Nola Ojomu

Brittney Griner remains in custody in Russia, with the country’s state-owned media releasing new images of the WNBA star.

News broke over the weekend that Griner, a seven-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medallist, was arrested in February after customs officials allegedly detected hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow.

Amid growing concern for her wellbeing and continued calls for her release, Russian state TV broadcast a photograph of the out athlete in custody holding up a piece of paper.

The image, which was released on Tuesday (8 March), was too blurred to be able to make out what was written on the paper.

The Russian Federal Customs Services released a statement claiming that officials detained Brittney Griner in February for possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil.

It also released a video that showed airport security workers searching the luggage of a passenger, who was later identified as Griner.

The customs service said a criminal case has been opened, and Griner could face up to 10 years in a Russian prison if convicted.

Brittney Griner had been playing for the Moscow team UMMC Ekaterinburg and was reportedly earning $1.5 million (£1.1 million) for the off-season – six times her WNBA salary with the Phoenix Mercury.

The exact date of her arrest remains unclear and it is still unknown where the star is now.

Concern for the sports star continues to grow as she remains detained, with a former Pentagon official telling Yahoo Sports she feared Putin could use the LGBT+ icon as a “high profile hostage” during the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“If we want her out of jail, Russia is going to have some terms,” said Evelyn Farkas, who served as the US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia and Ukraine from 2012 to 2015. “It could be a prisoner swap. They also could use it as an implicit threat or blackmail to get us to do something or not do something. Either way, they find it useful.”

Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is among those calling for Griner’s swift release.

“We know that there were some issues dealing with vape cartridges and other items but let me be very clear,” said Lee, who represents Griner’s hometown of Houston, Texas, in the House of Representatives. “Brittney Griner is a United States citizen, she was a guest in Russia … and I will be demanding her release.”

Lee added that Russia’s actions in Ukraine undermined its authority, saying: “I don’t want to disregard a sovereign nation but Putin has disregarded sovereign nations his entire service in this world.

“Anyone that is killing and attacking and destroying Ukraine, a neighbouring country that is not bothering them, has no right to hold Ms Griner. Period.”

According to the Associated Press, Griner has played professional basketball in Russia for the last seven years.

She played for her Russian team the UMMC Ekaterinburg on 29 January before the league had a two-week break in early February.

Over a dozen WNBA players have played in Russia and Ukraine this winter, and the WNBA confirmed that all players besides Griner had left both countries.

News of Brittney Griner’s detainment comes as the US placed sanctions on Russia after Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine last month.

The National Football League (NFL) has filed to dismiss former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit regarding the leak of his homophobic, misogynistic and racist emails.

In bombshell revelations published last October, The New York Times reported Gruden had used offensive language in numerous emails between 2011 and 2018.

In one of them, Gruden called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a “f****t” and “clueless anti-football p***y”.

He also criticised Goodell for supposedly pressuring the St Louis Rams – which drafted openly gay player Michael Sam in 2014 – to hire “queers”.

Jon Gruden was working as an ESPN commentator at the time before rejoining the Raiders on a 10-year deal in 2018. He had previously worked as coach of the Raiders, who were located in Oakland at the time, from 1998 to 2001.

A new filing in Nevada state court saw the NFL argue that Gruden’s lawsuit shouldn’t go to court because they claimed to have evidence that the disgraced coach sent messages featuring hate-filled language to at least six people.

It had previously been reported that offensive language had only been used in the messages sent to former Washington Football Team president Bruce Allen.

The NFL’s legal team suggested that league commissioner Roger Goodell would have unilaterally fired Gruden due to the messages if the former coach hadn’t resigned.

A hearing will be held on the motions filed by the NFL and Jon Gruden on 23 February.

According to The Athletic, the filing read: “Jon Gruden sent a variety of similarly abhorrent emails to a half dozen recipients over a seven-year period, in which he denounced ‘the emergence of women as referees’ and frequently used homophobic and sexist slurs to refer to commissioner Goodell, then-vice president Joseph Biden, a gay professional football player drafted in 2014, and others.”

Gruden has apologised for his emails, saying he “never meant to hurt anyone”. He also claimed that he is “not a racist” and apologised for his “insensitive remarks”.

However, Gruden filed to sue the league in November and claimed that the emails were leaked in order to hurt him because of offensive things he had written about Goodell.

The NFL fought back again this claim in their filing as they wrote: “This action – brought by Jon Gruden to blame anyone but himself for the fallout from the publication of racist, homophobic and misogynistic emails that he wrote and broadly circulated – belongs in arbitration under the clear terms of Gruden’s employment contract and the NFL’s constitution and bylaws to which Gruden is bound.”

The Raiders currently employ the only active openly gay NFL player, Carl Nassib, who came out publicly in 2021.