Carney

Sir Kenny Dalglish and Karen Carney have been named the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Merit Award winners for 2026.

The award honours individuals who have made a lasting contribution to football.

The PFA Awards ceremony will be held in Manchester on Tuesday evening, where the men’s and women’s players’ player of the year winners will be announced.

Dalglish enjoyed a prolific career as both player and manager, becoming Scotland’s most-capped men’s international with 102 appearances and matching Denis Law’s national team record of 30 goals.

At club level, he began with a trophy-laden spell at Celtic before moving to Liverpool for a British record fee in 1977 and becoming an integral part of the club’s golden era.

Over the next 14 years, Dalglish won eight First Division titles and three European Cups across 515 appearances for Liverpool and was runner-up for the Ballon d’Or in 1983. Appointed player-manager in 1985, he guided the club to three league titles and two FA Cups – including the double in 1985-86 – before retiring from playing in 1990.

After resigning as Liverpool’s manager in February 1991, Dalglish led Blackburn to the Premier League title in 1995 and had stints with Celtic, Newcastle and Liverpool again, where he won the 2012 League Cup.

Off the field, Dalglish remains a significant figure in Merseyside. He led the club through the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, earning praise for his support of the bereaved families, and has raised millions of pounds to support cancer care and treatment through the Marina Dalglish Appeal, set up in 2005 following his wife’s treatment for breast cancer.

Dalglish, 75, announced in June 2026 that he is undergoing treatment for cancer.

Former England attacking midfielder Carney was a member of the Arsenal side that completed a historic quadruple in 2006-07, winning the league, FA Cup, League Cup and Uefa Women’s Cup, the forerunner to the Women’s Champions League.

She spent two seasons with Chicago Red Stars before returning in 2011 to home club Birmingham City, where she had started her career. Carney scored an extra-time equaliser as Birmingham won the FA Cup the following season.

Moving to Chelsea in late 2015, Carney won the WSL and FA Cup double in 2017-18 and later served as club captain before ending her playing career in 2019.

On the international stage, Carney made her England debut as a 17-year-old in 2005. She went on to score 32 goals in 144 appearances for the Lionesses and helped England finish third at the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

That was one of eight major tournaments for Carney with England, while she also represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics.

Since retiring, Carney, 39, has built a career as a broadcaster and analyst and was appointed by the UK Government to chair an independent review, published in 2023, into the future of domestic women’s football.

FIFA’s President Gianni Infantino gets the support of executive members at an emergency meeting in Morocco after his failed plan to sell a stake in the World Cup. But, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose country co-hosted this year’s event, says he’s lost faith in Infantino.

PARIS — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney became a symbol of middle power resistance after a celebrated speech earlier this year, but he is expected to be more muted in his criticism of President Trump at an upcoming summit in Europe.

Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, helped make him an international political star in January, when he declared the global rules-based order over and condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks and upstaged Trump at the gathering.

But the G7 summit of industrialized democracies that begins Monday in France comes ahead of the scheduled July 1 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the latest iteration of the North American free-trade pact that has intertwined the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada since the early 1990s. It is a crucial moment in trade talks, and Trump said this week that he may not renew the deal.

More than 70% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S., so preserving the accord is critical for Canada.

Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said Trump is more of a problem for Carney “than anybody else because we are more exposed to the United States than anybody else.”

Trump leaves for the G7 summit right after he hosts UFC fights at the White House on Sunday for his 80th birthday.

The summit will unfold as tensions are ramping up between Trump and Canada. One of the world’s most durable and amicable alliances — born of geography, heritage and centuries of common interests — is broken, as seen in several recent examples of tension between leaders.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, had a reception with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington canceled Monday at the last minute. Vic Fedeli, one of Ford’s ministers, said if Trump forced the chamber to cancel, “Ford should be wearing that as a badge of honor.”

Trump said again this week that the U.S. doesn’t need anything that Canada has. Carney has set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, saying Trump’s trade war is causing a chill in investment.

In other developments, the opening of a major Canadian bridge across the Detroit River that Trump previously threatened to block was delayed Thursday due to unresolved issues.

Trump’s actions, including launching a trade war and suggesting Canada become the 51st U.S. state, have infuriated Canadians and created the political environment for Carney to win the job of prime minister after promising to confront Trump.

Trump administration officials keep noting that only two countries, China and Canada, retaliated against America in the trade war. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says Canada’s retaliatory measures are a major issue in talks.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said Carney seems to have moderated his tone toward the Trump administration to avoid worsening relations.

“There is a clear tension between what Prime Minister Carney said in his Davos speech about middle powers standing up to hegemons and his attempt to nudge the U.S. administration ‘in the right direction’ with regard to the USMCA review and trade policy more generally,” Béland said.

Carney has downplayed Trump’s most recent comments about Canada becoming the 51st state.

Canada and Mexico want the USMCA to be renewed for another 16 years. Trump has mused about withdrawing from it. More likely it will be subject to annual reviews for the next 10 years.

Carney arrived in Paris on Friday morning and will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in the evening, a few days before the summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.

The prime minister will also travel to Ireland this weekend to meet with the Irish prime minister in a bid to diversify trade away from the U.S.

This is Carney’s ninth trip to Europe in the 15 months since he became prime minister in March 2025.

The U.S. “will clearly remain Canada’s largest trading partner for the predictable future,” Béland said, calling it an inescapable reality that Carney “must keep front of mind even as he seeks to make Canada somewhat less dependent on trade with the U.S.”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.

TORONTO — A new Canadian-built bridge across the Detroit River that U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to block will open soon, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Gordie Howe International Bridge, jointly owned by Canada and the U.S. state of Michigan, is set to take place on Friday, while the bridge itself is expected to open to traffic later this month.

In February, Trump demanded that Canada turn over at least half the ownership of the bridge to the U.S. federal government and agree to other unspecified demands in one of his many salvos over cross-border trade issues.

The bridge, which would connect Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, and would be a vital economic artery between Canada and the United States, had been expected to open early this year, according to information on the project’s website.

The bridge is named after Howe, the late Canadian hockey great who spent 25 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings.

The project was negotiated by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder — a Republican — and paid for by the Canadian government to help ease congestion over the existing Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor tunnel. Work has been underway since 2018.

“Obviously the bridge will be open at the end of the week. A symbol of, but also a fact of cooperation between our countries,” Carney told reporters as he walked into Parliament.

“Great for Canadians going across the border, Americans coming across the border, and for commerce,” he said, calling it “positive news.”

Trump threatened the bridge as the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement is up for review this year, and Trump has been taking a hard-line position before those talks, including by issuing new tariff threats.

Carney, meanwhile, has spoken out on the world stage against economic coercion by the United States.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, has said that the Canadian-funded project is a “huge boon” to her state and its economic future.

Michigan is a swing state that Trump carried in both 2016 and 2024.

Snyder wrote in an op-ed in The Detroit News earlier this year that Trump was wrong in asserting that Canada owns both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the Gordie Howe bridge.

“Canada and the state of Michigan are 50/50 owners of the new bridge,” Snyder wrote. “Canada was wonderful and financed the entire bridge. They will get repaid with interest from the tolls. Michigan and the United States got their half-ownership with no investment.”

The Gordie Howe bridge will join the privately owned Ambassador Bridge as the second span connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

The rival Ambassador Bridge is considered the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.

Companies controlled by the Moroun family, owners of the rival Ambassador Bridge, previously sued to prevent the Howe bridge from being built.

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.