France’s far-right National Front party have demanded French
international striker Karim Benzema be barred from playing for the
national team after he insisted he would not sing the French national
anthem before matches.
The far right National Front party has demanded that
Benzema, 25, who plays for Real Madrid in Spain, be sacked from the
French national team for declaring he had never sung the French national
anthem - the Marseillaise before an international game, and would
continue not to.
Eric Domard – sporting advisor to National
Front leader Marine LePen – said in a statement on Tuesday that
“[Benzema] shows an inconceivable and unacceptable contempt for the
jersey he has the fortune to be able to wear.”
Labeling him a
“footballing mercenary paid €1484 an hour,” Domard further declared that
“since Karim Benzema sees no problem with not singing the Marseillaise,
the French people should have no problem with him not playing for
France anymore.”
link
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Hero or Villain: Greg Dyke
Ex-BBC TV DG to FA. Lovers of acronyms across the country will no doubt be cheering the news that Greg Dyke is to be the next chairman of the Football Association.
As for the rest of us? Surely Joseph Barton, that great sage of the modern game, summed up popular opinion when he offered via Twitter, "What the fuck does Greg Dyke know about football? Yet, another bureaucrat, placed in a position way to [sic] large for his domain expertise ... Football needs football people right now." Well, quite.
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As for the rest of us? Surely Joseph Barton, that great sage of the modern game, summed up popular opinion when he offered via Twitter, "What the fuck does Greg Dyke know about football? Yet, another bureaucrat, placed in a position way to [sic] large for his domain expertise ... Football needs football people right now." Well, quite.
link
Mourinho hints at stunning Chelsea return as Madrid boss ponders next move
Jose Mourinho has hinted he may return to one of his former clubs,
claiming his next move could be to "somewhere I've already been".
The Portuguese's future has been the subject of speculation despite leading Real Madrid to the Primera Division title last term and the fact they are still going strong in the Champions League this season.
Mourinho won two Premier League crowns in three years with Chelsea before leaving in 2007 and has often been linked with a return to Stamford Bridge, where there will be a vacancy in the summer when interim boss Rafael Benitez departs.
And, speaking at the opening of an exhibition in Setubal, Mourinho did little to dampen such talk.
The former Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan coach was quoted by Football Italia as saying: "I have an adventurous spirit and do not know what will happen next season.
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The Portuguese's future has been the subject of speculation despite leading Real Madrid to the Primera Division title last term and the fact they are still going strong in the Champions League this season.
Mourinho won two Premier League crowns in three years with Chelsea before leaving in 2007 and has often been linked with a return to Stamford Bridge, where there will be a vacancy in the summer when interim boss Rafael Benitez departs.
And, speaking at the opening of an exhibition in Setubal, Mourinho did little to dampen such talk.
The former Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan coach was quoted by Football Italia as saying: "I have an adventurous spirit and do not know what will happen next season.
link
Manchester City fan banned for using electronic cigarette
Football stewards are renowned for being a touch heavy-handed and pedantic
However, stewards at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium have surpassed themselves for taking away the season ticket of a fan they believed to be smoking, when the guy was simply chuffing on a perfectly legal electronic cigarette.
The fan explains the story below:
I was on the concourse at half-time having a drink with a few mates. I took a drag of it and was asked by security to come into a room. I just thought I was going to be asked to explain what it was.
I was told they were banned and asked for my season card which I handed over. I was then escorted out of the ground by police.
However, it appears that City offer warnings that e-cigarettes should also not be smoked in the ground. So despite there being no evident reason for such a rule, that might be that. With only a few games left and the title race over, maybe it was a deliberate ploy?
link
However, stewards at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium have surpassed themselves for taking away the season ticket of a fan they believed to be smoking, when the guy was simply chuffing on a perfectly legal electronic cigarette.
The fan explains the story below:
I was on the concourse at half-time having a drink with a few mates. I took a drag of it and was asked by security to come into a room. I just thought I was going to be asked to explain what it was.
I was told they were banned and asked for my season card which I handed over. I was then escorted out of the ground by police.
However, it appears that City offer warnings that e-cigarettes should also not be smoked in the ground. So despite there being no evident reason for such a rule, that might be that. With only a few games left and the title race over, maybe it was a deliberate ploy?
link
Plans at exhibition show how landscape would radically alter
The
pictures show that the scheme, which could potentially have ten tall
towers the tallest of which would be 14 storeys high, would radically
alter the landscape for residents in Chiswick.
The Football Club is planning to move from its existing stadium at Griffin Park to a new purpose built ground close by. The plans being developed will provide a modern 20,000 capacity stadium and they hope to have it completed by 2015. According to Saturday's Daily Telegraph, London Wasps are in discussing with the Brentford F.C. about a ground share at the stadium.
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The Football Club is planning to move from its existing stadium at Griffin Park to a new purpose built ground close by. The plans being developed will provide a modern 20,000 capacity stadium and they hope to have it completed by 2015. According to Saturday's Daily Telegraph, London Wasps are in discussing with the Brentford F.C. about a ground share at the stadium.
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NEW GLASSES SHOW HOW GOOD A FOOTBALL FAN YOU ARE
Scientists have invented glasses which show how good a football fan you are. We sent STEVE HUGHES to the Championship clash between Charlton and Millwall – with former England boss Graham Taylor in tow – to investigate.
Wearing a massive pair of specs attached to a laptop, while sitting next to one of the most famous faces in football in a stadium of 18,000 fans, I felt a tad self-conscious.
But however silly the equipment I was wearing looked, there can be no denying its technological brilliance.
The glasses track tiny movements in your cornea – the part of the eye which does the focusing – and records on to the laptop, inset, exactly where your eyes are looking.
link
Wearing a massive pair of specs attached to a laptop, while sitting next to one of the most famous faces in football in a stadium of 18,000 fans, I felt a tad self-conscious.
But however silly the equipment I was wearing looked, there can be no denying its technological brilliance.
The glasses track tiny movements in your cornea – the part of the eye which does the focusing – and records on to the laptop, inset, exactly where your eyes are looking.
link
Olympics deal ‘is a pig’s ear’
A DEAL to allow West Ham Football Club to move into the Olympic Stadium should be ripped up because taxpayers will be paying for it for years to come, it was claimed last night.
The Hammers are set to move into the east London venue after it was agreed the club would pay just £15million towards the estimated cost of £190million to refurbish the stadium, making it a suitable venue for football matches and athletics.
The rest of the bill will be met by taxpayers.
link
Saturday, 23 March 2013
England fan in coma after bar fight in Italy
An England football fan has been arrested in connection with a fight outside an Italian pub ahead of the match against San Marino that left another England fan in a coma.
Police said a 65-year-old man defended himself with a bar stool in a fight, was punched, fell and hit his head. He is now in an induced coma and his condition was described as “very serious”.
A 21-year-old man was arrested. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We can confirm the arrest of a British national in Italy on 21 March.”
Police said a 65-year-old man defended himself with a bar stool in a fight, was punched, fell and hit his head. He is now in an induced coma and his condition was described as “very serious”.
A 21-year-old man was arrested. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We can confirm the arrest of a British national in Italy on 21 March.”
Best News I have had in a long time
Chelsea transfers: Atlético’s Simeone hints at summer move for Torres
Chelsea transfers: Atlético boss Diego Simeone hints at a summer move to bring Fernando Torres back to the Vicente Calderón
link
Club statement on recent events
Statement on behalf of Coventry City Football Club (Holdings) Ltd
As fans will know, Coventry City Football Club Limited was placed into administration on Thursday.
This
subsidiary of the Club held the lease and licence for the Ricoh Arena.
This covered the permission to play home matches at the stadium as well
as the rental of the Club shop and the Club offices.
Given
this subsidiary is now in administration, the Club has taken the
decision to protect its staff by moving them from the stadium to the
training ground at Ryton, before finding a more permanent base.
David Beckham dodges China corruption questions
David Beckham continued his tour of China in his role of “global
ambassador” for the country’s youth football and Super League in Qingdao
insisting he was not there to help clean up the sport in the country.
After arriving flanked by suited officials, the former England captain signed autographs and had a brief kickabout – still wearing his shirt, tie and shiny formal shoes – with students at Qingdao Jonoon football club in a brief appearance attended by a large crowd of fans.
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After arriving flanked by suited officials, the former England captain signed autographs and had a brief kickabout – still wearing his shirt, tie and shiny formal shoes – with students at Qingdao Jonoon football club in a brief appearance attended by a large crowd of fans.
link
Football world focuses on Istanbul draw
This coming Monday evening, the focus of
attention for the global footballing family turns to Istanbul, as the
Turkish metropolis hosts the eagerly-awaited group stage draw for the
FIFA U-20 World Cup 2013. Exactly 88 days before the tournament kicks
off, and after the ceremony at 19.00 local time (18.00 CET) in the
banqueting hall of the Grand Tarabya Hotel, the competing teams will
finally learn who they must overcome in their quest to claim the most
prestigious prize in youth football.
Eager anticipation, mounting tension
The 19th edition of the highly anticipated FIFA tournament takes place between 21 June and 13 July this summer. A starting field of 24 teams will contest a total of 52 matches in the seven host cities of Antalya, Bursa, Gaziantep, Istanbul, Kayseri, Rize and Trabzon. The eventual winners will succeed Brazil as world champions, as the winners of the last FIFA U-20 World Cup in Colombia two years ago surprisingly failed to qualify for this summer's showdown in Turkey.
The 19th edition of the highly anticipated FIFA tournament takes place between 21 June and 13 July this summer. A starting field of 24 teams will contest a total of 52 matches in the seven host cities of Antalya, Bursa, Gaziantep, Istanbul, Kayseri, Rize and Trabzon. The eventual winners will succeed Brazil as world champions, as the winners of the last FIFA U-20 World Cup in Colombia two years ago surprisingly failed to qualify for this summer's showdown in Turkey.
I was a football thug.
“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did."
Former Blues hooligan Barrington Patterson lifts the lid on his extraordinary life in a new biography. The Brummie hardman talked about his colourful past of soccer violence, boxing champions and the Gladiators to MIKE LOCKLEY.“I was born to fight,” growled Birmingham’s most notorious soccer hooligan, Barrington ‘One-Eyed Baz’ Patterson, his gold tooth glinting as the scowl succumbed to a smirk.
“I came out of my mother’s womb fighting,” the Handsworth hardman insisted, stretching his bulky, 18 stone frame in a show of indifference.
“I’m not the kind of person who walks away. If you don’t want trouble, don’t lay it on me.”
The 47-year-old former leading light in Birmingham City’s feared Zulu hooligan crew has paid for his penchant for punch-ups, with a record so crammed with violent offences it’s a veritable criminal double album.
“I’ve lost count, to be honest,” the nightclub bouncer muttered with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Maybe 20 - all for violence, but none football related.”
He stared into space for a second, wringing his shovel-sized hands for inspiration before apologising. “Oh yeah - there’s one robbery... and a burglary.”
“Am I violent?” he hissed, stung by the enquiry, his heavy gold chain swaying in a show of disapproval. “Don’t ask other people what I’m like, ask me what I’m like.”
I pointed out, diplomatically, I was asking him.
Barrington slumped back in his chair and mulled over the question. “I am what I am.
“But I don’t regret anything. The only thing I regret in life is having five kids by five different women.”
The bonds that tie thrice-wed Barrington to his extended family are loose. “Am I a grandfather?” he mused. “Not to my knowledge.”
Barrington, who channelled his blood-lust into a highly successful kickboxing and cage-fighting career - he held world titles in both, has paid for the self-imposed stains on his character.
The man who bared his soul on TV hoodlum series, Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men was within a whisker of exploding on our screens as a Gladiator: one of the muscle-bound, leotard clad athletes who pummelled contestants in the popular 90s show of the same name.
Possibly for the best. Get clobbered with one of those oversized cottonbuds by Barrington and you’d have ringing in your ears for a year.
“Your past always catches up with you,” he sighed. “I went to the Gladiators audition and they said I was ideal, the right build and everything. It was done and dusted, they said. All they had to do was a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check.
“I knew that was it straight away.” It was.
The one-man army has again been thrust into the limelight, thanks to his new autobiography, One Eyed Baz. It has been penned by reformed West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant.
The tome is launched at Birmingham’s Irish Centre on Saturday night.
“It doesn’t glorify what I did,” he was at pains to point out. “It’s my journey.”
Stubbing a finger in my direction he announced: “I did what I did with one eye - that’s the story.
“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did, but I have a story to tell. There is more to life than being a football thug.”
Contrary to Second City folklore, Barrington did not lose his optic on the terraces or in the street. It’s a war-wound received when, as a seven-year-old, his sister threw a can at him.
Yet despite the handicap, he fought around the globe in martial arts tournaments, facing the very best - including current world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko - and lifting a raft of titles.
It’s the handicap that shaped this brutal being. “It made we what I am today,” he said. “At school they called me cyclops, stuff like that, and I’d do battle with them.”
Barrington simply never stopped battling. The self-styled Handsworth ‘rude boy’ so impressed a band of Birmingham City skinheads called the Apex crew, they invited him to a match. A clear case of, if you can’t beat ‘em, ask them to join you’.
“The first time I went to Blues - 1982 or 83 - I didn’t know anyone. I was looking around thinking, where are the brothers?’’
Barrington’s thirst for violent action soon earned him admirers. “The size of me,” he put forward as a probable reason for his popularity, “people do feel intimidated by me. I stand out a mile.”
He speaks matter-of-factly about those shameful years of soccer mob rule. “We earned our reputation. There were people like Millwall, they thought they were top, but we wanted to be the top hooligans. You are there with your friends and you are outnumbered 20 to one and you think, ‘I ain’t running nowhere’.
“You get up in the morning, you want to go to that town and you want to take the p*** for the day. You want to take over that town for the day. But we didn’t just beat anyone with a Liverpool scarf - the lads know who the lads are.
“At the time, it was all about Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.”
“I got done a couple of times,” he conceded.
Leeds and Millwall’s thugs provided particularly tough competition, though Barrington singled out West Ham’s infamous Inter City Firm as, in his words, the best: in the eyes of the general public, the worst.
Scuffles? There were more than a few, though the mid-80s St Andrew’s pitch invasions that marred matches against Leeds and West Ham stand out.
Barrington clings to a perceived code of conduct among thugs and laments the behaviour of the new breed of bad boys. “There are young people calling themselves Zulus who are tarnishing the name. They are ruthless young ****ers. Years ago, you saw an old person, you stopped what you were doing and let them go past.”
At the end of our interview, he encased my limp hand in a vice-like grip, looked deep into my frightened eyes and demanded: “I didn’t sound like a t**t, did I?”
That’s a question linked to diet. Say ‘yes’ and you’ll be tucking into hospital food for the forseeable future.
Possibly for the best. Get clobbered with one of those oversized cottonbuds by Barrington and you’d have ringing in your ears for a year.
“Your past always catches up with you,” he sighed. “I went to the Gladiators audition and they said I was ideal, the right build and everything. It was done and dusted, they said. All they had to do was a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check.
“I knew that was it straight away.” It was.
The one-man army has again been thrust into the limelight, thanks to his new autobiography, One Eyed Baz. It has been penned by reformed West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant.
The tome is launched at Birmingham’s Irish Centre on Saturday night.
“It doesn’t glorify what I did,” he was at pains to point out. “It’s my journey.”
Stubbing a finger in my direction he announced: “I did what I did with one eye - that’s the story.
“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did, but I have a story to tell. There is more to life than being a football thug.”
Contrary to Second City folklore, Barrington did not lose his optic on the terraces or in the street. It’s a war-wound received when, as a seven-year-old, his sister threw a can at him.
Yet despite the handicap, he fought around the globe in martial arts tournaments, facing the very best - including current world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko - and lifting a raft of titles.
It’s the handicap that shaped this brutal being. “It made we what I am today,” he said. “At school they called me cyclops, stuff like that, and I’d do battle with them.”
Barrington simply never stopped battling. The self-styled Handsworth ‘rude boy’ so impressed a band of Birmingham City skinheads called the Apex crew, they invited him to a match. A clear case of, if you can’t beat ‘em, ask them to join you’.
“The first time I went to Blues - 1982 or 83 - I didn’t know anyone. I was looking around thinking, where are the brothers?’’
Barrington’s thirst for violent action soon earned him admirers. “The size of me,” he put forward as a probable reason for his popularity, “people do feel intimidated by me. I stand out a mile.”
He speaks matter-of-factly about those shameful years of soccer mob rule. “We earned our reputation. There were people like Millwall, they thought they were top, but we wanted to be the top hooligans. You are there with your friends and you are outnumbered 20 to one and you think, ‘I ain’t running nowhere’.
“You get up in the morning, you want to go to that town and you want to take the p*** for the day. You want to take over that town for the day. But we didn’t just beat anyone with a Liverpool scarf - the lads know who the lads are.
“At the time, it was all about Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.”
“I got done a couple of times,” he conceded.
Leeds and Millwall’s thugs provided particularly tough competition, though Barrington singled out West Ham’s infamous Inter City Firm as, in his words, the best: in the eyes of the general public, the worst.
Scuffles? There were more than a few, though the mid-80s St Andrew’s pitch invasions that marred matches against Leeds and West Ham stand out.
Barrington clings to a perceived code of conduct among thugs and laments the behaviour of the new breed of bad boys. “There are young people calling themselves Zulus who are tarnishing the name. They are ruthless young ****ers. Years ago, you saw an old person, you stopped what you were doing and let them go past.”
At the end of our interview, he encased my limp hand in a vice-like grip, looked deep into my frightened eyes and demanded: “I didn’t sound like a t**t, did I?”
That’s a question linked to diet. Say ‘yes’ and you’ll be tucking into hospital food for the forseeable future.
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