James Harrison, right, in action for the Pittsburgh Steelers above, threatened to retire briefly earlier in the season.
James Harrison, right, in action for the Pittsburgh Steelers above, threatened to retire briefly earlier in the season.

Sport

Harrison vows to keep on hitting for Steelers

The Pittsburgh player is disappointed at NFL's attempts to eradicate violent tackling but has no plans to change his style of play.

Associated Press

February 04, 2011

James Harrison, the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, said the NFL's efforts to curtail hard hits is just "a show" - and he believes the league's stance on other issues proves it.

Harrison, who was fined US$100,000 (Dh367,000) for illegal hits this season, said the owners' push to extend the regular season from 16 to 18 games and the possibility of a lockout prove the NFL is more interested in maximising revenue than the health of its players.

"It's not about player safety," Harrison said. "It's about them making money."

Harrison briefly went so far as to threaten to retire because he said it was too difficult to adjust to the new way rules were being enforced.

"It was a hotheaded decision," he said. "You can sit back and look at it for what it was. And when I sat back, there are some things you can't control and everything happens for a reason.

Harrison said he feels as if the league was "looking for a poster boy" when it started fining him.

Harrison said: "I don't want to hurt nobody. I don't want to step on nobody's foot or hurt their toe.

"I don't want to have no dirt or none of this rubber on this field fly into their eye and make their eye hurt.

"I just want to tackle them softly on the ground and, if [we] can, we'll lay a pillow down where I'm going to tackle them, so they don't hit the ground too hard."

Asked whether he is worried about the dangers of concussions from violent hits on the field, he was defiant, as expected.

"My style of play is how you're supposed to play the game," he said.

"It's no more dangerous for me than it is for anybody else. That's part of the risk you take. There's risks with everything you do. You've just got to try and minimise the risk and if something happens, it happens."

There have been suggestions the league might be trying to eliminate the violent hits Harrison has become known for, but he said: "If you want to get it totally out of the game, put flags on us.

"We'll tag off and pull flags off each other and we'll see how popular the game is then and how many people come to watch it."

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”