps because of the opportunities they create to work with the schools that are recruiting them. ESPN 300 cornerback Ambry Thomas, out of Martin Luther King High School in Detroit, wanted to interact more with the Florida coaches who were after him, so he attended one of the Gators satellite camps. Cam Akers, the nations second-ranked running back and the 26th-ranked player overall, attended a Michigan satellite camp because he knew he wouldnt be able to get from his home in Clinton, Mississippi, to the Wolverines campus anytime soon.With me being from down in South Mississippi, its not easy to get to places like Michigan, Akers said. Its not easy for recruits to get to far places like that. So for me, going to that Michigan satellite camp was a big deal.A number of recruits pointed out that attending local satellite camps in their region helps prospects save money instead of flying all over the country to visit college team camps held on campuses. Prospect Leonard Warner, from Brookwood High School in Snelville, Georgia, the second-ranked inside linebacker, was able to work out for Ohio State at a satellite camp less than 10 minutes from his house. Fifth-ranked receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones of Cass Tech in Detroit attended the Sound Mind Sound Body Academy in Detroit and showcased his skills in front of coaches from programs in each of the Power 5 conferences.Satellite camps are how recruiting is done today, Peoples-Jones said. Its all about offers, exposure and experience, and you can get that by going to great satellite camps.Third-party problemsYou wont find many high school coaches who disagree with recruits when it comes to the opportunities satellite camps create. For example, Midwest City (Oklahoma) High School assistant coach Jason Sexton said he takes a van load of kids all over Texas and Oklahoma each summer to hit satellite camps, and that allows his players to be seen by five or six schools at one time because their parents dont have the means to get out and see those schools.There are, however, a number of issues that concern the high school coaching community, namely the risk of injury a prospect faces in attending multiple events just weeks before he opens high school practice or the fact that many college coaches dont instruct at their own camps. The largest concern is the way satellite camps have allowed third parties to become involved with a prospects recruitment.Some third-party organizations -- personal coaches, private trainers or advisors -- latch on to players by running non-institutional camps for which they advertise that college coaches will be in attendance. However, many high school coaches call these events money grabs because they often fail to deliver on promises of exposure for the recruits, and they are poorly executed. Potomac (Maryland) Bullis School coach Pat Cilento estimates that a third-party organization that ran a satellite camp inn Baltimore earlier this summer made roughly $30,000 off the 600 players in attendance, and there were probably only a dozen legitimate FBS recruits there.ddddddddddddHigh school coaches, including Marcus High School (Flower Mound, Texas) coach Gerry Stanford, call these third parties street agents that make recruits and their families promises they can never keep, often bilk them for thousands of dollars and leave the local coach to pick up the pieces when major scholarships never materialize.These trainers give the implication, Well, youre not getting looked at, so lets take you to this Michigan satellite camp or this Oklahoma State or OU satellite camp, and Im going to get you recruited by all the big-time schools, Sexton said.This trainer is going to tell them Hey, youre good enough to play at Michigan or OU, so he can continue to put his hand in their pocket. Players are going to come up with that money any which way they can because this guy is telling them the things they want to hear. I had a trainer tell one of my kids, We need to go to this Michigan camp because its going to get you the looks you need. Ive already got his parents coming back to us asking, This guy got our foot in the door at this Michigan, so why didnt an offer materialize?College coaches know the system isnt perfectCollege coaches admit theyre in a tough situation with satellite camps. Even those coaches who are against satellite camps but held camps anyway are concerned theyve turned into something they were never intended to be.In some cases, coaches say theyve conducted satellite camps at certain locations to do a favor for a high school coach in hopes he returns the favor someday or to catch the attention of a high-value prospect theyre targeting. A Pac-12 assistant admitted to bending the rules by openly recruiting a player at one of these camps, but he wasnt the only one who admitted to that.A Big 12 assistant said, Weve come a long way from the days of trying to find under-recruited players, and now satellite camps are hardly an evaluation tool and are mostly about getting your brand out on Twitter. Georgia coach Kirby Smart said he went to four or five satellite camps and didnt get a whole lot out of them, but he wasnt the only one.By this stage, we usually know whether or not were recruiting them, Cal coach Sonny Dykes said. I dont think were going to learn that much about them by going out and doing a satellite camp. Recruiting is all about relationships, and its about trust, and I think thats a lot more important than testing some kid.Just like the high school coaches, college coaches are concerned about outsiders becoming involved with recruits because of satellite camps.What weve done now in college football is weve opened the door for third parties to be involved, like AAU basketball, South Carolina coach Will Muschamp said. Theres a lot of people making a bunch of money off these satellite camps and trying to influence recruits to go to a bunch of different schools. If thats what we want, lets have at it, but I dont know if thats really what we want. It needs some regulation.A lot of good ideas out thereRegulation is what many involved with college football recruiting are expecting once the football recruiting subcommittee sends its findings to the Board of Directors on Nov. 1. Although the committee is also expected to suggest changes to key elements of recruiting, such as an early signing period or modifications to the official visit schedule, no issue will be more closely monitored for adjustment than that of satellite camps.The good news is that there are a lot of really good ideas out there on ways they can be improved, Hutchinson (Kansas) High School coach Ryan Cornelsen said. If the folks at NCAA are willing to listen, then everybody would feel better about them.TCU head coach Gary Patterson suggested a return of the days when recruiters could travel to established regional camps, such as the Nike Opening Regionals, during the spring evaluation process to watch the events. The NCAA banned that in 2008, but Patterson said allowing coaches to be at these events would reduce the value of satellite camps and solve a lot of the problems theyve created.Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze floated another interesting idea: banning team-sponsored satellite camps and having FBS conferences take over and conduct them in April and May, when recruiters are on the road.Have the SEC run the satellite camp [in its region], or have three of them, Freeze said. Or have the Big 12 satellite camp in Dallas. Youre already out on the road, so this Saturday is the Big 12 satellite camp in Dallas and Houston. A joint venture, the SEC and ACC in Florida or wherever it may be, Atlanta, and its run by the league offices.I think you could accomplish everything you need as coaches, and that way you know theres no third party running the camp. And if we need to extend the evaluation period to eight weeks, extend it. But leave that summertime for the kids to get to your campus, so they get to know you, and then they can make a quality decision based on the environment they see there.One of the most feasible ideas floating around emerged in mid-June, when the Virginian-Pilot obtained documents from the NCAA suggesting the organization was considering eliminating team-sponsored satellite camps and instead sponsoring camps hosted at NFL training facilities or high schools that any coach could attend.The idea of the NCAA taking over satellite camps is a definite hit with many high school and college coaches. Most interviewed agreed that a nationalized camp plan would alleviate their concerns about unregulated camps and still help kids get more opportunities to compete for scholarships. Prospects would be on board with the idea too.Recruits would love them, most definitely, ESPN 300 offensive guard and Auburn pledge Nick Brahms said. They could get a chance to play on bigger fields that they might not ever play on again. As long as the college coaches are still there, itd still be smooth. If theyre not, then they probably wouldnt be worth the time. But if the NCAA steps in and runs it and coaches are there, recruits will love them. I think that would eliminate all of the controversy weve seen with these camps this summer. ' ' '
