TOP 100 SOCCER SITES
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| Hammers hold fire on sale talk West Ham United's leading shareholder CB Holding said they were in no hurry to sell their stake in the Barclays Premier League club if offers didn't meet their own valuation. foxsports.com.au |
Football transfer rumours: Peter Crouch to Zenit St Petersburg? | Barry Glendenning Please consider today's tell-all before printing the environmentContrary to what many would have you believe, the rumour-mongering trade is not all fast cars, loose women and big creamy slices of moist fruit-cake covered in marzipan, then icing with garish bits of fruit clinging to the sides like rogue pubic hairs on a bathroom tile. Oh no.It's on bleak mornings like this, when a bleary-eyed Rumour Mill has had to drag itself out of bed at ridiculous o'clock having spent a restless night tossing and turning like a pig on a spit, that we really earn our corn. After all, those snippets of transfer speculation won't lift themselves out of assorted other websites and pitch up here on their own. (although it would be very nice if they would). So yes, that's the Rumour Mill - trawling the Daily Mail website so that you don't have to. And there was you thinking this gig was all about the stage-door groupies.Despite yesterday's comically straight-faced assurances from Harry Redknapp that he wouldn't be putting a pony in his pocket or fetching the suitcase from the van during the forthcoming transfer window, the names of assorted Tottenham Hotspur players figure prominently in today's back pages. Having noticed what a good touch Peter Crouch has for a big man, Zenit St Petersburg coach Luciano Spalletti will offer to double the striker's wages if he'll consider a move to the city formerly known as Leningrad. Meanwhile in Moscow, Spartak are interested in re-securing the scrawl of their former striker and Tottenham outcast Roman Pavlyuchenko, but are not prepared to pay the £15m Harry wants for the Russian. CSKA are also primed to bring one of their old boys, Jo, back to the Russian capital in the wake of the striker's dismal failure to either score many goals or secure the much-coveted title of Newly Monied Manchester City's Most Spectacular Brazilian Flop.Crouchigol isn't the only Premier League player getting the come-on from Zenit St Petersburg - the Russian club's suits have been pouting suggestively at Andrea Dossena and Liverpool may well be prepared to ship a £5m loss on the Italian full-back in order to raise funds to cover the cost of Brann's striker Erik Huseklepp. We know next to nothing about the Norwegian but have already decided unfairly, just from looking at his name, that he's unlikely to become a Kop favourite and will probably be farmed out to Peterborough United on loan or sold on to AEK Athens for a substational loss within 18 months of arriving at Anfield. You mark our words. Of course it's no secret that Liverpool manager Rafael BenÃtez also wants to get rid of Ryan Babel and Andriy Voronin in a bid to raise funds for Galatasaray winger Arda Turan.This just in: "Nemanja Vidic se une a la lista de galácticos para 2010," according to Spanish newspaper Marca. Now the Rumour Mill doesn't speak Spanish very well, but we're fairly sure this means that despite all the talk linking Nemanja Vidic with Barcelona, it is in fact Real Madrid who have decided to stop at nothing to sign the Manchester United centre-half in 2010 and Sir Alex Ferguson is so resigned to losing the Serbian that he's already eyeballing Porto's Bruno Alves as a replacement.Big Sam Allardyce may be long gone from Bolton Wanderers but his transfer policy remains very much in place, if this morning's rumours linking the Trotters with an ageing past-his-pomp Real Madrid midfielder is anything to go by. Guti is the man Gary Megson wants to go buy. His go-to Guti, as it were.With Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni having limited his options and bargaining power by announcing that he will not sign for any club other than Roma, West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola has turned his gaze on Fiorentina striker and Chelsea old-boy Adrian Mutu, who could probably do with the signing-on fee. Zola may have to raise funds by selling Scott Parker, which shouldn't be too difficult considering Stoke, Liverpool and Tottenham are all clamouring for the midfielder's services. Well, sitting in the auction house with mobile phones glued to ears and table-tennis type paddle things poised for when the inevitable bidding war starts. And while the news that Middlesbrough manager Gordon Strachan is hoping to bring Scott McDonald south of the border to Teesside would normally prompt the Rumour Mill to crack a lame gag about the gamble involved in seeing if Celtic's Aussie striker would be able for the step up in class that such a move would entail, we'll resist the urge today because the joke in question is becoming increasingly less wide of the mark and now seems tantamount to kicking a blind man's stick. And kicking the sticks of blind men is not how the Rumour Mill rolls. Tottenham HotspurZenit St PetersburgBarry Glendenningguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Pompey are paying the price of success The rest of the game has a serious lesson to learn from Portsmouth's fall from great deedsA new year, a new decade – but what will it bring for football? As much as I would like to be positive I can't help but advise that we proceed with caution. With everything going on at Portsmouth right now, I think the rest of the game has a serious lesson to learn.Who would have thought that playing in the Premier League, winning the FA Cup, and playing in Europe would bring such disaster? Unbelievably we are now paying the price for that success at Portsmouth. Late wage payments, severe debts, the threat of administration and relegation, ironically all of these problems can be traced back, in part, to our achievements.After we won the Cup I was told that one of our financial people predicted it would ruin us. They were right. The heavy bonus culture, endemic in our game, became the curse as the earnings of the Cup run did not tally up with the bonuses paid out. I'm a big fan of performance-related pay, but if it's not within the realms of reality then it's just irresponsible. No wonder the fans are upset. A lot of money came into the club via prize money and transfers and yet we're £60m in debt. I've been told by the club that they'll sit down with me and explain where it's all gone. They also said we'd get paid on time.Luckily we are blessed with a very strong changing room. Maybe it's because the group of players collected here have all experienced some kind of adversity through their careers. We seem to be dealing with it well as a group. But we shouldn't have to worry about transfer embargoes and non-payment, and all that peripheral stuff.I mention Portsmouth, in the context of the next decade, because I think finance in football will dictate the future of the game. The result could be positive – perhaps at last English clubs will invest in developing English players because in the long run it is the more economic solution. It is obvious that developing a player like Everton's Jack Rodwell is ultimately cheaper than buying him ready made off somebody else.But it may also make us more aware of who the real power brokers are in this game. For me that's the TV companies. They created the Premier League and their money is what sustains it. But as TV budgets shrink, so does the competition for broadcasting rights. If one company ends up with the monopoly will they still want to pay top whack for the privilege?I think TV money could dictate what happens to the game, and if that means shaking up the format and changing the rules that may happen. Look at darts, and now snooker. Those are sports that struggled and then became TV-savvy to jumpstart a revival. This may sound completely wacko – and it may not be for another 20 years – but I can imagine things like the substitutes rule changing.Imagine if we had unlimited substitutions – we could bring David Beckham on to take free-kicks, aged 40, and then take him off again as play restarts. Or someone like Jamie Ashdown, our reserve goalkeeper who is a fantastic penalty stopper, could be brought on for the crucial moments. Why not? It could lengthen the careers of older players, liven up the game, include more big-name stars in fixtures. It's not football as we know it, but it's a development. In order to survive in a market that's increasingly entertainment focused, this could be the way forward.What else might change? Personally I'd like to see an end to the transfer window. It creates pandemonium and forces up prices unnecessarily. Desperate managers make desperate decisions, often buying in the wrong players and paying over the odds for them. I'd like to see an end to Fifa's endorsement of 3rd Generation grass – it's rubbish, it creates injury problems for players and until they've come up with a 4th or 5th Generation version I don't think they should even consider using it in competitive matches.I'm convinced that by the end of the decade we will have goalline technology in place. It already seems overdue. But although the debate about video referees will run and run, I can't see that being implemented. Perhaps also we will see our first Indian or Pakistan-born player in the Premier League. That would be a major first, and could spark the subcontinent to develop more interest, and talent, in the game.The final missing part of the jigsaw would be to have a woman manager in the Premier League. Why not? We already have female referees, commentators, chief executives and physios. But if even England manager Hope Powell isn't being headhunted for the professional game, then I can't see it happening in the next decade.That's one taboo that remains stuck in decades gone by. Perhaps the only opportunity would be if a lower-league club would take a chance, and were successful. It could set a precedent for the rest of the game to follow. Whatever happens in the next 10 years, I do hope that prudence prevails. For the sake of the future of the game.Premier LeaguePortsmouthDavid Jamesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Worthington to stay on as Northern Ireland manager • IFA says verbal agreement exists over new contract• Worthington had been linked with Sheffield Wednesday jobNigel Worthington is to continue as Northern Ireland manager after the Irish Football Association confirmed he had verbally agreed a new contract.The deal is due to run for the length of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, the governing body said. The qualification draw for the tournament in Poland and Ukraine will take place on 7 February, with the first matches played in September.Worthington's future was unclear after his contract finished at the end of last year and he was linked with the vacant managerial position at Sheffield Wednesday before the appointment of Alan Irvine.The IFA president, Raymond Kennedy, said: "I am delighted we are able to reappoint Nigel as the manager of our international team."Northern Irelandguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Paraguay's Cabanas shot in head Salvador Cabanas, a star player for Paraguay's World Cup team, was shot in the head Monday in the bathroom of a Mexico City bar. cbc.ca |