Henry Kissinger says he is interested in accepting FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s invitation to help reform the embattled governing body.The former US Secretary of State was identified as someone who could lead a new ‘solutions committee’ within the organisation.
Kissinger, 88, said it was a position he would be keen on.
“He’s not been specific, except to say he wants to create a group of wise men to deal with issues which may arise,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“If it can help I’d be willing to participate but we need to know other participants and terms of reference.”
The 1973 Nobel Peace prize winner was involved in the reform of the International Olympic Committee and played a part in helping the United States win the hosting rights to the 1994 World Cup.
Blatter, who was re-elected unopposed as president on Wednesday, said he wants to improve accountability within the game’s governing body after allegations of corruption in the past month.
“This will be a commission of the wise. Kissinger loves football – he’ll be part of it,” Blatter said on Thursday.
“And (Johan) Cruyff, he’s the perfect personality to help us in this solution commission.”
The move came after Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner were both suspended after bribery allegations, before the presidential election.
Bin Hammam was due to oppose Blatter, who was cleared by FIFA’s Ethics Committee of offering financial incentives to FIFA delegates, but he withdrew after being suspended by the same committee.
Later, an email from FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke was released in which he claimed Qatar ‘bought’ the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup, but he said those comments were misunderstood.
Since being re-elected, Blatter has said he wants FIFA to regain its credibility.
An improved Chelsea bid for want-away midfielder Luka Modric has been rejected by Tottenham, who seem intent on keeping their star man at White Hart Lane.
The Croatian has revealed that he wants to swap Harry Redknapp’s team for the Stamford Bridge outfit, but as he is in contract until 2016, Tottenham do not want to see the playmaker.
The Blues have made a new £27 million bid, upping their initial offer by £5 million, to test their rivals will and confirm to the player that they want him to move across London.
Daniel Levy has been bullish over the situation, claiming the 25-year-old is not for sale, whilst reportedly threatening Modric with reserve team football should be refuse to comply with the club’s wishes.
The ex-Dinamo Zabreb midfielder, who signed for the English club for £16.6 million in 2008, is now expected to hand in a written transfer request to force a transfer to Andre Villas Boas’ side.
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Paul Scholes, Manchester United’s midfield metronome, retires in typically understated fashion.
As the tabloid press swarmed over Ryan Giggs’s private life, the man who stood beside him for 17 years slipped out of the back door leaving an irreplaceable void in the centre of Manchester United’s midfield.
Paul Scholes has lit up the Premiership since 1994 and won 24 trophies in his 17-year career, including 10 league titles. Even for Scholes, notoriously a man of few words, surprisingly little fanfare and appreciation has accompanied his departure from the heart of the most dominant team in the English game. Even towards the end of last season, he refused to confirm his retirement to his teammates.
Sir Alex Ferguson has frequently referred to Scholes as his best player. Giving evidence in court on behalf of one of his former trainees, he listened to the prosecution barrister’s list of United’s top players and said: “You’ve missed Paul Scholes – and he’s my best player.”
Within United and among his illustrious peers such as Zidane and Xavi, he is constantly regarded as the best. That a player can remain so humble and introvert when subject to such praise is remarkable. As he disappears into the backrooms of Old Trafford, (he has been offered an as yet undecided role on the United coaching staff) it becomes evident that this is the end of an era.
At 25, I have watched Scholes dictate the tempo since I was 8, initially distracted by the mazy dribbling of Giggs, my appreciation gradually moved inside. There was Scholes, sitting between the centre circle and the opposition area, stretching the play, slowing it down, never making a mistake. He was the player every school coached wished they could have, a calming influence who took control and never relinquished possession. He was of course also known for his scything tackles, which were affectionately enjoyed because he was so good at everything else.
Revered by so many within the game, his separation of private life and on the field success was perhaps one his most impressive achievements. He was as good at maintaining space off the pitch as he was at exploiting it on the pitch. The manner of his retirement perfectly reflected the egoless attitude of his playing career.
After the revelations about Ryan Giggs’s private life it seems especially dangerous, (unfairly so), to claim that Scholes is a great family man but throughout his career there has been no evidence to suggest he had any interest in the trappings of wealth and success.
‘Train in the morning, pick up my children from school, play with them, have tea, put them to bed and then watch a bit of TV. That’s my ideal day.’
There is an admirable and consistent simplicity to every Paul Scholes interview. He talks quietly, gives straightforward answers, always looking slightly uneasy even after so many years at the top of the game. He still seems unwillingly thrown into the limelight.
He gives off an overwhelming sense of focus, rarely smiling, thinking only of his role in the team, the phrase ‘a great servant to the club’ seems tailor made for him. Such selflessness is no doubt a crucial mental aspect of his game.
Scholes epitomised quiet professionalism, a role model that Alex Ferguson points to in order to help ground his young stars. As Roy Keane observed, Scholes was “an amazingly gifted player who remained an unaffected human being.” A very rare breed in modern football.
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Manchester United are prepared to enter the race for Brazilian star Ganso according to talkSPORT.
Sir Alex Ferguson has turned his attention to the Sao Paulo midfielder in case he is unsuccessful in his attempts to sign Inter Milan’s Wesley Sneijder.
The Dutchman’s move to Old Trafford is far from certain and Ganso is being lined up as a back-up plan.
It was thought that the samba star was heading to AC Milan but now it seems the Red Devils and French side Paris Saint-Germain are lining up moves.
Milan were hoping to quickly tie up a £26 million deal for the 21-year-old that would bring him to Italy.
But the news that United are preparing a bid could sway Ganso into moving to England.
PSG are also in the running and could outbid both clubs with the backing of Qatar Sports investments supplying their funds although the choice between Milan and Manchester should be a no brainer.
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Ferguson is keen to strengthen his midfield options after the retirement of Paul Scholes and failed emergence of Darron Gibson. It has left the United boss worried about the strength in depth as he looks to defend the Premier League title in the coming season.
It’s gone beyond tedious now, even beyond parody. The criticisms of Manchester City’s spending was boring two years ago. Now it resembles the pathetic ramblings of a drunken spurned lover. Or a frustrated Harry Redknapp counting down the hours until he can manage his beloved England.
And what’s most tedious of all? Well it’s the claim that City have no history. I can’t count how many times I have heard this said. And I think some people are so utterly stupid they actually believe what they say.
Javier Maschereno joined in with the stupidity a couple of years ago, claiming Manchester City had no history, a similar refrain to many on twitter incredulous last week that Sergio Aguero could choose City over someone like Liverpool. Atletico Madrid offered to match City’s wages, but hey, he clearly moved for the money.
“You can buy players, but you cannot buy history,” said Mascherano. Yawn.
For the record, Manchester City beat Liverpool into being by twelve years, to the FA Cup by 61 years, to the League Cup by 11 years and to a European trophy by three years.
Notts County, Preston North End, and even City have histories longer than many countries.
Here’s a summary of that non-existent history. Manchester City were founded in 1880 as St. Mark’s (West Gorton) – they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894. Cit y gained their first honours by winning the Second Division in 1899; with it came promotion to the highest level in English football, the First Division. They went on to claim their first major honour on 23 April 1904, beating Bolton Wanderers 1–0 at Crystal Palace to win the FA Cup; City narrowly missed out on a League and Cup double that season after finishing runners-up in the League. In the seasons following the FA Cup triumph, the club was dogged by allegations of financial irregularities, culminating in the suspension of seventeen players in 1906, including captain Billy Meredith, who subsequently moved across town to Manchester United. A fire at Hyde Road destroyed the main stand in 1920, and in 1923 the club moved to their new purpose-built stadium at Maine Road in Moss Side, the same year that Wembley Stadium opened.
They have won the top league in 1936-37 and in 1967-8, and have been runners-up three times. They have won what is now the Championship seven times, the FA Cup five times, the League Cup twice, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup once. And so on….
Notts County meanwhile are the oldest of all the clubs in the world that are now professional, having been formed in 1862.
County pre-dated the Football Association and initially played a game of its own devising, rather than association football. At the time of its formation, Notts County, like most sports teams, were considered to be a “gentlemen-only” club. Notts County are considered to be one of the pioneers of the modern game and are the oldest of the world’s professional association football clubs (there are older professional clubs in other codes of football, and Sheffield F.C., an amateur club founded in 1857, are the oldest club now playing association football).
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The club initially played at Park Hollow in the grounds of the old Nottingham Castle. In December 1864, the decision was made to play games against outside opposition, and it was decided that the club needed to find a bigger venue. After playing at several grounds, The Magpies settled at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground in 1883. In November 1872, the Notts County full-back Ernest Greenhalgh played for England against Scotland in the first-ever international match, thereby becoming the club’s first international player. In 1888, Notts County, along with eleven other football clubs, became a founding member of The Football League. On 25 March 1891, Notts County reached the FA Cup final for the first time…and, well I could continue like this for the next few hours.
If you look REALLY hard, can you see a bit of a history there. Of course, Notts County haven’t won the Premier League or the Champions League, or even been in the top league since football began (1992), so it’s not a real history in the eyes of some. So if they were to be taken over by a billionaire, and started splashing the cash, would you begrudge them the right?
What fans who don’t like upstarts spending money and disrupting the status quo mean is not that the likes of City don’t have history, as they clearly do (and a relegation battle is as much a part of a club’s history as a league title), but that they don’t have a history of success, in recent times alone, and thus haven’t earned the right to buy loads of expensive players.
So the argument is: win things, stay in the Champions league, and expand your global fan base – this is how the fans of the existing top four of the last decade or so have decided it should be done. God forbid if anyone else should try a different way.
But where is the dividing line when fans pass judgement on whether are teams are doing things the right way? What are the minimum requirements to spend lots of money and buy some of the best players in the world? Current league champions? European champions within last few years? Five trophies within last decade? Really successful twenty-five years ago so therefore got more “history” and prestige?
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Let’s say £20m per trophy. Only fair that if you win something, you should be able to widen the gap between yourself and your competitors. No other sport in the world allows this, but apparently football has a different perception of right and wrong.
You should only be able to spend what you earn will be the comeback – but who decided it was acceptable for successful teams to earn so much more than everyone else? Why, the successful teams did of course. Of course now that City are raising revenue and announcing sponsorship deals, and thus will be spending what they earn, that has been deemed unacceptable too. But if you think the figure for City is inflated, save some ire for Real Madrid, who have signed a deal earning 5 million euros per year JUST for advertising around the pitch. Beat that City.
It’s a similar level of stupidity to the argument to claims that modern football with its upstarts flashing the cash, with its big wages, sponsorship deals, stadium naming rights and detachment from reality has somehow removed the soul from football. What actions remove the “soul” from your club? You know, that fabricated, nonsensical thing that a club doesn’t actually have. If you do believe in such things as souls (I don’t), then within a football club it is contained within each individual fan – until they leave, the soul remains.
Last night I watched a documentary on the Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna. When Senna crashed his car and died at Imola in 1994, as the helicopter carried him away from the track, Jeremy Clarkson commented (in a rare moment of sensitivity) that it really illustrated Senna‘s soul departing. A nation mourned over a lost soul. It has never mourned over the name of a stadium or the wages of a football player.
Fans will always live in the past. Hope that your team’s glorious European campaign of 25 years ago, or 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago is enough to attract the cream of world football, and recapture those glory days. But I would wager that footballers are more interested in the future, about creating their own history, and finishing their career and having something to show for it. Mascherano was right that you can’t buy a history – because the history for every club in England, for every club in the world, is already there. And you can’t buy what you already have.
Gabriel Agbonlahor scored a late leveller to give Aston Villa a share of the spoils at Goodison Park denying Everton a first home win in the process.
The Villa striker nodded home Marc Albrighton’s cross to give the away side a very good away point and keep up their unbeaten start to the season. The hosts had twice taken the lead during the course of the game but were pegged back both times by a Villa side who are certainly a more resilient outfit under new boss Alex Mcleish.
Everton started the game brightly and deserved their lead when Leon Osmon volleyed home from Tim Cahill’s cutback 12 yards. Jack Rodwell and Marouane Fellaini also went close with long range strikes as the the hosts dominated the first 45 minutes. They took that advantage into the second half only for Villa skipper Stiliyan Petrov to level proceedings in the 63rd minute with a stunning 30-yard strike that gave Tim Howard no chance in the Toffee’s goal.
Leighton Baines restored the lead six minutes later converting from the penalty spot after Phil Jagielka was felled by Fabian Delph in the penalty area allowing the England full back to make it 2-1.
They couldn’t hold on though as substitute Albrighton sent over a teasing cross from the left and Agbonlahor duly supplied the magic touch heading in at the back post with seven minutes left on the clock.
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Ever since Manchester City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi Royal Family there has been a lazy argument claiming that they have no interest in the club, the City or even football. Anyone willing to do a little bit of research however would have learnt that there was nothing in those arguments whatsoever, and the announcement coming from the club today will go a long way to putting that silly argument to bed.
The club are hoping to create the best training facilities in the world for their first team, but also the best youth training facilities as well. The remit of the development however goes further than just the game, one of the cornerstones of the plans is to aid the redevelopment and rejuvenation of one of the most deprived areas of Manchester, the needs and the thoughts of the local people are extremely high on the list of priorities.
As anyone interested in the game is aware, City have always been highly successful in youth development, but they have exhausted their current set up, and with these plans they will be able to go onto the next level and make the club the most attractive prospect in world football for young players from both Britain and further afield. As well as a 7,000 capacity stadium (which will also be available to local community groups) there will be a state of the art education centre and accommodation for upto 40 players.
11 full sized youth training pitches (which again can be used by the community)as well as a half sized pitch, a specialist sports rehabilitation and injury centre, and all round facilities capable of the training of 400 young players. As we are all well aware the future of football clubs isn’t big spending to secure the best players in the world, the ideal model is a club nurturing the best youngsters who will eventually fill the first team and it is that process that sets the scene for this development.
The first team currently train at Carrington next door to Manchester United , but that site is no longer suitable for a club with the ambitions of City, the facilities are good but could be improved and these needs will all be catered for on the new site. The ability to train in house will obviously be preferable for the players and it would make the match day experience for the first team squad much easier.
The focus however is on so much more than football, and whilst this is a football site I think it is important to not forget about the bigger picture, the club will be creating 160 construction jobs and 90 permanent jobs, 80% of which will be earmarked for local people, that is as well as a new 6th form college that will be part of the newly formed Etihad campus.
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Local infrastructure will be greatly improved with the construction of 2 new metrolink stations and the environmental impact is clearly wonderful with this old brownfield site being totally transformed. What is currently an eye sore is going to become one of the best facilities of its kind in the world. The planting of tree’s and hedging will ensure the site improves the aesthetics of the local area and this thinking is partly responsible for the huge positive feedback that the club has received.
People who raised question marks over the figure that Etihad have put into the club have clearly lost sight of the bigger picture; the sponsorship deal covers not just the stadium but also this forward thinking and impressive development centre. There are clearly not just benefits here for the club but also the community that live around the site, anyone still questioning the mindset of our owners will now have to find something else to moan about because the notion of them getting bored and walking away at this point seems totally laughable. The full scale ideas and thoughts behind the scheme can be seen here, hopefully any doubters can now be put in their place, Sheikh Mansour losing interest after a couple of years? Do me a favour…
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Unhappy Blackburn fans are planning an anti-Steve Kean protest march ahead of their home fixture against Arsenal on Saturday.
The Ewood Park outfit have started the season slowly, and sit bottom of the Premier League pile with only one point from their first four games.
The Lancashire club’s fans are concerned with the lack of experience of current coach Kean, and are protesting to have him removed and replaced with a manager with a better track record in the game.
Reports indicate that the protesters could be as many as 1000, as an online petition gathers speed ahead of the match against Arsene Wenger’s men.
“The numbers look like hitting the 1,000 mark so the fans are keen to have Steve Kean removed,” Glen Mullan, the organiser of the march, told reporters.
“It’s going to be a peaceful march, but we want to make our point and there will be banners made. It’s about time the owners listened to the fans. We want someone who is experienced and can relate to the fans,” he concluded.
A defeat in the game against Arsenal could be the beginning of the end for Kean, with Blackburn owners Venkys under pressure to get their side out of danger.
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Manchester City midfielder Nigel De Jong has praised Mario Balotelli after the striker put in an excellent performance in the 4-1 win over Aston Villa on Saturday.
With Edin Dzeko, Samir Nasri and David Silva all on the bench against Alex McLeish’s men, and Sergio Aguero rested, the impetus was on Balotelli to provide the attacking spark for the Etihad Stadium outfit.
The Italy international opened the scoring for Roberto Mancini’s side in a comprehensive victory, and the De Jong feels he has finally got his attitude sorted.
“I think he is getting it now, why we always try to teach him a lesson. He is getting it slowly but surely,” the Netherlands international told City TV.
“You have to give him credit for the last couple of weeks, not just on the pitch but in the training sessions. He is behaving quite normal for him. Everyone is happy to be with him.
“Nobody ever doubted his qualities but with great qualities you need to have big responsibilities as well – not only on the pitch but outside as well. I think he showed that to the group and Manchester City as well in the last couple of weeks,” he continued.
City have an important week coming up as they host Villarreal firstly on Tuesday night in the Champions League, before taking on Manchester United next Sunday.
De Jong knows the importance of the games, which could have an early season influence on the team’s fortunes this campaign.
“They are two massive games. The Champions League is the first one and it is obvious we have to win that game to proceed to the next stage.
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“After that is the United game, which will be a massive game, number one and number two against each other. We just have to prepare ourselves very well and focus again now,” he stated.
Football is a sport of emotion. From the ecstasy of winning to the heartbreak of losing, emotions are always running high. Often players, managers and of course fans let emotions get the better of them, but sometimes you have a perfectly good reason for letting it all out. Billy Sharp is a prime example of this.
If you missed the football news from earlier in the week, Doncaster striker Billy Sharp lost his son Luey on Saturday, when he died after just two days. One can only imagine what is going through your mind when you experience a tragedy like that, and while Sharp will have been going through the ringer on the inside, on the pitch he showed just how strong a character he is.
That Billy Sharp even put himself up for selection for Doncaster’s Championship match at the Keepmoat Stadium last night against Middlesbrough says all you need to know about him. Manager Dean Saunders explained that “Billy rang me and said he wanted to play because he wanted to score a goal for his son,” and that’s exactly what he did.
His son was rightfully given a minute’s silence before the game, and Billy posted on Twitter later that “the minute applause I was crying meant so much to me thanks to both sets of fans.” The goal was really special, with Sharp saying “My goal tonight was the most important goal of my career dedicated to my brave boy luey jacob sharp I love u son sleep tight. thatsforyouson.”
This is a perfect example of how we can make the world a better place through sport. While many stories in the press don’t always paint competitive sport in a good light, this one shows the power that sport does have. In Billy’s case it can help you through the toughest of times; it can bring communities together and break down barriers.
We should be supporting grass-roots projects to get kids playing sport and experiencing what it is like to be part of a team. Sharp will need the support of his teammates now more than ever and we can always strive for more. This is the message Nike are trying to get across…
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