Article source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C05%5C19%5Cstory_19-5-2012_pg2_3

Manchester City and Manchester United began the day locked at the top of the English Premier League table on points, with City holding the advantage on goal differential. Only a points result for United that bettered what City did could give the Red Devils a consecutive title, and that looked like what would happen until the very last.

Manchester City won the EPL for the first time in 44 years, besting United in dramatic fashion. City downed Queens Park Rangers 3-2, but the result was in doubt. QPR held a 2-1 advantage through 90 minutes.

City gives United a cold slap just as party started

Manchester United had just beaten Sunderland AFC in the Stadium of Light 1-0, so had the three points. A draw or loss by City, that’s all they wished for. The United players and their fans were on the very edge of a big celebration, already raising their glasses. Then City delivered a cold slap in the face.

It’s already being called the most dramatic final day in Premier League history. With the long and storied history of the EPL, that’s a bold statement. On this day, however, it’s hard to find any fault with it.

City got their first stoppage time goal to bring it level when substitute Edin Dzeko found the equalizer in the second minute of the extra time. I’m sure United fans were still thinking, “that’s OK, we still have the three points.”

Two minutes later, as everything looked all but settled, Sergio Aguero found the back of the net and handed City the title. Fans around the world were at once elated beyond hope or deflated past despair. City Manager Roberto Mancini summed it up.

“To win it like this is incredible,”Mancini said. “I have never seen a final like this.”

QPR avoid relegation

Queens Park Rangers were in a battle of a different kind, looking to avoid falling off the bottom of the table by relegation. They surely thought the side had dodged that bullet going into stoppage time as well. Luckily for QPR, they got help elsewhere.

Bolton Wanderers were sent wondering how they ended up being relegated when they thought the side had secured a victory over Stoke City. Instead, they were forced to swallow a 2-2 draw that saw them fall off the top table.

Bolton manager was annoyed with the penalty that gave Stoke the equalizer, but at this point it’s history, and Bolton will have to find their way back up.

Jeff Musall is a lifelong fan of international and league soccer from around the world, He was amazed, excited, and very thrilled to watch City win the EPL.

Article source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/manchester-city-win-premier-league-most-dramatic-fashion-183400418.html

The English Premier League is arguably the world’s most popular sports organization, and this season saw explosive growth off the pitch in the realm of social media.

Manchester City snagged its first English title in 44 years last weekend to cap off another dramatic EPL season. To recap how the league developed digitally this year, Mashable hunted down some stats. We also consulted Sean Walsh, whose blog Digital Football is a leading source on the intersection between English soccer and social media.

“EPL clubs have been criticized in the past for their out-of-date approach to social media in comparison to the youthful and creative tactics employed by U.S. franchises in the NBA and NFL,” Walsh, who’s interviewed the digital directors of several top European clubs over the past year, told Mashable in an email. “But the 2011-2012 season has seen the rise of social media in ‘the beautiful game,’ and Premier League clubs have finally begun to invest in it.”

Walsh says EPL clubs added a total of more than 17 million Facebook fans over the course of the season. In total, the league has almost 60 million Facebook likes — all the more impressive when you consider England’s total population is just over 50 million people.

So far, both the league and its individual teams have a much stronger presence on Facebook than on Twitter, where clubs count a combined following of less than 4.5 million. But the EPL’s presence is growing rapidly on Twitter as well as Facebook — Walsh counts a 126% increase in followers league-wide since last season.

SEE ALSO: How Social Media Is Changing Sports [INFOGRAPHIC]

Premier League side Chelsea was also involved in a piece of Twitter history recently. Its win over FC Barcelona in last month’s Champions League semifinal set a Twitter sports record of 13,684 tweets per second, eclipsing the previous record set by the most recent Super Bowl. Chelsea takes on Bayern Munich in the Champions League final this Saturday, so we’ll see if it can make Twitter history again.

Liverpool, meanwhile, became the first Premier League team to promote itself using Pinterest. The team stocked boards with historic photos, fan gear, old uniformas and memorabilia. Pinterest has become one of the newest ways sports teams around the world are seeking to leverage social media.

Among Walsh’s favorite individual digital EPL moments this year: Manchester City launching a YouTube partnership taking steps toward integrating fans’ in-person and social media experiences; Queens Park Rangers owner Tony Fernandes using Twitter to ask fans which players they wanted the club to acquire; and midfielder Joey Barton using promoted tweets to apologize to fans for being thrown out of a match.

How do you think English soccer stacks up to other pro sports in leveraging social media? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy toksuede, Flickr.

Article source: http://mashable.com/2012/05/18/english-premier-league-social-media/

Last Sunday, Manchester City, the club I grew up supporting, won the Premier League, 44 years after their last championship. City’s all-star squad, paid for from the oil fortunes of the club’s far-fetched owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, were playing Queens Park Rangers, who were struggling to stay in the league. The old Manchester City, who had stumbled through 30 years of mishaps since their excellent 1970s, might have been expected to flap at such a moment of triumph. But this team is different. Few of the 48,000 supporters at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday truly felt they would witness the kind of wobble that has come to be known over the years as “Typical City”.

1. Richer Than God: Manchester City, Modern Football and Growing Up

2. by

   David Conn

3. 
   
4. Buy it from the Guardian bookshop

1. Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book

At the end of August 2008, Manchester City, always written up as the people’s club (in contrast to Manchester United’s corporate greed), had been owned by the fugitive former prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra. He was accused of murderous human rights abuses, had been convicted in absentia of corruption and the club was hurtling towards ruin. When Sheikh Mansour decided to buy the club, it was staring, not for the first time, at financial ruin. City had managed to tumble into that hapless predicament despite a gift of outrageous fortune: a new, 48,000-seat stadium, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games with public money – £78m from the national lottery, £49m from Manchester city council – and converted at the public’s expense. But there was also a long history at the club of debt, relegation and disappointment.

Mansour has since wholly overhauled the new Manchester City; an office block has been built, bars and an entertainment square for supporters have been opened, the Carrington training ground revamped. The cost of such solid improvements, though, is nothing compared with the £452m of Mansour’s oil inheritance spent on 22 new players (average price £22m) and paying wages gross enough to lure them to City – the highest paid, the Argentinian Carlos Tevez, earns £198,000 a week, or £10m a year, basic. The total committed is already more than £1bn, on one football club. This fact is not lost on City fans: after a year of Abu Dhabi investment, a group of them clubbed together to buy a banner that read: “MANCHESTER THANKS YOU SHEIKH MANSOUR.”

Yet the neighbourhoods around Sheikh Mansour’s recently renamed Etihad Stadium – after the Abu Dhabi airline that is paying £350m to have its name for 10 years on City’s shirts, stadium and new £140m training “campus” – remain Manchester’s most deprived and some of the poorest in Britain. Mansour has been to Manchester only once to watch the team on which he has spent so much. He has never given an interview to an English journalist. Not much is known about the young man with two wives who controls billions of pounds of Al-Nahyan family wealth, rulers in Abu Dhabi since the 18th century. Or how Manchester City – no trophy since the League Cup of 1976, in the third division as recently as 1999, sitting in the post-industrial husk of east Manchester – fitted into this world-view of almost incomprehensible riches.

When the Abu Dhabi regime arrived, as people used to living in a world of success, they were surprised by the expectation of failure they found. Fans who in the 1980s carried inflatable bananas to lighten the mood, whose main collective song was a bleak profession of loyalty:

City till I die
I’m City till I die
I know I am, I’m sure I am
I’m City till I die

A song about a fan’s relationship with his football club that does not celebrate glory, but simply states that he is loyal and will then die, with nothing to celebrate in between? A fixation on the fan’s own death, in a football song? That did rather puzzle the Sheikh’s can-do men.

Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a senior figure in the strategic shaping of Abu Dhabi’s economic direction and image, took over as the public face of the new venture and became City’s chairman. After agreeing to buy the Brazilian striker Robinho for £32.5m before they had actually completed the takeover, Mansour, Al-Mubarak and manager Mark Hughes spent £50m on a first wave of players. In summer 2009, they went on a more dedicated spree, spending £137.5m. Hughes was authorised to sign Gareth Barry from Aston Villa (£12m); Roque Santa Cruz from Blackburn Rovers (£17.5m); Emmanuel Adebayor from Arsenal (£25m); Kolo Touré, also from Arsenal (£16m); Joleon Lescott from Everton (£22m); and Carlos Tevez.

You pays your money… Carlos Tevez celebrates after Manchester City win the FA Cup in 2011, the first trophy won under the new owners. Will it prove to be the first step in the club’s domination of domestic and European football. Photograph: The FA/Getty Images

Manchester United had had Tevez on loan for two seasons and had said they were willing to buy him for the £25.5m option price. But across town there was now an unfeasibly rich buyer willing to pay a great deal more. The price City paid, never disclosed in public, was, say reliable sources, £45m, though that is disputed. A clause in the contract guaranteed that Tevez would always be the highest paid thoroughbred in Mansour’s stables.

City decided to blare his arrival – and theirs, too, really – on a billboard positioned at the beginning of Deansgate, the gateway to the city. It was a boast about having gazumped United for the signature of Tevez, a recognisable football superstar. The £45m fee was paid by an Abu Dhabi sheikh to an unnamed company, which owned the player’s economic rights and was based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven that ensured secrecy about who owned the company.

The billboard had a picture of Tevez in a City shirt, arms outstretched, and it proclaimed: “Welcome to Manchester.”

Growing up in Manchester, you had to support one club or the other. In those days, the two clubs were equals. For me, it wasn’t a matter of family heritage or any grown-up influence. My dad was not a football fan, and my two brothers weren’t interested. It was an instinctive choice: because of the Manchester badge and the sky blue of the shirt, it would be relegations and City till I die for me.

I was three, so too young to see City in the two years, 1968–70, into which they compressed a golden age, winning the League championship, FA Cup in 1969, European Cup Winners’ Cup and League Cup the year after. Into the 1970s, though, City were still a top team, superior to Manchester United, who were relegated in 1974. In formative years for my generation, City played enlightened football, won the League Cup at Wembley with a wondrous Dennis Tueart overhead kick in 1976, and played in European competitions on those starry midweek nights.

City’s collapse, when it came at the end of the 1970s, was self-inflicted. The club had finished above United for six years out of seven in the 1970s, and chairman Peter Swales’s stated ambition was to make that superiority permanent. What was required was steady stewardship. Instead, Swales took a headlong, showy leap for glory. In January 1979 he supplanted manager Tony Book, who had all the fans’ respect, with Malcolm Allison, the coach to Joe Mercer when City had harvested their late 1960s glories. The idea was that Allison had the innate genius to magic back the golden years. In fact, he proceeded to clean out all our favourites, without seeming to take time even to watch them. Gary Owen, one of the very successful young players to advance and replace ageing stars, was sold to West Bromwich Albion. Then Allison sold Peter Barnes and Asa Hartford, Brian Kidd and Dave Watson. Joe Royle, Dennis Tueart and Mike Doyle had already gone. It was almost a whole team of excellent, beloved international players dismantled.

The overspending on new players by Allison and Swales is still legendary. Swales, an obsessive generator of publicity, was forever allowing the cameras behind the scenes, most famously for an ITV Granada documentary TV mini-series, City! It is an excruciating fly-on-the-wall witness to Allison’s vainglory, Swales’s self-regard for his own leadership qualities and the poor young players’ overpromoted helplessness.

In 1979, after half a season of Allison in charge, City stumbled to 15th. The following season, we were knocked out of the FA Cup 1–0 by Fourth Division Halifax Town. In just a year, Swales had transformed City from a club that needed to steady itself to a hollowed-out team at the bottom of the league. So he sacked Allison, his exit filmed for the City! documentary. The club finally went down at Maine Road on the final Saturday of the 1982–83 season.

There followed a relentless, vitriolic campaign on behalf of fans against Swales, though it was not until the spring of 1994 that he was finally ousted. His replacement, the blond, cherubic Francis Lee, a former Manchester City centre forward, was a haloed figure from a glorious era. We all had pictures of Franny on our bedroom walls, and we put our faith in him. “St Francis: the Second Coming”, read one of the T-shirts.

Swales had not, in fact, been extracted out of Maine Road; he still owned 10% of the club. Lee and his consortium made no secret that their intention was to float Manchester City Ltd on the London Stock Exchange, as Martin Edwards had done with United in 1991. We had roared Franny in, so that he and his associates could buy shares in Manchester City, then float it on the stock market, sell their shares and bank a profit.

The share structure of the club was reorganised. A new company was formed, called Manchester City plc. That plc would in turn own the shares in Manchester City Football Club Limited, the company that would employ the footballers and manager, and take the fans’ money. Importantly, the requirements of the Football League and the Football Association – that dividends paid out to shareholders and directors’ salaries had to be approved by the FA, and any money left after a member club was wound up should go to charity – would not be applicable to Manchester City plc.

Manchester United had been pioneers in this gold rush, as they were of so much else in the Premier League era: corporate entertainment, merchandising, all the various ways, including seriously inflated ticket price rises, to make money from the loyalty of fans. Several other big clubs were later floated on the Stock Market in a two-year flurry, from 1996–7, making their owners immediate paper profits of tens of millions of pounds. These men had bought majority stakes and become club-company chairmen before leading their clubs to break away from the Football League and form the Premier League in 1992, its 22 clubs keeping all the TV money about to flood in.

From the depths of despair: City’s current position is a far cry from the bad old days of the last few decades. Here, one fan looks on the bright side of yet another losing battle against relegation. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Images

As it would turn out, though, Lee never did cash in. Unlike United, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Chelsea and others, City would not harvest the copious rewards of the Premier League breakaway, and Lee and his long list of “consortium” investors would not make personal fortunes out of it. Just two years after our heartfelt battle to invoke St Francis’s second coming, City was overspent, over-borrowed and going down again.

In May 1996, City went down to the Second Division for the third time in my generation’s supporting life, though by now it was called the First Division, the Football League trying its best to battle on as if the breakaway had never happened. In the week of that final match, Peter Swales had died aged 62, a broken man shattered by his ousting. Before the game, the City crowd observed a minute’s silence for his death. As everybody hung their heads, there was a sense of shame. We had hounded Swales out, in an unforgiving public humiliation, for a childhood hero we believed would make us happy again. And now here we all were, gathered together at Maine Road, on the brink of relegation.

Two years later, City were down again, to the Third Division (now the Second Division). Lee, by now a minority shareholder, was out and David Bernstein, who had remained as a director, was appointed chairman – he’s now chairman of the FA.

City’s players struggled to adjust down in previously unexplored battlegrounds, and fans developed a detachment, too. Not to the idea of being fans, but to the reality that their club really had landed in the Third Division. It was standing on Blackpool’s Bloomfield Road, a sagging, patched-up old place then, where I first heard City fans sing that witty riff of disbelief:

We are not, we’re not really here,
We are not, we’re not really here
Just like the fans of the Invisible Man,
We’re not really here

Up for the cup: Club captain Vincent Kompany lifts the English Premier League trophy, the first time City have won England’s top-flight crown in 44 years. Photograph: Reuters

Surreal, funny, and also genuinely disbelieving. They sing it still, in the Etihad stadium, but now it is at the unbelievable fact that Yaya Touré, Sergio Agüero, David Silva and Vincent Kompany are wearing sky-blue shirts and playing to win the Premier League.

By the time Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City in 2008, the club had been in the Premier League for six successive seasons and had just finished ninth. It had a new stadium, built by its local council, that could seat 48,000 fans; that, Khaldoon al-Mubarak has always affirmed, was a crucial factor in the decision to buy the club. Its fans had proved over 40 years that they were unshakably, bloody-mindedly loyal, addicted to the hope of seeing City successful, apparently whatever it took. And so Sheikh Mansour decided that this would be the club to transform with his unthinkable wealth.

Despite the Premier League’s continued TV boom, a £1.6bn deal secured for 2001–04, and the gift of the new stadium, City were in money trouble again and seriously struggling. In 2006 and 2007, a grim side finished 15th and 16th in the league. So, in June 2007, somewhat desperate, they agreed to sell to Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been accused of human rights abuses, ousted as prime minister of Thailand in a military coup, charged with three counts of corruption and had his financial assets in Thailand frozen. He appointed Sven Göran-Eriksson as manager and provided the wherewithal to sign exciting new players including Martin Petrov, Vedran Corluka and Elano, a real, live Brazilian international. The accounts from Thaksin’s single season owning Manchester City, 2007–08, show that, as many had suspected, Elano, Petrov and several others were signed in instalments, not as the result of massive investment from Thaksin. He had put some money into the club, but not as much as it had appeared. A year later, with Thaksin on the run, City’s finances plummeted.

Abu Dhabi United did not say at the time exactly how much they had paid for Manchester City, but a figure of £150m later emerged, meaning that Thaksin had made a personal profit of £90m. It was still in the dawn of Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi ownership that Sheikh Mansour signed Tevez for £45m and City proclaimed this triumphant coup with that billboard in Deansgate.

I first met the chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, in the summer of 2009, just after City’s second spending spree. He was calm, not flashy but studious, and gave the appearance of being in control even as he was pouring so much money into both City and the bank accounts of some lucky footballers. His new role was, it turned out, just a small addition to his portfolio of major responsibilities. He also runs a company, Mubadala, where his brief is to buy into diverse ventures around the world targeted at helping to solidify Abu Dhabi’s wealth and power, in a future once the oil has run out. And he chairs the Executive Affairs Authority, a key branch of the Abu Dhabi government, providing strategic advice. It is involved in strategic communications – PR and image management – for the country of Abu Dhabi itself. The global popularity of the English Premier League, shown and watched in 200 countries around the world, means that Manchester City, Peter Swales’s cocked-up football club I grew up supporting, is a huge media phenomenon. Al-Mubarak told me that the attention and coverage devoted to the takeover of City, worldwide, dwarfed anything he had ever been involved with. He hoped the expressions of thanks and goodwill from City fans, and the lack of any animosity or racism towards them, could improve relations between the Middle East and the west. “There is an element of bridge-building, of understanding, between the Arab world and here,” he said.

No wonder they’re smiling: Gone are the days when fans had to trudge to away games at the likes of Gillingham in the third flight of English football. Now, they have big games against the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich to look forward to. Photograph: Matthew Ashton/AMA Sports Photo

But Al-Mubarak was at pains to emphasise that the purchase was not a corporate or state-sponsored venture planned by the Abu Dhabi government or those investment companies straining to spend the oil miracle prudently. “Sheikh Mansour is a huge football fan, he follows it very closely, and I think he has always wanted to have a European club that he can take and build and become one of the top clubs in the world. There is an enjoyment that comes with owning it, a pleasure, but also he is an astute businessman. He believes that you can create a value proposition in football that has not yet been accomplished.”

The plan for Manchester City, worked up with Garry Cook, then chief executive, envisaged an overhaul in every area of the club: football structure, administration, executive and board level, coaching, academy, supporter relations, commercial, the lot. Cook, an ex-Nike man, saw City as a “brand” itself, which would have major sponsors and “partners”, and be sold and broadcast all over the world. Al-Mubarak continually expressed amazement that the basics of a proper organisation were missing, that there was no personnel department, for example. “One of the big surprises was how amateurish it was,” Al-Mubarak said of City during another meeting in Abu Dhabi. “I found it shocking in the famous Premier League, to be without such basic functions.” City appointed Brian Marwood, the former Arsenal winger (also capped by England, once), as head of football administration. From the beginning, they identified that to have a winning team, capable of competing with United and the best clubs in Europe, given Uefa and the Premier League’s squad limit of 25, they wanted two world-class players in each position.

In December 2009, the Abu Dhabi regime sacked Hughes and replaced him with Roberto Mancini, an Italy international and successful manager with Internazionale of Milan. It seemed a ruthless move, but there was little dissent from the stands. In fact, a little ruthlessness crept into many of the fans, too; they were intent on City being successful, they felt they had remained loyal through all the ignominious decline, while United were winning everything, and they wanted nothing now to stand in the way of an ascent to trophies.

That summer, the Abu Dhabi regime sanctioned and bankrolled Mancini’s shopping with a vast financial outlay hugely beyond what the club could have afforded were it living on its own resources. City signed Jérôme Boateng from Hamburg for £10.5m; David Silva from Valencia for £26m; Yaya Touré, attacking midfield force from the great Barcelona, for £24m; Aleksandar Kolarov from Lazio for £19m; Mario Balotelli from Internazionale for £24m, and James Milner from Aston Villa for £26m. Then, in January 2011, they signed the striker Mancini had long coveted, Edin Dzeko, from Wolfsburg, for £27m, who turned out rather more of a game-changer than Lee Bradbury had been for Frank Clark’s £3m. This incredible series of international player purchases, unparalleled by any other club, totalled £156.5m. That brought the expenditure from Abu Dhabi, on transfer fees alone, to £376.5m in just two seasons.

Marwood showed me the 30-page, colour-coded analysis produced by City’s new inter-departmental analytic system for just one 15-year-old on whom they had been keeping an eye. For major signings, Marwood said, the dossiers would run to 40 or 50 pages. Before, he said, “it was in people’s heads”. Not any more. “The players on Roberto’s list, it was like a spreadsheet. It is that detailed, not left to chance.”

Many people in football take the view that this venture is repulsive and vulgar, contrary to the sporting heart and traditions of the game. The president of Uefa, Michel Platini, wondered at a football culture which allowed a sheikh from Abu Dhabi with no connection to Manchester to buy up an institution as locally rooted as a football club, and pour money in without restraint. Reacting to the game’s troubled relationship with money, Uefa introduced a rule, to be enforced from 2014, to try to stop clubs spending far beyond their true means and falling into financial trouble, as so many have during what should be football’s best of times. Under the “financial fair play” rules, between 2011 and 2013 clubs will be permitted to make losses of €45m in total, at most. If they are flagrantly in breach and rack up huge losses, Uefa’s ultimate sanction is to exclude that club from European competition, unthinkable for Sheikh Mansour’s Champions League-aspirant project. City’s losses for 2010–11, the year just before their finances come to be assessed for the financial fair play rules, were £197m, the greatest ever by an English football club. It was more than five times the total City will be permitted to lose over the following two years, and so made it look impossible that they could be anywhere near breaking even by the deadline, without Sheikh Mansour’s bankroll.

Yet, whichever way I asked Al-Mubarak about the instinctive repulsion many people in football have for this kind of “project” – for a rich man to just buy a club, then pour in as much money as it took to buy success – he did not so much defend what they were doing as fail to understand the question. If you told him that English football was never based on an “owner” buying a club and throwing money in to buy a team of stars, you realised before you trailed off that Jack Walker had done just that at Blackburn in 1995 and Roman Abramovich at Chelsea since 2003. English football was open to it. If you said football was not supposed to be about which “owner” had the most money, so who could pay the most to players, thereby seducing them to their club, he wondered aloud how United had won the Premier League so many times, and how anybody could compete with them without money. If you tried to argue that a club should be a club, belonging to the people who support it, that a sporting competition does not seem sporting if it is owned by one rich man spending whatever it takes to stockpile the necessary mercenary talent, you would be describing an abstract idea with which he was unfamiliar, and which did not match reality as it was, and as it was viewed from Abu Dhabi. From there, Mansour had watched the Premier League become the most viewed domestic sporting competition in the world, overflowing with glamour and money. He had seen that its clubs were companies, not supporter-owned clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona, or those in the German Bundesliga, and they were available for purchase by a menu of owners. United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Villa had all been bought; Spurs was owned via the currency speculator Joe Lewis in the tax haven of Bermuda, while Arsenal was being fought over by a Russian and an American billionaire. To Mansour and Al-Mubarak, this was more fun than oil and gas, but it was a company, a business.

“There is an opportunity we have identified and taken hold of,” as Al-Mubarak put it. “A mid-tier club will move to become a big club because of the financial resources we are able to make available. Because we see value in making that transition. And that is the bottom line.”

Over the years, I had felt, gradually and inexorably, a separation from City, the club that lit up my youth. As I came to understand how a new generation of “owners” was seeking to make money from the organisations we knew and loved as “clubs”, I felt instinctively this was wrong for football. Ownership by one billionaire sheikh is the antithesis of such mutuality. Yet with all the fortunes poured in, the Abu Dhabi regime brought a professionalism, and an appreciation of City’s heritage, that has made them, by contradiction, the most careful owners the club has had in my lifetime.

When the team they bought played on Sunday, the players were forced, ultimately, to confront the club’s “Typical City” ghosts. An agonising 2-1 down with the whole 90 minutes gone, and Manchester United waiting to claim the championship, Edin Dzeko and Sergio Agüero scored. Manchester City supporters were beside themselves then, releasing tears of triumph and belonging. Gazing out, I felt tears of my own, a clenched-fist surge of my childhood self, when I loved my football club so much and never would have dreamed that anybody could own it.

• This is an edited extract from Richer Than God: Manchester City, Modern Football And Growing Up, by David Conn, published by Quercus on 7 June at £18.99. To order a copy for £15.19, including mainland UK pp, call 0330 333 6846 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/18/fall-and-rise-manchester-city?newsfeed=true

NEW DELHI — For cricket-crazy Indians, the Indian Premier League (IPL) transformed the old, colonial-era gentleman’s game into 21st-century, swashbuckling entertainment — replete with bling, Bollywood, billionaires, pom-pom waving cheerleaders and scandalous after-parties.

Shah Rukh Khan, a Bollywood actor and co-owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders team, gestures toward a security guard at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Khan is to be banned for life from entering the Wankhede Stadium following an altercation he had with security gurads and officials of the Mumbai Cricket Association.
(Indranil Mukherjee – AFP/Getty Images)

The league squeezed the long, slow game to a relatively scant three hours, packed it with American-style energy and thumping music, and even brought in the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for a cameo appearance in 2008.

Nine Indian cities got teams owned by Bollywood superstars and billionaire businessmen and sporting American-style names: Delhi Daredevils, Pune Warriors, Kolkata Knight Riders. Analysts dubbed it “cricket on crack.” Fans loved it.

Now, this heady, cash-rich caldron of entertainment seems to be crumbling under its own weight.

In the past week, three scandals have rocked the Indian Premier League. A television sting operation showed cricketers agreeing to play sloppily for money; Bollywood superstar-cum-team-owner Shah Rukh Khan, got into a brawl with security guards at a stadium while allegedly drunk; and Australian player Luke Pomersbach was arrested Friday on charges of molesting an American woman at an after party in a five-star New Delhi hotel.

What was meant to be a grand makeover for cricket is now suffering an image crisis of its own. Kirti Azad, a former cricketer from the 1980s and now a lawmaker, says he will fast on Sunday to protest the harm IPL has done to the game.

“It is not IPL, it is a rave party. It is against Indian culture,” said Yashwant Sinha, another lawmaker. “If semi-naked girls will continue to dance after every four is scored, then this is what will happen.”

There is an English proverb to describe things not being right — “It’s not cricket.” The colonial correctness of the game seems to have come back to haunt India’s instant version.

More world news coverage:

- Egyptian presidential hopefuls on campaign trail

- Iran sanctions bill blocked in U.S. Senate

- European markets respond to crisis

- Read more headlines from around the world

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/series-of-controversies-hit-indian-premier-league-cricket/2012/05/18/gIQADODIYU_blog.html

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed on Friday evening that he has held talks with Aston Villa chairman Randy Lerner over taking the helm at Villa Park.

Solskjaer, 39, and wife Silje flew in on Lerner’s private jet from their home town of Kristiansund, having been permission by Molde to speak with the Premier League side.

The two parties met for four-hours of talks, before Solskjaer returned to Norway to continue preparations for Molde’s league fixture this Sunday.

Molde announced earlier today they had received £interest and contact from
Aston Villa”, and said the Premier League club and Solskjaer “are talking together”.

Solskjaer added: “I can confirm I’ve spoken with Aston Villa. There were no negotiations, but an informal initial chat. They also have other candidates they want to talk to.

“I wanted to show respect for one of the biggest clubs in the Premier League by responding to their questions with an initial talk.”

Solskjaer told Norwegian newspaper Romsdals Budstikke: “I am the
manager of the MFK (Molde) and have only had a casual conversation.”

Despite Solskjaer’s assertions, he is now the overwhelming favourite to become
Lerner’s third appointment in less than two years.

Article source: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1074284/ole-gunnar-solskjaer-confirms-talks-over-villa-job

The Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry, Ruth Maphorisa told a Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting on Wednesday that they are having a problem with collecting outstanding revenue from the Premier league. Maphorisa said that they have since written a letter to the Premier League threatening to take legal action. She said the league’s management committed to paying the full amount by July 10, which will be at the end of the season. The facilities under question are the new Lobatse Stadium and the Molepolole Sports Complex.

Under the arrangement, the government collects 25 percent of the gate takings paid to the stadiums after Premier League matches. This was not done at certain games with some stretching back to the 2010/2011 season when the new Lobatse stadium was still in use. Maphorisa said it is not possible to have teams pay stadium fees upfront when they have not established how much they were going to make from games. She said they are in the process of handing over the stadiums to the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) and they expect the stadium fees from the Premier League to go directly to stadium maintenance.

Contacted for comment on the issue, newly appointed Premier League Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bennett Mamelodi said it is true that some of the Premier League teams have not met their obligations regarding stadium fees. He said the Premier League has taken the blame because clubs do not have money and the league books the stadiums as clubs are incapacitated to do that on their own. Mamelodi said they have committed to pay the owed amount at the end of the season by deducting money from the clubs’ prize money.

“Our clubs do not have money and have defaulted on the stadium fees. We are trying to establish the reasons why they could not pay, but in the meantime we have promised the Ministry to settle the owed amount,” Mamelodi said.

With most Premier League clubs running without sponsors, they rely solely on gate takings for their day to day operations. Currently, stadiums, apart from the UB, charge between 25 to 30 percent from gate takings, then the clubs share whatever remains with the home team taking 70 percent, while the away team takes 30 percent.

Mamelodi was roped in as CEO last month with the Premier League saying the appointment was crucial because clubs were in a bad financial situation and in need of urgent intervention. Recently, the Premier League piloted an electronic ticketing system to try and tackle some deficiencies that came with the traditional manual ticketing system, but the new system has also come with a lot of hiccups.

Mamelodi said they have set a sub committee made up of some clubs chairpersons to address the issue of e-ticketing and they are expecting a report from the committee at a board meeting scheduled for this Sunday. He said after receiving the report that is when a decision will be made on the way forward regarding e-ticketing.

Meanwhile, Maphorisa also briefed the meeting on the stalled progress of the new Francistown stadium saying the stadium was way behind schedule due to problems with the contractor, who was said to be underperforming. The PS said she took it upon herself to tour the facility and identified some deficiencies in the construction. “The contractor was underperforming: there were a lot of problems at the facility. Among these, the seats in the stands were designed such that spectators legs hang loosely when seating. The beam under the stands entrance was too low that many people could touch with their heads when walking through to the stand, the grand stand roof was too heavy for the support and the dressing rooms were too small,” Maphorisa said.

Article source: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=8&aid=300&dir=2012/May/Friday18

Norwich City striker Grant Holt has had a transfer request rejected by the club, following a season in which he scored 15 Premier League goals.

Holt, 31, was omitted from the England squad for Euro 2012 earlier this week, having finished the season as the second top-scoring English striker in the league.

On Friday, though, Holt has shocked his employers by handing-in a transfer request which was swiftly rejected. The striker joined Norwich from Shrewsbury in 2009, for a reported fee of £400,000.

Holt’s consistent supply of goals were a big reason behind the Canaries rise to the Premier League, firing his side to consecutive promotions from League 1 and then the Championship.

The news follows speculation linking manager Paul Lambert with a move away from
the club, with the Scot linked with the vacant managerial positions at Aston Villa and
Liverpool.

Article source: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1074080/norwich-striker-grant-holt-hands-in-transfer-request

Hyderabad, May 19 — Former champions Rajasthan Royals were knocked out of the fifth edition of Indian Premier league following their five wicket defeat by Deccan Chargers at Rajiv Gandhi International stadium here Friday.

It was finally a moment of celebrations for the home team as chasing a modest target of 127, they notched up a victory with 1.2 overs to spare.

The result put an end to series of defeats for the home side but made little difference to their position. They are already out of the race for the play-offs.

With seven points from 15 matches, the Chargers still languish at the bottom with the last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore scheduled at the same ground on Sunday. For the Royals, the loss means end of the road for a place in play-offs. They have 14 points from 15 matches and a win in the last match against Mumbai Indians would not help them.

Buckling under the pressure of a must-win situation, the Royals crumbled to 126 after winning the toss. After impressive bowling, Chargers’ batting came up good to snatch the much-needed victory.

Ashish Reddy hit two successive fours of Shaun Tait to overcome some anxious moments and seal the victory for his team.

The opening partnership of 63 between Reddy (42 off 35 balls) and Shikhar Dhawan (26 off 24), adding 58 in the power play, helped Chargers to reach the target. J.P. Duminy chipped in with 24 off 31 deliveries.

The openers gave a flying start with Dhawan hitting Chandila for a six over long-on, followed up by a sweep for four to notch up 11 runs in the first over. Dhawan, one of the leading run-scorer this season, then hooked Tait for a six behind the wicket keeper.

The first breakthrough for the visitors came in the ninth over when Johan Botha had Dhawan caught by Chandila.

Reddy was the next to go as he tried to flick it away but got a leading edge and Owais Shah took a good catch by running back.

Captain Cameron White (1) did not last long as he gave a return catch to Chandila. At this stage, Royals tried to put some pressure with tight bowling and fielding but ultimately their total proved to be too meagre to defend.

Trivedi claimed two for 20 while Chandila, Botha and Binny bagged a wicket each.

Earlier, an impressive bowling performance by Chargers restricted the Royals to 126 for eight.

Dale Steyn’s two for 14, Amit Mishra’s two for 20 and a fine display by other bowlers reduced the visitors to the lowest score this season.

Electing to bat after winning the toss on what looked to be a good batting track, the Royal’ top-order collapsed before disciplined bowling attack of the home team.

Barring captain Rahul Dravid (39 off 26) and Owais Shah (28 off 32), who showed some resistance, none of the batsmen could withstand the fiery spells by Steyn, Mishra and Gony (1 for 26). Veer Pratap Singh also chipped in with two for 31.

The 35-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Shah and Ashok Menaria (20 off 17) was the only highlight of the Rajasthan innings. Dravid’s knock of 39 off 26 balls was studded with five fours out of the total 10 boundaries in the innings.

The visitors also failed to capitalize on three dropped catches and some sloppy fielding by Chargers, who were led by White as Kumar Sangakkara opted out after a rather poor season with the bat.

Royals had a disastrous start with Rahane departing in the second over as Steyn had him caught in the slip by Dhawan.

Watson survived narrowly in the fifth over when Dhawan could not hold on to a diving catch off Gony at mid-on. Dravid survived the next delivery as Ashish Reddy attempted a difficult overhead catch.

Amit Mishra then gave his team a key breakthrough as he cleaned up Watson for 13 (1×4, 1×6) on his very first delivery which spinned away to hit the off-stump. Mishra in his next over deceived Binny (7) to another beauty which uprooted the stumps.

Playing the captain’s knock, Dravid held on to the other end. However, in an attempt to give some momentum to the scoring, he was caught by Chris lynn off Gony near the boundary line.

IANS

This article was distributed through the NewsCred Smartwire.

Original article © IANS / Daily News 2012

Article source: http://india.nydailynews.com/article/a5c048295ddc4112d50cdf3604b4e61d/rajasthan-royals-knocked-out-chargers-win-finally

LONDON (AP)

Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers rejected an approach from
Liverpool on Friday to discuss replacing the fired Kenny Dalglish
at the Premier League rival.

The American-owned club is planning to interview several
managers before making an appointment, having already been granted
permission by Wigan on Thursday to speak to Roberto Martinez.

Rodgers will not be speaking to Liverpool after pledging to
stick with Swansea, which beat Liverpool on the last day of an
impressive debut Premier League campaign on Sunday.

”An approach from Liverpool FC to speak to manager Brendan
Rodgers was officially received by chairman Huw Jenkins this
morning,” Swansea said Friday. ”The club is pleased to confirm
that Brendan has declined the current opportunity to speak to the
Anfield club about the vacant position.”

Agreeing to be interviewed by Liverpool and then being rejected
by the Premier League rival could have made it tough for Rodgers to
return to the Swansea job.

Rodgers steered Swansea to an 11th-place finish, just five
points behind eighth-place Liverpool and was lauded for their
slick, passing football.

”The Swansea manager is currently working hard to strengthen
the squad in readiness for the new Barclays Premier League
campaign,” the south Wales club said.

Dalglish was fired on Wednesday after Liverpool failed to
challenge for a place in the Premier League’s top four and a return
to the lucrative Champions League.

The Boston Red Sox ownership group, which runs Liverpool, is
overhauling the senior management at the 18-time English
champions.

Dalglish is the latest senior figure to leave Anfield in recent
weeks, following the exit of the director of football, head of
sports medicine and communications chief.

”We may have lost our way a little in terms of performances but
it is still one of the biggest football clubs in the world,”
Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre said Thursday. ”I still think
this is one of the biggest jobs in world football.”

Article source: http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/soccer/story/Swanseas-Rodgers-snubs-Liverpool-approach-96473750

For cricket-crazy Indians, the Indian Premier League (IPL) transformed the old, colonial-era gentleman’s game into 21st-century, swashbuckling entertainment–replete with bling, Bollywood, billionaires, pom-pom waving cheerleaders and scandalous after-parties.

Shah Rukh Khan, a Bollywood actor and co-owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders team, gestures towards a security guard at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Khan is to be banned from entering the Wankhede Stadium for life following an altercation he had with security and officials of the Mumbai Cricket Association.
(Indranil Mukherjee – AFP/Getty Images)

The league squeezed the long, slow game to a relatively scant three hours, packed it with American-style energy and thumping music, and even brought in the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for a cameo appearance in 2008.

Nine Indian cities got teams owned by Bollywood superstars and billionaire businessmen and sporting American-style names: Delhi Daredevils, Pune Warriors, Kolkata Knight Riders. Analysts dubbed it “cricket on crack.” Fans loved it.

Now, this heady, cash-rich cauldron of entertainment seems to be crumbling under its own weight.

In the past week, three scandals have rocked the Indian Premier League. A television sting operation showed cricketers agreeing to play sloppily for money; drunken Bollywood superstar-cum-team-owner Shah Rukh Khan into an abusive brawl with security guards at a stadium; Australian player Luke Pomersbach was arrested Friday on charges of molesting an American woman at an after party in a five-star New Delhi hotel.

What was meant to be a grand makeover for cricket is now suffering an image crisis of its own. Kirti Azad, a former cricketer from the 1980s and now a lawmaker, says he will fast on Sunday to protest the harm IPL has done to the game.

“It is not IPL, it is a rave party, it is against Indian culture,” another lawmaker Yashwant Sinha said. “If semi-naked girls will continue to dance after every four is scored, then this is what will happen.”

There is an English proverb to describe things not being right—“It’s not cricket.” The colonial correctness of the game seems to have come back to haunt India’s instant version.

More world news coverage:

- Egyptian presidential hopefuls on campaign trail

- Iran sanctions bill blocked in U.S. Senate

- European markets respond to crisis

- Read more headlines from around the world

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/series-of-controversies-hit-indian-premier-league-cricket/2012/05/18/gIQADODIYU_blog.html

Llanelli will host Bala Town at Stebonheath Park to determine the final Welsh representatives in the Europa League next season.

Andy Legg’s Llanelli finished fourth in the Welsh Premier League with Bala 10 points behind in fifth.

Jordan Follows scored an extra-time winner to secure a 1-0 victory for Llanelli over 10-man Aberystwyth Town in last Saturday’s semi-final.

Bala secured their place in the final thanks to goals from Ian Sheridan and Lee Hunt in the 2-1 win over Prestatyn.

Llanelli have been regular Welsh representatives in Europe during recent seasons and they lost to Dinamo Tibilisi in last season’s Europa League second qualifying round.

Victory for Bala in Saturday’s final would secure European football for the first time in the Lakesiders’ history.

Ex-Wales and Wrexham midfielder Mark Jones returns to Bala’s squad following a three match ban but suspension rules out Ross Jefferies.

Llanelli won three of the four league meetings between the clubs this season, but Bala won 2-1 at Stebonheath Park in March and also defeated Andy Legg’s side on penalties in the Welsh Cup quarter-final.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18120003

By
Sportsmail Reporter

PUBLISHED:

11:33, 18 May 2012

|

UPDATED:

11:33, 18 May 2012

Michel Platini has warned Manchester City to curb their spending or face oblivion if their owners decide to quit.

The UEFA president is overseeing the implementation of new Financial Fair Play rules which will require clubs to balance their football-related expenditure over a three-year period up to the 2014–15 season.

Clubs will initially be allowed to make a loss of £39.4million over the first three years, falling to £24million from 2015–16.

Here to stay? Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak

• 
  Santander’s UK customers voice fears after Spanish banking…

• 
  Thief, 45, stole handbag of woman who had just been…

• 
  He was a 12-year-old Romanian schoolboy and she was his…

• 
  Callous parents who ‘stole the childhood’ of their sons by…

• 
  Transgender Miss Universe contestant takes to the stage for…

• 
  The ex-husband yard sale… and everything is FREE! Wife…

• 
  Who says dads can’t dance? Hilarious video of father and…

• 
  An EU Army and the six other snubs for Cameron… the…

• 
  The moment an angry, 250lb alligator attacks a scientist by…

• 
  Disgusting of Tunbridge Wells: ‘Vicky Pollard’ teenager…

• 
  End for the GCSEs that no one can fail: ‘Soft’ subjects and…

• 
  ‘I told you I was ill…’ Spike Milligan’s gravestone quip…

Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2146287/Michel-Platini-warns-Manchester-City-spending.html

18 May, 2012

NEW DELHI: Riding on Chris Gayle’s unbeaten knock of 128 off 62 balls and some brilliant bowling helped Royal Challengers Bangalore to beat Delhi Daredevils by 21 runs to keep their playoff hopes alive on Thursday.

• Yuvraj eyes comeback after cancer treatment
• SRK and his IPL controversy
• Australia s Pomersbach arrested on assault charges
• Indian Premier League: Gayle ton guides Banglaore to easy win
• Cricket: ‘Tours needed for young players’
• Cricket: No replacement for Jamshed, says Qasim
• Strauss receives ICC Test Championship mace

Ross Taylor and Andre Russell’s late surge gave Delhi a chance for a win, but Bangalore managed to pick up wickets at regular intervals to leave them at 194 for 9. For Bangalore, Zaheer Khan took 3 for 38, Prasanth Parameswaran claimed 3 for 30 and Vinay Kumar chipped in with 2 for 35.

Chasing a huge total of 216, Delhi’s hopes rested on David Warner (15), who was removed by Zaheer Khan in just the second over. After that youngster Unmukt Chand (18) showed some spark by hitting two fours and a six, but then perished in the fifth over to Vinay Kumar. Taylor gave Delhi some hope with a quick-fire 55 off 25 balls. While Taylor was in the middle, Delhi sensed an outside chance of sneaking in a win, but his wicket in the 17th over ended the match as a contest. Earlier, Mahela Jayawardene put Bangalore in to bat and from there it was all the Gayle show. The big West Indian batsman slammed an unbeaten 128 of 62 balls that included 13 sixes and seven fours to take the visiting team to a mammoth 215 for 1. Gayle put up a record 204 run second wicket stand with Kohli (73 not out).

In the day’s other fixture Adam Gilchrist led from the front to take Kings XI Punjab to a comfortable six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings. A hamstring injury had kept out Gilchrist for the most part of this tournament, but he showed no signs of rustiness in his unbeaten 64 as Punjab chased 121 with 21 balls to spare. Together with Mandeep Singh, the Australian got the hosts off to a brisk start, with fifty runs up in the seventh over itself. Though Mandeep was then bowled by Albie Morkel for 24 and Dwayne Bravo got Nitin Saini and David Hussey out cheaply soon after, the total was too little to allow any pressure to build on Punjab.

Gilchrist, meanwhile, rolled back the years and Yo Mahesh in particular suffered, going for 22 runs in the 15th over. From then on, the game as a contest was over, and Azhar Mahmood finished things off with a boundary off Morkel to improve his side’s run-rate somewhat. Earlier, Punjab’s pacers repaid the faith put in them by Gilchrist, who sent in Chennai to bat on a green pitch in overcast conditions. Praveen Kumar made full use of the swing on offer, and dismissed both openers – Murali Vijay (10) and Michael Hussey (7) – in consecutive overs, both edging simple catches behind to the wicketkeeper. He could have a third one as well, but Piyush Chawla put down a simple catch at slip off Suresh Raina at the start of the sixth over with Chennai struggling at 25 for 2 at the end of the Powerplay overs, and Kumar finished with still impressive figures of 2 for 18.

Chennai were left in dire straits at 46 for 4 at the end of the 11th over, but Bravo, fought back with a gritty 43-ball 48, picking Chawla for 12 runs off his only over, and his 32-run partnership with Ravindra Jadeja (13) and then a 34-run partnership with Morkel (14) ensured Chennai reached a total that at least gave their bowlers something to defend.

End.

Article source: http://paktribune.com/sports/news/Indian-Premier-League-Gayle-ton-guides-Banglaore-to-easy-win-11330.html

Fri, 18 May 10:55:00 2012

Bolton striker Kevin Davies has signed a new one-year contract at the club but Wanderers’ relegation from the Premier League is being felt with 12 players on their way out.

• Fabianski: I want to leave Arsenal
• Psychic pig set to take Euros by storm
• Bet on Football – Get £25 Free

Davies’ current deal expired this summer but he has agreed to stay on, with defender Sam Ricketts also agreeing a two-year extension as manager Owen Coyle prepares his side for their npower Championship campaign.

Midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker has activated a release clause in his contract while a further 11 players have all been released after their deals ran out.

Gretar Steinsson, Paul Robinson, Sean Davis, Robbie Blake, Ricardo Gardner, Ivan Klasnic, Mark Connolly, Tope Obadeyi, Rhys Bennett, Dino Fazlic and Tom Eckersley are those who have left, while Tuncay Sanli, Dedryck Boyata and Ryo Miyaichi have all returned to their respective parent clubs after loan spells.

In a statement Bolton said discussions were continuing with goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen, deposed as number one by Adam Bogdan, and Zat Knight over their contracts.

“I was clear with Nigel. I asked him straight away whether he wanted to stay and be a part of what we are going to do next season,” Coyle said in a statement.

“He was honest and up front with us, because that is the type of man he is, and said that he wanted to exercise the clause in his contract, and so we wish him well.

“I would also like to thank the players that are leaving the club for their work at Bolton. We wish them all well.

“One of those is Ricardo Gardner, who has been with the football club for 14 years.

“He has offered incredible service to Bolton and I’d like to personally thank him for all of his efforts, particularly during the time I have worked with him.”

PA Sport

Article source: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/18052012/58/premier-league-bolton-release-12-davies-stays.html

Swansea have confirmed that manager Brendan Rodgers has rejected an approach from Liverpool to discuss the managerial vacancy at Anfield.

NEW LIVERPOOL HOME KIT

LFC reveals 2012-13 jersey. Available on foxsoccershop.com June 1st. Click here for more photos.

Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) are searching for a new manager after sacking Kenny Dalglish on Wednesday, and have already had an approach to speak to Wigan manager Roberto Martinez accepted.

FSG were also known to be keen to speak to Rodgers, but a Swansea statement read: “Swansea City can confirm that an approach from Liverpool FC to speak to manager Brendan Rodgers was officially received by chairman Huw Jenkins on Friday morning.

“The club is pleased to confirm that Brendan has declined the current opportunity to speak to the Anfield club about the vacant position.”

The statement continued: “The Swansea manager is currently working hard to strengthen the squad in readiness for the new Barclays Premier League campaign.

“The club will make no further comment at this stage.”

Rodgers, who signed a new three-and-half-year deal in February, has previously been linked with Chelsea and Tottenham after making a huge impression by guiding Swansea to an 11th-place finish in their maiden Premier League campaign.

The Welsh club rounded off their season by beating Liverpool 1-0 at the Liberty Stadium, a fixture which proved to be Dalglish’s last in charge of the Reds.

Swansea’s attractive possession style of play also won former Reading and Watford manager Rodgers plenty of admirers, and chairman Huw Jenkins has admitted the Swans will have to become use to their boss being linked with other clubs.

And it says much about the Northern Irishman’s burgeoning reputation that he was among the bookmakers’ favourites to take over at Anfield, along with the likes of former Swans’ boss Martinez, Andre Villas-Boas, Frank Rijkaard and Didier Deschamps.

But the decision to reject an approach from one of the British game’s traditional powers represents a major boost to the Welsh side as they look to build on a promising start to life in the top flight.

Despite the speculation linking him with other clubs, Rodgers has always insisted he is committed to Swansea.

After being linked with Tottenham in February, he said: “The most important thing for me is to have peace and satisfaction in my job, I don’t know where else other than Swansea that I can be as happy as I am.

“If speculation comes with me doing the job well then I am flattered and honoured. However, this is the place I want to be, hopefully I can be here for the duration of my contract, that’s my aim.

“I am already at a top club, Swansea is a top club. It might not be in the Champions League and, at this moment in time, challenging for trophies, but in my own mind I am at a top club.

“This is a club that is run fantastically well, I get the opportunity to manage this club how I want to and do everything here.

“I am 39 years of age. I hope to prove myself over a long period and my only concentration is on Swansea City.”

Rodgers is due to fly out to Austria this weekend as he gets the chance to spend four days with world and European champions Spain at their pre-Euro 2012 training camp in Schruns, before heading to New York to take in Wales’ friendly with Mexico.

Rodgers is also to hold talks with Tottenham over taking defender Steven Caulker on another season-long loan, while Swansea are thought to be edging closer to agreeing a permanent move for Gylfi Sigurdsson after the Hoffenheim midfielder’s stunning loan spell.
 

Article source: http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/premierleague/story/brendan-rodgers-turns-down-liverpool-approach-swansea-boss-051812

LONDON Manchester United revealed the financial impact on Thursday of its early exit from the Champions League, with earnings dropping and cash reserves being halved in the first three months of the year.

United was deposed as Premier League champions by Manchester City on Sunday and eliminated from the lucrative Champions League at the group stage in December.

The quarterly accounts show that earnings for the club owned by the American Glazer family dipped by almost 10 percent year-on-year to 20.4 million pounds ($32.3 million) and revenue dipped by six percent by 70.8 million pounds ($112.1 million).

United’s cash reserves also dropped from 50.9 million pounds (then $80 million) at the end of 2011 to 25.6 million pounds (then $41 million) by March 31. The figure had stood at 150.6 million pounds (then $238 million) at the end of 2010.

“I do think everyone at the club, from (manager) Alex (Ferguson) down, agree we underperformed in Europe this year,” United chief executive David Gill said earlier this week.

The 19-time English champions have been ranked football’s most valuable club for eight years in a row by Forbes magazine, which valued them at $2.24 billion last month.

The club remains English football’s biggest moneymaker, with enhanced sponsorship deals offsetting the drop in revenue from failing to advance further in the Champions League.

In fact, commercial revenue rose 15 percent year-on-year to 27.3 million pounds ($43.4 million) and exceeded match-day revenue, including ticket sales, in the first three months of 2012.

“We should recognize we’re a very successful club, one of the top three in terms of turnover in world football, and it generates a lot of cash to invest in players,” Gill said. “We will continue to do so and our style is both buying players and giving youth a chance.”

United continues to invest in developing Old Trafford and its training ground while spending more on its squad, with wages rising by 9 percent year-on-year to 112.4 million pounds ($178 million).

“This increase largely relates to growth in player remuneration, driven by new player acquisitions and further contractual negotiations together with increased costs and headcount arising from the continued growth in our sponsorship and commercial operations,” United’s quarterly report says.

The club’s debt, resulting from the 2005 takeover by Glazers, has been cut by 61 million pounds year-on-year to 423.3 million pounds ($673.8 million) despite incurring 18.2 million pounds ($28.8 million) in interest payments in three months.

___

Rob Harris can be reached at www.twitter.com/RobHarris

Article source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57436962/manchester-uniteds-cash-reserves-halved/

Martyn Herman

Reuters

7:29 a.m. CDT, May 18, 2012

Article source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-rt-uk-soccer-england-playoffbre84h0i5-20120518,0,5893541.story

LONDON—Wigan manager Roberto Martinez was given permission by his club on Thursday to speak to Liverpool about filling the job vacated by Kenny Dalglish’s dismissal.

The approach came while Wigan chairman Dave Whelan was with Martinez, a day after Dalglish was fired following Liverpool’s disappointing season in which it finished eighth in the Premier League.

But Martinez is not Liverpool’s only managerial option, with the club making inquiries about at least four managers based in England and overseas.

“What we don’t want is to choose quickly or choose because there’s a time pressure. It’ll be about finding the right person who can do the best job for Liverpool,” Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre said.

“We have to go through a process where we assess them and understand more than what they have achieved on the pitch,” Ayre added. “What are their characteristics? How are they with players and all the different elements of a football club? It is not as simple as looking at an individual who has achieved something and say, ‘He is the right guy.’”

The 38-year-old Martinez has impressed during his three years at Wigan, presiding over a series of late victories this season — including over Manchester United — to keep the northwest team in the Premier League.

“I did promise Roberto … when a big club comes he will have permission to talk to them,” Whelan told British broadcaster Sky Sports. “They don’t come any bigger than Liverpool, so I gave him permission and he will be talking to them soon. I don’t know when.”

“Roberto has the opportunity to go and manage a massive club in Liverpool, so the decision would be entirely Roberto’s,” Martinez said. “We did speak about Liverpool. Liverpool has undergone some changes in the last two years, some massive changes, and I still think they need to settle down as a football club.”

Whelan claimed there is “no heart” at Liverpool “at present” as the Boston Red Sox Ownership group steps up its overhaul of senior personnel after having bought the club in October 2010.

“It’s deeply disturbing when you think a football club as big as Liverpool is functioning without a heart,” Whelan said. “I mentioned that to Roberto and I think it’s true — there is no heart beating in Liverpool at present.”

Dalglish won eight league titles as a player and coach from 1977-90. He returned to Anfield shortly after the Fenway Sports Group takeover to replace Roy Hodgson in January 2011 with the club hovering above the relegation zone.

After lifting Liverpool from its perilous position to sixth place, Dalglish was given a three-year contract at the end of the 2010-11 season.

But winning the League Cup to end Liverpool’s six-year trophy drought in February and reaching the FA Cup final wasn’t enough to convince the American owners that the club was on the right path under Dalglish.

Dalglish is the latest senior figure to leave Anfield during in recent weeks, following the exit of director of football, head of sports medicine, and communications chief.

“They were decisions made because of this plan to go forward, because there was a belief those individuals weren’t good enough to take it forward at that time,” Ayre said. “The idea that all these people are leaving and there is a crisis is nonsense.”

Article source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/soccer/story/2012-05-17/premier-league-liverpool-approaches-wigan-about-roberto-martinez-as-kenny-dalgli

One doubts if there is a bigger catch in the Indian Premier League than Chris Gayle? After all, he is the most destructive batsman in Twenty20 cricket. Had he been sold in the auction, it’s a good bet that he would have broken all records.

Surprisingly, he is not the highest

earner in the league. Kolkata Knight Riders’ Gautam Gambhir commands $2.4 million while the Royal Challengers Bangalore managed to retain Gayle for just $560,000.

What’s even more difficult to fathom is that the player, who single-handedly took his team to the 2011 IPL final, is priced less than the likes of Yusuf Pathan and Robin Uthappa, who command $2.1 million each, and Delhi Daredevils’ Irfan Pathan ($1.9 million). That too when Gayle had offers pouring in from almost every team.

Baffling
But that’s how the IPL system works. Having had the West Indian as a replacement in IPL IV, RCB had the first right of refusal for him, but only a total purse of $2 million. If the franchise had to buy a few players in the auction, they had to keep Gayle’s price as low as possible. Getting him for $560,000 allowed them to achieve that.

The example highlights the fact that no one is surprised by Mohnish Mishra’s claims during a sting operation that he was being paid an amount much higher than the official figures. Even though he later declared his statement as frivolous, no one is under any doubt that the practice is rampant in the IPL.

Mishra Co were soft targets of the TV channel’s sting, players who hardly count in the big world of IPL. While these domestic players are suspended, the bigger fish are swimming freely in the IPL ocean.

For a combined total of $4.5 million, Chennai Super Kings retained MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay and Albie Morkel while the Mumbai Indians kept Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga and Kieron Pollard. If it’s true, isn’t it a steal?

Imagine how much the two franchises would have had to shell out in auction for the likes of Dhoni and Tendulkar.

No clarity
There’s no clarity over how much the retained players are paid. It’s this opacity that’s the root of all evil in the player payments. The current IPL structure of player payments is clearly not working.

It obviously breeds corruption. It’s time to check out the English Premier League model where it’s a straight deal between the player and the club or the NBA model based on draft picks.

Article source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Specials/Cricket/IPL/Chunk-HT-UI-IPL2012-TopStories/Gayle-force-exposes-flaw/SP-Article10-857479.aspx