Sports Category
Sports news, commentary and scores with wit and added value. We compare and contrast the best and worst sports reporting in the mainstream press, blogs, TV and online. We love the English Premier League (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Manchester City) and all things football but we cover cricket, rugby, the Olympics, tennis, golf, F1 and highlights of the sporting year.
Transfer Balls: Higuain spotted at Arsenal and sharks off the Dorset coast
The Guardian wonders if the Napoli and Argentina striker is heading to Chelsea for £30m. The Metro says he’s off to Arsenal for £42m. The Star says Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool all want Gonzalo Higuain.
And we go back to the Sun’s 2013 scoop that Higuain was a Gunner:
Higuain never did sign.
But maybe this this year he will. Maybe.
Transfer Balls: Paul Pogba wants to join Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea
Transfer Balls looks at Paul Pogba in today’s papers. What news of the former Manchester United player now with Juventus?
The Mirror says “The Juventus ace…is understood to favour a move to the Nou Camp”.
Paul Pogba is ready to reject a summer switch to Manchester City to join Barcelona instead.
Or as the Manchester Evening News puts it:
Manchester City are confident they can beat Europe’s biggest clubs to their top transfer targets like Paul Pogba and Raheem Sterling….
Read the rest of this entry »
Liverpool Balls: Brendan Rodgers given one season to finish his sentence
Liverpool fans will get at least one more season of Brendan Rodgers, a man whose ability to smug it out is unrivalled.
After a meeting with Liverpool chariman Tom Werner and owners’ representative Fenway Sports Group (FSG) President Michael Gordon, Liverpool have agreed on a “comprehensive plan for improvement”. The meeting was “positive and progressive”.
Details are thin.
What will change?
The talk is that James Milner, Danny Ings, Christian Benteke and Nathaniel Clyne could be arriving at Anfield in the near future. The Times says 29-year-old Milner has agreed terms with Liverpool after rejecting a more generous contract offer to remain on Manchester City’s bench. The paper adds that Liverpool are in the hunt for a new goalkeeper.
That would be five new players Rodgers would have to mould into the team in quick time. Given the £110million-worth of new signings bought last summer, the squad is not being short-changed in the club’s quest to move on from last season’s post-Luis Suarez mediocrity, when they were most notably out-thought by Aston Villa and Stoke City and the momentum of that 2013/14 season title-surge was lost.
Rodgers could once rely on Luis Suarez’s brilliance and flashes of inspiration to mask any lack of tactical nous. Last season, the plan seemed to be for Raheem Sterling or Philippe Coutinho to do the same. When they failed Liverpool looked tame, witless and disorganised.
New players bought in by the club’s data and value-driven transfer committee failed to gel. Rodgers remained verbose, talking and talking a good game, continuing to make baffling selections and fussing over details.
One thing Liverpool can move on is to colour-in the grey areas between ownership and management. The club’s structure seems messy.
What is expected of Rodgers? Obviously, Champions’ League qualification and a cup are the targets, but if Rodgers’ Liverpool fails to deliver one or both will be be sacked?
It would be useful to know how Rodgers is being measured and what part FSG consider they’ve played in the club’s slide from the Premier League’s top four.
Everton’s Romelu Lukaku hankers for Chelsea in a craven display of ‘me’
Everton’s Romelu Lukaku is the latest player to spit out the craven opinion that “I need to be winning trophies”. Everton’s 22-year-old striker and top scorer added:
“I want to grab titles, not be watching them won from the shadows. I want to know what it’s like to play in the big matches. I am 22 years, it’s time to win something.”
You can hear traces of Raheem Sterling in Lukaku’s opinion. Like the Liverpool player, Lukaku says he’s been played out of position.
“At one point I went to the coach and I said to him: ‘With all due respect, when I’m played as a winger I’m hopeless. I will only score goals if you put me up front.’ That was true. The games that I did not score, I was on the flank. When I played up through the middle, I scored.”
Like Sterling, Lukaku says its not about the money. He’s Everton’s most expensive player. In the pecking order of ability-ranked-by-paypacket, Lukaku is the best at Goodison Park. And like Sterling, the Belgian says he wants to win things. It would a hard task to find a player not on the books of a Malaysian bettering syndicate who doesn’t want to win. Saying you deserve tophies suggests you are only intersted in what the club can do for you. You look like a self-aggrandizing mercenary.
Lukaku then further charmed Everton fans by saying how he loves his former club Cheslea:
“I will always be a fan of that club. Just because I left under the wrong circumstances, that feeling does not disappear. People will ask why, if that is the case, I left? But a footballer wants to play.”
Now that Didier Drogba has left Chelsea, could Lukaku return to play for them?
“After they won the title I sent a message Eden Hazard, just like I do every game when he scores or gives an assist. I knew what they were capable of this season. When they took Fabregas and Diego Costa, I knew right away: ‘My God, this is going to create sparks’… Right from the start, even in the friendly match against Vitesse Arnhem and the difficult games against teams like Burnley who were fighting relegation, Chelsea played totally different than the season before.
“That was the true stuff of champions. I want to play football and that is the football that you have to play.”
Champions win trophies. Chelsea win trophies – they won two last season. Everton won none. The inference is not that Lukaku failed to press Everton on to bigger things, rather that Everton let the player down.
What a pathetic abdication of the team ethic. It sounds a lot like Lukaku is agitating for a move. But any team keen on him would be wary of taking on a player who seems to be playing for himself.
Transfer Balls: David De Gea’s girlfriend is handling Real Madrid’s transfers in The Metro
Transfer Balls: Stella work in The Metro. In a story headline “Manchester United stopper David de Gea is in Madrid to complete transfer to Real Madrid”,
George Bellshaw writes an early contener for our Golden Turd award for football reporting:
Manchester United stopper David de Gea is in the Spanish capital to reportedly complete his transfer to Real Madrid.
He adds:
The Spaniard is hoping that the two clubs can agree a fee so that he can negotiate his move back to Spain, according to ABC.
We looked at Spanish newspaper ABC’s website. (Unless he’s talking about ABC (USA) or ABC (Aus)? He never says.) We found no word from De Gea expressing his hope for a move to Spain, nor any word of his being in Madrid to sign for Madrid.
Back at The Metro and we are told:
Of course, the keeper is from Madrid and his girlfriend lives there so he does have good reason to be there.
Of course. Either she’s Real Madrid’s chief negotiator or the story is utter balls.
Such are the facts…
Posted: 2nd, June 2015 | In: manchester united, Sports | Comment
Cat flats and a fleet of mobility scooters: what did the alleged bribe money buy FIFA?
Sepp Blatter is no longer president of Fifa. Four days after winning the vote to continue as Fifa boss, he’s resigned. He told a press conference:
“What matters to me is that when all of this is over, football is the winner”
Blatter said:
“Fifa needs a profound overhaul. While I have a mandate from the membership of Fifa, I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football – the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football as much as we all do at Fifa. Therefore, I have decided to lay down my mandate at an extraordinary elective Congress. I will continue to exercise my functions as Fifa president until that election. Fifa needs profound restructuring. The interests of Fifa are very dear to me and that is why I have taken this decision [to resign].”
Or as FA chairman Greg Dyke, the FA chairman put it:
“He has stood down. He has gone. Let’s celebrate.”
But one thing we want to know is: what did the alleged bribe money buy? As Dyke says:
“We want to know where the money has gone.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Arsenal Balls: Jack Wilshere auditions for the Daily Mail
Arsenal’s FA Cup victory parade excited the Daily Mail after Jack Wilshere stood on the gantry and swore. The Mail says Wilshere “heaped more embarrassment on Arsenal”.
The paper adds:
Young children, along with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, were present at the celebrations as Wilshere chanted: ‘What do we think of Tottenham?’ before adding: ‘And what do we think of s***?
Having laughably bracketed Wenger, 65, and toddlers in a group who must be protected from such words, we wonder when Mail readers and writers became so sensitive?
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Transfer Balls: Chelsea’s Diego Costa orders one more alcopop before returning to Atletico Madrid
Transfer Balls: The Sun reports that Diego Costa is ‘bidding’ for a ‘Chelsea exit’.
The story runs:
DIEGO COSTA has told friends he wants to QUIT Chelsea this summer and return to Spain.
Which friends we are not told.
Sources close to Costa, 26, have confirmed Chelsea’s £32million top scorer is homesick and prepared to take a massive pay cut to rejoin former club Atletico Madrid.
Read the rest of this entry »
FIFA: Jack Warner denies illegality with an article from The Onion
Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner has been accused of racketeering. He’s been arrested. Warner says he’s innocent. Warner says his arrest is rooted in the US’s failed World Cup bid.
He accuses the US of gross hypocrisy. How can the US attack FIFA when it was offered the World Cup 2015.
“The U.S. applied to hold the World Cup in 2022 and they lost the bid to Qatar — a small country, an Arabic country, a Muslim country,” says Warner. “I could understand the U.S. embarrassment… Why is it [American prosecutors] believe that they have a right to the World Cup?”
He cites a story that FIFA allowed the US to stage the 2015 World Cup:
“Summer World Cup, 2015, from the very same organization that they are accusing of being corrupt. That has to be double standards.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Transfer Balls: Real Madrid get Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling in a Spanish package deal
Transfer Balls hears the Daily Express say that Real Madrid are making a move for Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea target Raheem Sterling. The fee of £45m is mentioned.
The Express cites as its source another tabloid:
But according to The Sun, Real are keen to open talks over a potential £45m deal.
Over in the Sun we learn:
REAL MADRID will open talks over a £45million move for Raheem Sterling in the next fortnight. Liverpool’s top brass are expected to travel to Spain for a friendly between Real and Reds legends on June 14.
Read the rest of this entry »
Der Boxroboter: In 1983 East Germany’s robot boxer was going to rule the world
In 1987, Der Boxroboter was introduced to the world via Sports Illustrated:
The German Democratic Republic is very advanced in the use of scientific training methods for its athletes. Now the East Germans have beaten the world to the punch in the sport of boxing. Meet Der Boxroboter, a GDR-designed-and-built computerized robot that can hang in there with the best of fighters for hours on end. ”It’s tough to find good sparring partners, especially for heavyweights,” says Dieter Seala of the GDR trade mission, which plans to market DBs internationally for a little more than $33,000 apiece. ”Human sparring partners get tired after a few rounds. They get punched too many times and lose their consistency.”
DB is not just a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robot. It can be programmed to assume any fighting style — attack the upper body, go for the belly, back an opponent into a corner — and is allegedly quicker across the ring than any human boxer. DB is equally adept at throwing rights and lefts and has great wheels (literally).
The action begins just before 20 minutes:
Spotters: Flashbak and The Afflictor
Posted: 1st, June 2015 | In: Sports, Technology | Comment
Role models: Leicester City’s orgy stars make kids hanker for ‘minging’ Thai prostitutes
Leicester City have bought into the balls that footballers are role models tasked with teaching us to live good lives. On the matter of the bisexual orgy partaken by James Pearson, Tom Hopper and Adam Smith on the club’s tour of Thailand, Leicester City say:
“The Board of Leicester City Football Club is deeply concerned about an incident involving three of our young professionals during a recent trip to Thailand. Our players at every level are expected to behave as representatives and ambassadors for our Football Club, both on official Club duty and in their personal lives, so we treat their conduct extremely seriously.
“Following a preliminary meeting in consultation with the three players earlier today, the players involved in the incident are now returning to the UK, in advance of the rest of the squad.
“Tom Hopper, James Pearson and Adam Smith would like to convey their sincere apologies for their behaviour – to the women involved in the incident, to the Club and its owners, to the Club’s fans and to their families.”
Just not in person.
“A formal process of investigation will be undertaken with the players in conjunction with their representatives and, as such, no further comment can be made at this stage.
Leicester City remains wholly committed to promoting equality in football and in wider society and to our players recognising their responsibilities as role models to young people.”
Youngsters who had planned to become family men like for England player Phil Neville are now conflicted. The favoured greeting between Leicester’s children is now “slit-eyed minger“, replacing “negrito” and “you black ****”, terms imported from cool kids in Liverpool and Chelsea, respectively.
Tom Hopper, James Pearson and Adam Smith’s children will surely grow up with a bubble of immense pride that Leicester’s chief cultural activity of on-the-clock sex with impoverished Thai women was inspired by their fathers’ work in the field.
Unless, of course, another more powerful footballing role model says the trio are women-hating, bigotted bastards, in which case best of luck, growing up with dad, boys and girls….
Women-hating Leicester City players in homo-erotic Thai orgy (video)
Captain James – ‘my dad’s the manager’ – Pearson
In “Pemier League stars’ racist orgy shame caught on camera”, the Mirror’s Simon Wright report on “Leicester City budding stars, including boss Nigel Pearson’s son… taking part in a vile orgy in which a local girl was racially abused in Bangkok.”
Footballers. Racism. Sex. This one’s got the lot.
On a post-season tour with the Leicester City, daddy’s boy James Pearson, Tom Hopper and Adam Smith filmed “three Thai girls committing depraved sex acts with them in a hotel room”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Wojciech Szczesny is Head & Shoulders above Manchester City’s Joe Hart
Welcome competition for Manchester City’s Joe Hart in the world of anti-dandruff sponsorship arrives in the form of Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny. Until now, Hart had occupied the No.1 slot in Team Head & Shoulders. Now his place is under threat.
Maciej, Szczesny’s father, says the story of his son smoking in the changing rooms after playing a less than glorious part in Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat to Southampton is a case of wrongful substance identification.
“The media keep writing about that cigarette under the shower, but according to my knowledge, it never took place. It’s hard to deny that Wojciech’s relationship with Wenger hasn’t been great for some time. It’s not all Wojciech’s fault and I’m not saying that because I’m his father and would want to act as his advocate. Wenger shall not be counted among loyal individuals. He doesn’t always keep his promises and isn’t always honest. However, he [Wenger] claims that there is cigarette ash on his [Szczesny’s] suit jacket, whereas in fact it’s dandruff.”
Easy mistake to make, as any adolescent ever caught with dandruff all over his fingers and cuffs in the school toilets can attest.
Time to kick FIFA out and begin the ‘True World Cup’
ON the cries to boycott FIFA and its tournaments, Deutsche Welle’s Jefferson Chase is spot on.
Let’s play a game of free association. I’ll say a word, and you tell me what immediately pops to mind. The word is FIFA. So what did you think of? Bribery? Corruption? Blatter? What about “nauseating?” That’s the word that great English striker Gary Lineker used when he was asked about football’s world governing body…
Here’s Lineker making a sound case for a show of power:
…
There’s no need for any discussions, dialogue or compromises. It’s is now up to the world’s leading football nations, acting alone or with in organizations like UEFA, to sever their ties with FIFA. They should immediately begin discussions about where to hold the “True World Cup,” or whatever they want to call it, in 2018 and 2022. Can you imagine what the sponsors’ reaction would be? And how Blatter supporter Vladimir Putin would like that?
Money makes the world goes round, and that goes double for football. If there’s a serious threat that the world’s top teams might not play in the World Cup, Blatter would be forced to tender his resignation within a matter of days, and Friday’s FIFA vote would essentially become an act of institutional suicide. Which, in a better world, is what it should be.
FIFA troughs on…
Liverpool Balls: Klopp, Allardyce, McClaren and Ancelotti the flying pig challenge Rodgers
Football Balls: the intersection of media football fact and fiction spots the Sun’s story that “JURGEN KLOPP has made himself available to be next Liverpool manager”.
Has he? Klopp has left Borussia Dortmund. He’s a free agent. He’s pretty much made himself available to be manager any club.
Ken Lawrence writes:
The German, 47, has scrapped plans to take six months off after his last game as Borussia Dortmund boss in tomorrow’s German Cup final. And he has made it known he would be interested in taking over from Kop boss Brendan Rodgers at Anfield.
How did he make that interest known? The only quote the story provides is this:
“I am not tired. I haven’t had any contact with any other clubs but I am not planning a sabbatical.”
Mentions of Liverpool: none.
Lawrence then ends his story by noting:
Carlo Ancelotti is also a possibility for Liverpool after leaving Real Madrid.
Yeah, of course he is. Other managers with Premier League experience looking for work and, therefore by the Sun’s reckoning possible Liverpool head coaches, include: Steve McClaren, Sam Allardyce, Ian Holloway, Malky Mackay, Paul Lampbert, Harry Redknapp, Stuart Pearce, John Gregory, Danny Wilson and Gus Poyet.
Looking at that lot, Liverpool sticking with their current manager Brendan Rodgers doesn’t look such a bad option.
Transfer Balls: Liverpool chase Carlos Tevez who agrees Boca return as West Ham prepare bid
Transfer Balls: Good news, Liverpoool fans. The Daily Star says you’re going to be watching another former Manchester City striker in Liverpool red. Calos Tevez will be keeping Mario Balotelli company at Anfield.
Well, so the trusty Daily Star’s Marc Williams tells us in a story dated May 27:
The former Manchester United, City and West Ham star is considering his future with Juventus and, according to the Daily Express, could leave if the Italian giants win the Champions League.
The Star is quoting its sister paper. So we head across the newsroom to the Express and learn via a May 14 story:
Liverpool eye SENSATIONAL move for former Man Utd and City ace Carlos Tevez…
According to the Metro, Liverpool have made enquiries about whether Tevez would be interested in a return to the Premier League at the end of the season.
Read the rest of this entry »
Arsenal balls: Cup Final mascot won’t forget what he never saw in the Mirror
Arsenal Balls now as the Daily Mirror reports on how Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain surprised a young Arsenal supporter with amazing prize. The report tells us:
This young Arsenal fan won’t forget the Gunners’ 4-1 win over West Brom in a hurry. No, not because Theo Walcott scored a hat-trick or because Jack Wilshere scored an absolute worldie, but for another reason. Gunners supporter Malachi will remember the final day of the 2014/15 season because it was the day he learned he would be a mascot in an FA Cup final.
He sure won’t forget that West Brom match in a hurry – if he was there.
Because as Arsenal reports:
The Arsenal forward sought out the Edgware youngster in his seat at Emirates Stadium at half-time of the game against Sunderland. He then invited Malachi pitchside to reveal that he had been randomly selected from more than 34,000 Junior Gunners to be club’s mascot for the FA Cup final against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Sunderland played Arsenal before that unforgettable West Brom match.
Such are the facts in the self-styled “intelligent tabloid”.
Transfer Balls: Arsenal sign Artuto Vidal for less than half what Manchester United bought him for
Transfer Balls: Is Arturo Vidal heading to Arsenal from Juventus? It was only a yer ago the tabloids told us that Vidal had signed for Manchester United for £47m, £45m, £40m and £62m. He didn’t sign. But now he’s riding high on the news cycle all over again. And the Daily Express has the scoops:
On May 27, the Express told us: “Reports have linked Vidal with a £25m move to the Emirates this summer.”
What reports?
Well, the Daily Express told us that: “JUVENTUS have told Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United that they will have to fork out £28million to land Arturo Vidal this summer.”
So that £25m is not enough.
On May 25, there was no news in the Express – and there would no news until the Copa America had ended:
And that was deflating for Gunners fans keen on the Chilean player because a few days earlier the Express had told them that Vidal was an Arsenal player. It was a done deal.
That Express story was based on a report in the Standard, which told us:
Juventus star Arturo Vidal appears to be on the Gunners wish-list.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 28th, May 2015 | In: Arsenal, manchester united, Sports | Comment
Let’s Blame the Jews: Fifa VP says the Jews did it
Odd isn’t it that the one major power not all that bothered about football should set alight the pile of dead skin and cash that is FIFA. But better than America’s role in the story of kickbacks and major league corruption is news that we CAN blame the Jews. Whenever human error and wrongdoing exists, we wonder how long it will be before some sage head blames the Jews.
But for this episode of Jew blaming we can look back to 2011, when former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner – now under arrest for his alleged part in a “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” scheme to “acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks” – blamed Jews for his downfall.
As Reuters reported:
Warner, 68, resigned from FIFA after ethics investigations were begun into a meeting he held with Bin Hammam where FIFA say payments were made to Caribbean soccer officials ahead of the election for FIFA president in June. Qatari Bin Hammam was handed a lifetime ban by FIFA for his role in the affair while a number of Caribbean officials were given suspensions last week.
Bin Hammam was not immediately available for comment.
But Jack was, opining:
“I will talk about the Zionism, which probably is the most important reason why this acrid attack on Bin Hammam and me was mounted.”
He shoots. He scores!
First one to spot how Jews kill workers in Qatar wins.
Fifa: the buck stops with Sepp Blatter, but not literally
Sepp Blatter stands a still better chance of securing a fifth term as head of Fifa as rivals are mired. In Switzerland, seven senior Fifa officials have been arrested – including vice-presidents Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo. The FBI accuses them and seven other men of illegally milking football.
Loretta Lynch, the US attorney-general, says:
“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States. It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.”
Lesson one: if you are going to do iffy deals, don’t do them in US dollars.
The men were all staying at the luxurious five-star Baur au Lac when they were arrested. They were part of a 200-strong gathering for the Fifa Congress. Rooms at the Baur are priced at £391 for a single (and amount is known in Fifa circles as a ‘drink of water’, allegedly.)
But what says Sepp Blatter, Fifa’s head man? Does the buck stop with him, so to speak? His spokesman says Fifa is “the injured party”:
“You don’t believe me but I say it again: this for Fifa is good. It’s not good for image, not good for reputation, but in terms of cleaning up [the sport], this is good.”
As Blatter is driven up the Champs Elysées in triumph, what about those World Cups in Russia and Qatar?
“The World Cups 2018 and 2022 will be played in Russia and Qatar.”
And inside football’s rotten rooms of power, nothing changes…
Transfer Balls: Radamel Falcao and his agent share the same Chelsea dream
Transfer Balls hears the Daily Telegraph report that “Radamel Falcao is “desperate to join Chelsea”. How deseperate to join the Premier League champions is the man once nicknamed “El Tigre” and billed by Pep Guardiola as “the best penalty-box forward in the world”?
“Former Manchester United striker willing to take big pay cut to link up with Jose Mourinho”
How much, then, for the man whose end-of-season appraisal was delivered by Manchester United boss Louis Van Gaal:
“Falcao is a top professional and a good human being. On behalf of myself and everyone at the club I would like to wish him well for the future.”
A good pro and good bloke. That’s what you get for £1m-a-month. Bargain.
Matt Law adds:
Manchester United have decided not to take up their option to sign Falcao permanently, but the Colombian wants to stay in the Premier League and ideally move to London.
He’s not desperate to play for Chelsea, then. Falcao just wants to live in London.
Arsenal showed an interest in Falcao last August, but are unlikely to pursue the striker this summer – leaving Chelsea as his only hope.
Arsenal didn’t puruse the striker because he cost $265,000-a-week. He then played not all that well for Manchester United, who did agree to pay his nutzoid wages for a season. Manchester City had been interested in the Colombian until they were told that it would cost £29 million to fund the deal.
Law adds:
Chelsea are in the market for a replacement for Didier Drogba, and Jose Mourinho and Falcao share the same agent, Jorge Mendes… Mendes will attempt to broker a move to Stamford Bridge for Falcao.
Of course he will. But even the most ambitious agent must agree that the chances on Chelsea paying Falcao £65,000-a-week more than they invest in Eden Hazard are thinner than Brendan Rodger’s excuses.
As ever the Metro pipes up. It says that the deal is on and Falcao could take a £100,000-a-week pay cut to realise his dream of playing for [insert name of London club here] come true.
Just £165,000-a-week to hire Falcao, then. The man’s a dreamer…
World Cup 2022: welcome aboard the Guardian-endorsed Harrods-sponsored slave ship
No sooner had Xavi Hernández announced his departure from Barcelona for a new dawn with Qatari side Al Sadd, than he was attacked.
Xavi, 35, will work as an ambassador for the 2022 World Cup being staged in merciless desert heat.
Given the contentious nature of how Qatar won the right to stage the World Cup and the plight of migrant workers building the massive white elephants – the International Trade Union Confederation’s Play Fair Qatar says “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament” – Xavi’s choice has been considered despicable by some:
Such condemnation for Xavi would carry an ounce of weight were it not for the fact that Barcelona are sponsored by Qatari Airways. Have you seen any of the protests lamenting Barcelona’s links to Qatar, wondering how many labourers have died to give the Catalans success?
It’s far easier to attack the individual that it is to bash the institution.
Do you boycott London’s The Shard, Harrods or any other businesses owned wholly or in part by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, like Barclays, Volkswagen, Sainsbury’s and Porsche?
Read the rest of this entry »
Transfer Balls: Liverpool price Raheem Sterling at £50m to Manchester United and £60m to Arsenal
Transfer Balls presents a round-up of today’s Raheem Sterling news.
The Express lead with news that Liverpool will sell Raheem Sterling if “Arsenal or Man City make a £50m offer”. Readers are told:
The figure being mentioned within Anfield is £50 million – one which would make interested parties like Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United probably think twice.
Yeah, probably. Or probably not.
The Mail hears from unnamed sources who are talking of a £60m fee.
Liverpool have put a £60million price on Raheem Sterling’s head after the England star insisted he wants to leave Anfield this summer.
Whereas £50m was making clubs think twice about Raheem Sterling in the Express, the Mail says Arsenal says “keen” to do business at £60m. Oh, and the Mail says Sterling us “rated at £45m”.
And Arsenal will surely get Sterling because the Star reports:
“Starsport have been told that Sterling would love to return to London – and the Gunners in particular.”
Told by whom? We’re not told. It could be anyone: you, me, them, The Blues Bothers, anyone.
The Sunday Times reports that Liverpool are lining up a £30m bid for Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke. The paper says Liverpool hope Benteke and other signings will ” help persuade Raheem Sterling to sign a new contract”. No, not a new contract at Manchester City – a new deal at Anfield.
Such are the facts.
Transfer Balls masterclass: Manchester United In £157m Bid For Real Madrid’s Ronaldo And Bale
Transfer Balls spots a human centipede of balls in the tabloids. The story in The Metro is that Manchester United are going to buy – get this – Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo. The Metro’s website puts a figure on what would be the worst transfer in Real Madrid’s history:
Manchester United are reportedly plotting a shock £157.3million transfer raid on Real Madrid for Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo. The Red Devils are determined to win the Premier League next season and believe the duo can earn them the title.
Well, if those boffins at Old Trafford think two of the world’s top half dozen players could help them to the Premier League title, who are we to argue? But how does The Metro know this, what’s its souce?
…Bale, 25, is set for an £85.8m move while Ronaldo would cost £71.5m, according to the Star.
We circle the tabloid plughole and head over to the Daily Star, where news is:
Manchester United are considering a sensational £157m double raid on Real Madrid, according to reports.
Whose reports?
The Metro claim the Red Devils are readying bids for Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale as they look to bring the superstars back to the Premier League.
Back to The Metro, then.
Continues forever.
Posted: 23rd, May 2015 | In: manchester united, Sports | Comment
