An understanding has finally been made between West Ham and Liverpool for England’s striker Andy Carroll at a price of £15 million; this amount is much lower than the amount Liverpool paid for the striker back in January 2011. The price given then was £35m coz of player’s form where he scored as many as 31 goals in 81 appearances for Newcastle United, but unfortunately, he could not continue his decent form playing for Liverpool; hence it has to look around for a buyer of its surplus asset. Notably, Carroll has also been withdrawn from England national team for friendlies against Republic of Ireland and Brazil, though the reason told was his heel injury. Actually, he has also been loaned to The London side back in August 2012 when he scored seven goals in the season despite missing the whole December for his injury, and his form highly impressed West Ham bosses and they agreed to match the Liverpool’s asking price and secured a permanent deal for him.
West Ham boss told about Carroll that “If we can start with Andy Carroll, that would be a great achievement for us as he can only get better and better. Then we build around that in terms of how we want to improve next year, with better quality. Andy is a player who is wanting to enjoy his football. He lives for his football and wants to play every game. He wants to use his strengths and score as many as he can – but he also works very hard for the team.”
Despite a signed understating between West Ham and Liverpool, Andy Carroll is still not convinced if he would be able to play for London side on a permanent basis, and if he decides to reject the offer, West Ham would like to go for Vitesse Arnhem’s Wilfried Bony. Notably, Newcastle United was also interested in Carroll until weeks ago, but now their interest looks to be shunned down. On the other side, Andy Carroll also reacted to his loan deal via club website where he wrote, “I have had a great season here at West Ham, really enjoyed being part of a great set of lads in the team, with the staff around us and the fans. Everyone has been so welcoming to me and I have been over the moon to be here. This is a great club.”
So, it looks like West Ham has cracked a good deal for a player whose worth was £20 million until 28 months ago – a flat £20 million profit!
League Managers’ Association (LMA) yesterday announces its manager of the year awards for the season with many known names in the winners list, but one of the most predictable names was Manchester United’s retiring manager Sir Alex Ferguson who has been named as the manager of the year on winning his twentieth league title in his decades old soccer career. The legendary manager has always been a source of inspiration for others with his aggressive statements while defending his players; hence he is termed as the real manager among all. Other winners include Malky Mackay; for Championship League, Gary Johnson; for League One, Martin Allen; for League Two, Roberto Martinez; for FA Cup along with Phil Parkinson and Roberto Di Matteo who were given the merit awards. Manchester United finished its EPL season with a 5-5 draw against West Brom which also happened to be Ferguson’s 1500th match in charge. Ferguson has been most successful manager of all time by winning as many as 38 titles in his career that spanned for more than two decades. He is being taken over by Everton’s David Moyes, who is again a great maestro of the game and has served Everton for more than one decade; hence it is like a legend is taking over another one with expectations to perform at par with the retiring manager.
Responding about his award, Ferguson said, “It has been overwhelming. The club has been fantastic and congratulations to West Brom with the way they handled yesterday. I think Steve Clarke should get an award because anyone who scores five against United deserves it.” He was actually right, coz United defense has been rock solid throughout the season and if a club could manage to fire five goals against such a strongest defense, its manger surely deserves an award!
LMA chairman Howard Wilkinson also talked about these awards and said, “There is no doubt that the LMA Annual Awards are perceived as the most accurate measure of a manager’s ability because there are no better judges of your performance than your peers.
“Finding words to adequately describe the monumental levels of achievement and the indelible legacy Sir Alex Ferguson leaves in the game is nigh on impossible. This evening’s award adds yet another record to that list, making him the only person to secure the much-coveted LMA Manager of the Year Award for a fourth time.
“David Moyes, his choice of successor to the Old Trafford throne, has won it three times and I know that Sir Alex will hope and believe that David goes on to equal and surpass the new record.”
After heap of speculations about the departure of a vital Tottenham’s asset: Gareth Bale, a closed source of player has finally revealed that player is in talk with Spurs for a one year extension at an astonishing £130,000-a-week price tag. The news brings a big relief for Tottenham’s fans who were expecting second worst news after they were sidelined from Championship qualification. Though, Bale, who has won Players of the player award, has not made any commitment about his possible stay next year as he is also in talks with other clubs to make a permanent makeshift after spending contracted time at White Hart Lane. Tottenham is now out of the Championship race despite their yesterday’s win coz Arsenal defeated Newcastle and shunned its chances. According to some media reports, Bale is in some serious talks with Manchester United and Real Madrid and if things go as planned by him, 23-yearl-old young sensation can reside at any of these biggies for rest of his playing career. However, nothing about the deal has been officially declared either by Tottenham or Bale; hence something really pleasing can flash on media channels very soon.
On the other hand, Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas again confirms his commitment to comeback with a bang next season even if it requires a big investment. He also added to make every possible effort to keep Bale with them. When talking about missing Championship League, he said, “We felt we did enough to deserve fourth spot. We are disappointed but we knew these could be the circumstances. Tottenham is a wonderful club who will continue to attract big players and will continue to push on. It was a very good season. We pushed all the way for fourth and third spot and I think we can make it better next season.
“Arsenal did their job at Newcastle but I think this season is a good reference for us in the future. To achieve 72 points and not make it shows that to compete at this level we will probably have to make more than that as other clubs have great, great squads. We will have to do it the Tottenham way. We have to scout properly and make good grabs in the transfer market this summer.”
About Bale, he added, “This is an ongoing question but it’s absolutely fine.
“If we want to make it better next season we have to hold on to our best assets and this is what I have been told from the top.
“The reference from the points tally is there so for us to make it better we need to keep hold of the best assets. It is very difficult to lure a player of this dimension away.”
The global hub of governing bodies has now taken an extreme step to implement a decisive change in its anti-corruption laws with a hope to tackle the root cause of this malpractice even if it is being happened in a private organization. Notably, there are around thirty international sports’ governing bodies who fall into private originations’ category and enjoy their status outside of Swiss penal codes, but if Swiss government continues to its promises, coming months would change the whole picture by adding all these bodies into the preview of Swiss anti-corruption laws which include FIFA – based in Zurich, UEFA – headquarters in Nyon, IOC- based in Lausanne, and International Cycling Union – based in Aigle, which are among some of the high profile bodies having their headquarters in Switzerland. At the moment, the draft in on table and will be open for public preview with a September 5 deadline and if it could get a public referendum, there would be strictest norms for new each scandal that happens in any of the soccer governing bodies. Notably, corruption has ever been a major problem in soccer and more especially, during last few months; there have been many revelations which said that majority of matches in Europe were fixed even before they kicked off, hence such an initiative has long been waiting by everyone.
Beside soccer, there are other sports, like cycling who will come under the preview of new codes coz all these sports are facing a big threat for their age-old prestige and respect which has been marred by some high profile recent scandals – who can forget Salt Lake City Winter Olympics scandal and 2011 FIFA cash-for-votes scandal. Swiss government issued a public statement mentioning its extreme initiatives, it reads as, “Switzerland is among the countries least affected by corruption and has effective legislation in this regard. But suspicions of corruption in the awarding of the hosting of major sporting events have revealed the weaknesses which exist in the field of private corruption.
“This situation has been increasingly discussed in view of the constant events of corruption observed in the international sporting federations. Because of this, private corruption should be regulated within the penal code and should no longer depend on a situation of concurrence. For example, acts of corruption committed in the awarding of the organisation of big sporting events should be punishable.”
Former England captain David Beckham is being roared with offers since he announced his retirement few days ago and one of them is his role changeover for his current playing team PSG while he seems to be interested in owning his own club rather serving someone else. He, in fact, is among the players who always standby with their words and Beckham has said on several occasions that he wants to promote soccer in the US, and that is why, when he was with Los Angeles Galaxy, he deliberately added a clause in the contract where he would have to be the preferred buyer if Galaxy expends its franchisee in the future. Now, Beckham has exercised his that option and in talks with MLS officials over his possible club. Dan Courtemanche, MLS executive vice-president of communications, also confirmed this development by saying, “There have been preliminary discussions with his advisors. At some point in time he will exercise that option and we can go through the process of making sure it is the perfect fit for David and Major League Soccer, but we are not there yet.”
At present, there are 19 teams who play in MLS and there is a scope to add one or two new clubs and as far their provinces are concerned, south-east area of the US will most probably be the place for new clubs. Apart from Beckham, Manchester City is another contender who is interesting in extending its arms out of English soil, but according to closed sources of Beckham, he is only interested in owning a new club that represents Miami. Moreover, the club expansion fees being offered to Beckham is much below the current market price; hence he would surely like to exercise his contract rights and initiate a buy-out deal as soon as he discharges himself from playing active soccer.
Beckham has actually received several lucrative offers to promote soccer in various parts of the world including China along with ambassador roles for Sky television and PSG, but he decided to do something in line with his last deal where he donated his entire salary to a child welfare charity. Significantly, Beckham is the only English player to win four league titles playing for four different countries which distinguishes him from rest of contemporary English soccer players. As of now, he looks to be firmed to his promise hence we can see a changed outlook of MLS in coming years, coz if Beckham will be there, world’s media would definitely follow him.
