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‘A legend of the game’: Rugby league great John Sattler dies, aged 80

by www.abc.net.au Leave a Comment

The rugby league community is paying tribute to South Sydney’s four-time premiership captain John Sattler, who has died. He was aged 80.

Key points:

  • Sattler captained the Rabbitohs to four premierships between 1967 and 1971
  • He played much of the 1970 grand final with a broken jaw
  • Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among those to pay their respects to Sattler

Sattler is regarded as one of the greats of the game, having famously led the Rabbitohs to victory in the 1970 grand final against Manly after suffering a broken jaw during the opening stages of the match.

He captained the Rabbitohs to four premierships between 1967 and 1971.

Sattler played four Tests for Australia and represented both New South Wales and Queensland at the interstate level.

He was named as one of Australia’s greatest 100 players in 2008, the same year he was inducted as a member of the NRL Hall of Fame.

His son Scott — a premiership-winning rugby league player in his own right — revealed in June 2021 that his father had been battling dementia since early 2020.

“If anyone is to epitomise the true spirit of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, it is John Sattler,” South Sydney chair Nicholas Pappas said in a statement.

“He bled red and green. He would do anything for his teammates. He never took a backwards step. He always led from the front.”

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Mr Pappas said Sattler was adored by Rabbitohs teammates and fans.

“He was loved by everyone connected with the Rabbitohs, whether it be one of his former teammates who he led to premiership glory or the man in the street who loved South Sydney just as much as he did,” he said.

“He was tough and brave but fair, uncompromising on the field and empathetic off it, and he truly epitomised everything that we want the Rabbitohs to be.

“His favourite saying was ‘I play to win — everyone knows that’. There is nothing more ‘South Sydney Rabbitohs’ than that.

“He always held the Rabbitohs dear to his heart and everyone here at the Rabbitohs always held ‘Satts’ dear to ours.

“Our deepest and most sincere condolences go out to his son Scott and the entire Sattler family, his former teammates, and all of his friends that he has touched over the years.

“Rest in peace, ‘Satts’.”

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is a lifelong Rabbitohs supporter, said watching Sattler play was a “privilege”.

“John Sattler was a legendary player who was tough on the field but a true gentleman off it,” he tweeted.

‘A legend of the game’

Australian Rugby League Commission chair Peter V’landys said Sattler would be remembered as one of the game’s toughest players.

“John was a legend of the game,” Mr V’landys said in a statement.

“The tales of his toughness were quite extraordinary, but they were also at odds with his nature off the field. He was a true gentleman.

“Those traits made him such a remarkable and celebrated leader. He captained his club South Sydney as well as his country on three occasions.”

Sattler – who played 197 matches for the Rabbitohs between 1963 and 1972 — will long be remembered for his courageous performance in the 1970 grand final.

Rival Manly forward John Bucknall punched Sattler and broke his jaw early in the match, but the Rabbitohs prop played through the injury and helped secure a famous 23-12 victory.

A photograph of Sattler with his bloodied jaw on his teammates’ shoulders has become one of rugby league’s most iconic images.

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After being punched by Bucknall, Sattler’s response was to ask teammates to hold him up so it was not obvious he was hurt.

“He tried to say something to me, but all I saw was a basement of four teeth, and you just knew that he had broken his jaw,” Rabbitohs teammate Bob McCarthy recalled in 2018.

“He was talking too, so it must have been killing, and he was getting smacked after as well.

“He was a tough man, that Johnny Sattler.”

A product of the Newcastle region, Sattler knocked back several contracts in Sydney before agreeing to join the Rabbitohs — the club his father supported — in 1963.

He stayed there until he retired from the NSWRL in 1972 and continued to have a close bond with the Rabbitohs until his death.

The Rabbitohs will pay tribute to Sattler in Saturday night’s NRL match against the Sea Eagles at Stadium Australia.

ABC/AAP

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These new fangled money traps can hurt millennials and their finances

by economictimes.indiatimes.com Leave a Comment

Synopsis

Like any generation before them, millennials and Gen Z also remain vulnerable to money traps. Only, the temptations now come in different shapes.

Older generations have made their fair share of financial mistakes . Signing up for costly traditional policies on the advice of the friendly neighbourhood insurance agent, buying a dubious land parcel in some far-flung village for its long term payoff or simply putting away a chunk of life savings in high-yield deposits of some obscure co-operative bank. Most households will recount such sordid tales. Like any generation before them, millennials and Gen Z also remain vulnerable to money traps. Only, the temptations now come in different shapes.

The explosion of social media and lastmile internet connectivity has opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities for you to lose your shirt. Multiple apps are jostling for space on your smartphone, offering you an open tap of instant loans. Fintech platforms are intent on reshaping your investing habits by gamifying your experience. Shopping online now comes with enticing options for buying goodies without worrying about paying for the stuff. Your YouTube or Twitter feed today is bombarded with content put up by affable financial influencers serving you all manner of money advice. Online stock tipsters and day trading gurus run amok, promising quick riches from trading options. Some of these appear harmless and even rewarding but are silently leading your finances astray.In this week’s cover story, we lay bare the pitfalls of getting swept up in this mela of new-fangled baits and seductions.

The Instagram lifestyle

Gen Z views the world through the impressionable lens of social media. In the pursuit of likes and followers, many feel compelled to project a certain lifestyle via these platforms. Others try to ape their favourite influencers, which has fuelled materialist desires that are often at odds with income profiles. Harsh Roongta, Founder, Fee Only Investment Advisers, remarks, “On social media everyone seems to be leading glamorous lives, fanning aspirations for others.”People who have just started working want to live life to the fullest. To bridge this gap in cash flow, fintech apps have made available easy credit of small ticket-sizes. Credit card debt is passe. Gen Z is bingeing on payday or early salary loans. Borrowing on peer-to-peer lending platforms is catching on.

Easy loan apps attract those with no credit history
The relaxed eligibility requirements make it easier for first-time borrowers.
% of new-to-credit customers

‘Buy now, pay later’ schemes and its variants—‘travel now, pay later’ and even ‘marry now, pay later’—are also big draws. The appeal of these newer credit alternatives is clear. You get quick access to credit with diluted eligibility requirements. A few taps on the phone is all it takes to avail this facility. Experian India estimates that digital lending is likely to surpass traditional lending by 2030. For young adults, this provides an easy work-around for their temporary cash crunch. It allows them to meet their lifestyle expenses—a weekend getaway with friends, a birthday gift for a special someone or dinner at an upscale restaurant. The problem occurs when borrowers get addicted to this on-tap credit. When the first loan is paid off, it often sets off a cycle of borrowing increasingly higher amounts.

Gen Z and millennials are tapping into digital loans
Fintech platforms are a big draw among the younger generation.
% of customers aged 35 years or below

Santosh Joseph, Founder and CEO, Germinate Investor Services, observes, “Borrowing money has become super easy. Individuals start with smaller amounts initially and get sucked into a vortex of piling debt.” But the loans aren’t cheap. They come with usurious interest rates, often much higher than even a credit card. Some digital lending apps surreptitiously hide onerous repayment terms that demand you to pay up much earlier than initially promised. Sooner or later, the borrower falls into a debt trap. If one can’t repay the entire amount, one is asking for trouble. Heavy penalties are levied on top of the dues. Fintech lenders let loose an army of recovery agents if dues remain unpaid. There have been numerous reports of harassment involving shaming and blackmail. Prableen Bajpai, Founder, FinFix Research and Analytics, laments, “Our tendency to seek instant gratification is often used against us.”

BNPL loans are not just bite-sized
Three of 10 loans are for over Rs.20,000, which shows consumers are borrowing for high-value items.

The loan apps you install on your phone are often themselves potentially dangerous. With just one tap, you allow them access to everything on it—your contacts, images and videos. Armed with this access, the same apps can later be used by the lender to harass you into repaying dues. The stored data can also be misused in other ways. While the government has recently blocked several shady digital lending apps and issued operating guidelines for fintech lenders, it remains a hazardous arena. Users must exercise utmost caution.

Gamification of investing
Back in 2015, the Indian Trading League burst onto the scene—a competitive trading arena started by Samco Ventures that encouraged real-time trading with real money in a gaming environment. Many other players sprang up soon after. The regulator later banned such formats. But online fantasy stock gaming apps continue to flourish even today, offering the same experience in a virtual setting. These don’t deal with real money. Yet even stock trading leagues operating within virtual setups can foster risky trading behaviour in the real world, points out Suresh Sadagopan, Founder, Ladder 7 Financial Advisories. For instance, a winning streak in a controlled environment may lull a novice investor into a false sense of complacency trading with real money. Further, several platforms have introduced smart tools and features that have changed the way users engage with them.

These essentially stimulate investors by subtly gamifying trading activity. This takes different forms such as points, badges, leaderboards or cash vouchers. These may appear harmless, but they are clever nudges designed to influence your trading habits, contends Joseph. In its latest biennial Investor Trust Study, the CFA Institute surveyed more than 3,500 retail investors and found that a startling 92% of investors aged 25-34 years trust digital nudges. A whopping 75% of those in this age bracket also reported that the use of tools in apps increased their frequency of trading. Clearly, these nudges are inducing the desired effect. Users are being pulled back frequently to the trading screen. Needless to say, increased trading activity based on such triggers can hurt you in the long run.

Millennials are more likely to trust digital ‘nudges’
Younger users readily engage with different in-app tools and features.
% of respondents trusting digital nudges

Juzer Gabajiwala, Director, Ventura Securities, rues, “Eventually, investors drop out completely if they have a bad experience after trading aggressively.” To be sure, not all nudges are unhealthy. Some even encourage good money habits. Bengaluru-based investment app Fello offers gaming tokens for every rupee invested by a user. These tokens can be used to play in-house games and win prizes. The country’s leading brokerage firm Zerodha went against the herd and introduced nudges that warn users of risks associated with trading in a particular set of stocks—illiquid stocks, penny stocks, manipulated stocks, among others. It also introduced a ‘kill switch’—a feature that lets traders voluntarily lock themselves out of the trading app instantly, preventing them from executing trades for a set period. Discount broker Samco has introduced a new feature on its platform which lets users know the return they are earning versus the index, and take remedial measures if lagging. The intent is to show investors the reality of their investing outcomes and nudge them towards aiming to beat the index. It will even go as far as to suggest the chronic laggards stop active trading and instead invest with an index fund or professional fund manager.

Access to tools increases trading frequency
Higher engagement with apps spurs heightened activity, which can be harmful.
Respondents admitting increased trading activity

Yet, even positive nudges such as these may not work if they are not aligned with the investors’ risk profile and goals. For instance, it is entirely possible that some users may take actions detrimental to their long term interest by frequently glancing at their scorecard. One of the cardinal rules of investment is that the less you trade, the better you do.

Gamification gimmicks used by portals
Users are lured by the competitive spirit and rewards on offer

Cult of financial influencers
A new breed of celebrities have captivated viewers on social media in recent years. The immense pull of financial influencers among savers and investors is perhaps the biggest culture-shift amid the postpandemic era. Embraced by masses drowning in financial insecurities and riding on the wings given by social media platforms, these individuals have quickly achieved cult following by dishing out advice on matters related to money. According to the World Economic Forum, Gen Z is almost five times more likely to seek financial advice on social media than adults above 40 years. Roongta avers, “Earlier, the circle for financial advice was very small. Now, advice comes readily from every corner.” The problem is some of these so-called influencers are hawking dubious advice.

Sadagopan warns, “Many of these influencers pose as experts without having the requisite qualifications or experience in the areas they advise. Often, the advice tends to be incorrect and not in context.” They tap into the viewers’ proclivity for instant remedies and their incapacity to do their own research. M. Pattabiraman, Associate Professor at IIT Madras, observes on freefincal.com, “The biggest problem is, most readers or viewers are lazy. They want quick-fix solutions. They want to know which is the “best demat account” or the “best way to get better returns than a fixed deposit”. When such people meet influencer content it is a match made in hell.”

Viewers acting blindly on this advice may end up hurting their finances. Last year, several high-profile influencers had actively promoted the crypto platform Vauld, which later suspended operations and left investors in the lurch. These individuals had merrily hyped the safety and high return of the company’s ‘crypto fixed deposit’ offering. Many investors who lost their money to this offering admitted to having put faith in the advice of influencers. The problem is that people mistakenly equate social media views, likes and following with ability and expertise. Apart from a few exceptions, there is often little or no research behind these opinions.

Many such videos are sponsored content, where a product manufacturer pays huge sums to get the influencer to wax lyrical about its offering. Dev Ashish, Founder, StableInvestor, observes, “FinFluencers generally make money by getting eyeballs and monetizing the views of their digital profiles. Quite often, they promote sponsored content and push investment products via loose talk that has no regard for viewers’ suitability for the product.” Do not trust financial influencers blindly. Sure, there are a few who do come out with well-researched, useful nuggets of wisdom. But these are exceptions. You should be suspicious of any content that uses catchy clickbait phrases like “make 3x return” or “how to get rich before you turn 30”. It is always advisable to do your own research and not rely on the word of any influencer. Ashish exhorts, “The onus is on individuals themselves not to be influenced by what they hear or see online.”

More young traders are participating in F&O segment
Share of traders aged 20-30 years has more than tripled in the past three years.

Not easy to make profits in day trading
Most intra-day stock traders incur losses.

Online tipsters, day-trading stars and seminar hustlers
The social media influencers spewing financial advice have nothing on their enterprising cousins—online tipsters and day-trading tzars. Amid growing retail investor interest in futures and options trading, a number of individuals have established online personas as trading champions. These make a living peddling trading tips via Whatsapp or Telegram channels. Sadagopan remarks, “These individuals often suggest stocks where they already have positions and stand to reap benefits at the expense of their trading clients.” Just to prove their credentials, they often post (mostly fake) P&L screenshots online showing fat trading profits.

Some even post snaps of their lavish lifestyle, ostensibly funded by their trading exploits. However, this is usually a smokescreen to tempt people into signing up for paid recommendations or enlisting for their expensive options workshops. One such social media finfluencer Vikram Prabhu got exposed when he posted a supposed P&L screenshot of his F&O activity on Twitter. The subterfuge only came to light as his P&L showed the Bank Nifty quantity at 1,000, when the maximum limit for this basket is 900. His tweet even boasted how this trade alone had covered the cost of his Maldives trip. Last week, the NSE warned the public of a person named Pankaj Sonu associated with entity named “Trading Master” collecting funds from public for trading in securities market and providing assured returns on investment.

Four YouTube channels were found indulging in pump and dump
These channels spread fake and misleading information about two penny stocks, Sharpline Broadcast and Sadhna Broadcast .

He was also offering to handle the trading accounts of individuals by asking for their user ID and password! Sebi recently uncovered a ‘pump and dump’ scam in two penny stocks perpetrated by creating hype via YouTube channels along with social media influencers. Yet, unsuspecting investors keep falling for such baits hook, line and sinker. The endless greed and get-rich-quick aspirations of investors keeps drawing in many like moths to a flame. Bajpai cautions, “Indulging in ways to make quick money can be detrimental to one’s financial journey. There are no short cuts. If one feels that he or she has found one, there is a high chance that they will never reach their goals.”

Experts warn that F&O trading is much more complex than what these influencers will have you believe. Many of these options stars do not give their audience the full picture of the risks involved. Simply having the ability to interpret various patterns on charts will not give you an edge. It involves a longer learning curve. A recent Sebi study paper revealed that nine out of 10 individual retail traders are incurring losses in the F&O segment. So don’t get carried away by the lavish lifestyles or success stories of so-called trading gurus. Gabajiwala asserts, “Remember that social media only amplifies success stories and hides failures.” Avoid workshops that promise to turn you into a trading whiz kid in two days. Enrol for training only with reputed institutions, be realistic in your expectations and understand your risk tolerance limits before dabbling in this space.

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Footballers who became porn stars – like ex-Prem ace who is now ‘Britain’s highest paid’

by www.dailystar.co.uk Leave a Comment

From getting their kit on, to getting their kit off.

Besides scoring regularly, there aren’t too many similarities between the career of a footballer and a porn star.

But there are a select few who can boast having done both during their wild and unique lives – including Britain’s highest paid porn star and a man who left football behind in his mid-20s.

Here Daily Star Sport takes a look at the three former players who have swapped football for the adult film industry, and their tales of life on screen – as well as making friends with Hollywood A-listers.

READ MORE: Adult actress mistaken for Paige VanZant says she’d play ex-UFC star in porno

Danny Mountain

A promising prospect at Southampton, Danny Mountain looked destined for big things in the game as he spurned the advances of Chelsea, West Ham and Tottenham, only for a knee injury to end his Premier League dreams at 16.

But things haven’t turned out too badly for the carpenter turned adult film star, who made the switch to porn at the age of 19 after meeting figures from the industry whilst in a relationship with a Page Three girl.

As he recalled to The Sun : “I was dating a Page Three girl. Her agent wanted her to get into porn. She wasn’t keen but he gave her the details of an audition in London and I went along.”

Mountain admitted he was more nervous about talking on camera then he was actually acting in the film, though that was probably nothing compared to telling his dear Mum of his new career move.

“When I told my mum she was a bit shocked,” he said. “She had the same mentality as a lot of people – she thought it was going to be sleazy. But we had a serious talk about it and after a few months she didn’t worry at all.

“She was worried that I was OK because I was only 19 but I was having a great time and flying all round the world and she realised how happy I was. My dad’s a big kid. When I told him he was like, ‘Go on my son!’.”

Mountain’s career has gone so well he soon became Britain’s highest paid porn star. Along the way he even married two of his fellow performers, Mia Malkova and Eva Angelina.

Now living in LA, he rubs shoulders with the likes of actor Jason Statham as they both play for Vinnie Jones’ Hollywood Allstars football team and regularly go to barbecues round the ex-Wimbledon star’s house.

Damian Oliver

Once on the books of Crystal Palace, Damian Oliver’s path changed course dramatically.

Following a brief spell in prison, painter and decorator Oliver swapped life as a tradesman for a career on camera, though soon realised it wasn’t as easy as just turning up and playing.

“That was terrifying, being on my first set, the camera guy there was a big bald Irishman, he was quite scary – I’ve got to get my d**k out in front of him and start f***ing, It was like laminate flooring, and I was butt-naked and sweating, and I was slipping in my own sweat,” he said.

“We had to keep cutting, I had her bent over the sofa but I kept slipping all across the floor, they had to keep wiping the floor down, I was just a dripping mess.”

Oliver claims he was a popular man with the ladies, as friends commented he was “doing it all anyway” so he “might as well get paid for it”. Though he concedes he would have earned more had he fulfilled his Premier League ambitions – or even as a boxer – and feels the job is not all it’s made out to be.

“I was good at both of those things, but being a porn star, I thought that would be just as good. But it’s not as good as people think.”

He now dates fellow porn star Sophie Anderson, who call themselves ‘The F***ing Explorers’.

Davide Iovinella

Whilst turning your back on football as an academy starlet is one thing, doing so when you’ve already made the grade is quite another.

But that’s just what Davide Iovinella did when he called time on his playing career aged 24 when plying his trade for Serie D outfit ASD Caldio Pomigliano.

After realising he could make more money elsewhere, Ivovinella applied for an audition to be in an adult film directed by Rocco Siffredi – and was one of 3,000 people chosen.

Using his new stage name, Davide Montana, he joined Siffredi’s Academy in Budapest as his new career took off, although he did look for a new football team to play for in his spare time.

Asked about his new career in porn, Montana did admit: “It’s not like being in bed with your partner, so you have to work hard and be stable.”

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