Footballers in the dock over driving offences

Barry Bannan

Not a good period for footballers on the driving front lately!

 

Leading the way is Aston Villa's Barry Bannan who has been disqualified from driving for 18 months following a catologue of offences following a recent motorway smash!

 

The Scottish international was found guilty of drink driving, failing to stop after a road accident, driving without due care and attention and driving on a provisional licence.

Bannan - who earns around £10,000 per week - crashed his Range Rover Sport on the southbound carriageway of the M1 near Watnall, at around 5.30am on October 23, following a night out with friends.

Then there is former England star Paul Merson who has been ­summonsed on a charge of drink-­driving after requiring hospital treatment forllowing a car crash on the M40.

 

It is believed the Sky Sports pundit fell asleep at the wheel of his £40,000 ­Mercedes and collided with an Army truck after attending a Children in Need bash.

 

Meanwhile, Newcastle United's Nile Ranger was has also been banned from the roads for a year and fined £3,300 after admitting drink-driving in his personalised black and white Range Rover in Newcastle city centre at 4.45am.

 

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Man City's financial losses close in on £200 million



Sheikh Mansour: Has spent £800 million



Manchester City have stunned the footballing world by announcing a mind-boggling financial loss of almost £200 million for the last financial year - easily the biggest in football history!

 

The eyewatering figures of £197 - bankrolled entirely by oil-rich owner Sheikh Mansour  - comfortably eclipses the largest loss ever made previously, the £141m by Chelsea in 2005 which represented the second year of their ownership by oil oligarch Roman Abramovich.

 

Mansour has always made it clearhe would spend the fortunes necessary to make City successful, and since June 2010 he has personally poured a further £291m into the club. Added to the £500m Mansour invested up to May 31 2010, he has now spent an unprecedented £800m on the football club, to bankroll the expenditure on transfer fees and wages the club would otherwise not have been able to afford.

 

Unbelievably the figures involved actually dwarf the GDP of many a small country and don't include the estimated £60 million transfer spent on luring Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri to the club!
Meanwhile, it is believed that Manchester City will escape with just a fine if, as expected, they become one of the first clubs in Europe to break UEFA's Financial Fair Play guidelines.

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Football's racism problems escalate

Racism is still a huge issue in football.

Racism is still a big problem in football...that is the overwhelming conclusion from events of the last month.

At a time when the England captain John Terry is under investigation from both the FA and Police over alleged racist remarks made to QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, and Liverpool's Luis Suarez has also been charged by the FA for alleged racist comments towards Manchester United's Patrice Evra, the sport's very own 'head honcho', FIFA president Sepp Blatter has attempted to sweep the whole thorny issue under the carpet!

Blatter bleeted that "racist incidents on the pitch could be settled by a handshake." Oh Dear!

Former Premier League striker and now respected pundit, Mark Bright, says football has "been kidding itself" that racism is no longer a problem, highlighting how social networking sites now provide an outlet for racist comments.

"Twitter is proof racism has only been suppressed," he said.

"This year I said 'Norwich' would be relegated and was abused. Rather than say, 'No, I think you're wrong', there are people who said, 'You black-this and black-that', or, 'Why the hell are the BBC paying you to do your job?'.

Meanwhile, John Barnes, one of the first black players to score for England said: “Racism’s still a big problem in football. Racism can be invisible. How many black managers in England are there? Two. Black managers are given very short periods of time because people don’t believe they are up to the job. That’s racism. It’s not just a white thing. Look at the hierarchy of black African football who believe European coaches are better than black African. They treat black coaches with disdain. There’s this black dynamic of not feeling good enough."

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