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.

 

Sell A Car

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.

Needs to sell a car?

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."

Want to sell your car?

Randy Ryan says: "I support Brothers For Life" - seriously!

Jeez. In view of the latest round of revelations about Ryan Giggs colourful private life - namely the fact that he has allegedly been shagging his brother Rhodri's wife senseless for the past eight years - the horny Welsh winger must be now regretting this advertisement, even if it was a piece of commendable work for a South African sexual health organization.

Promoting AIDS checks, Giggs urges the audience to not be a man who is afraid to get himself checked.

 

But, here is the rub; the 37-year-old signs off with the line: ‘I’m Ryan Giggs – and I support Brothers for Life.’

 

You couldn't make it up!

 

The whole sordid saga of Giggs' affair with his sister-in-law Natasha, comes hot on the heels of national news headlines regarding an affair with former Big Brother housemate Imogen Thomas, and an ensuing 'gagging order' placed on the British press.

 

With Giggs' clean-living 'family man' image in tatters, he faces the prospect of losing several hugely-lucrative endorsement deals with the likes of watch firms Sovil et Titus, Patek Philippe, Cyma, and Citizen; as well as Citroen cars, electronics giants Fuji and French fashion house Givenchy.

 

Giggs - known for his love of buying cars - is believed to be worth approximately £34 million, largely on the back of a 20 year association with Reebok which is believed to have netted him around £20 million.

Furious Rooney offers to 'fight' Twitter follower



Rooney: Offered to fight Twitter follower



Wayne Rooney has been caught up in an unsavoury Twitter row after offering to fight a 'fan' who abused him on the social networking site.

In an exchange visible to Rooney's 567,000 followers on the microblogging site, Rooney reacted with fury after being called 'a fat whore' and an 'ugly lil nonse' by a 'supporter' called ‘sam-oldham-LFC’,

Rooney responded by Tweeting:"I’ll put you asleep within 10 seconds hope u turn up if u don’t gonna tell everyone ur scared u little nit. I’ll be waiting."
Earlier, ‘sam-oldham-LFC’ had threatened to smash his head in with a pitching wedge.
When other Twitter users became abusive, the striker called for calm: ‘A bit of banter and people go nuts, chill all people.’

The Manchester United centre forward has courted controversy this season by swearing into a camera during a win over West Ham and appearing to flick a V-sign at Chelsea supporters during a recent win.
Last weekend he shaved all the hair off his chest apart from a number '19' and posted the picture on Twitter after his club won a record-breaking 19th league championship.
Ellis Cashmore, professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire  University, warned that even if the exchange was light-hearted, it was ‘imprudent banter and very irresponsible’ for a professional footballer.
"He’s essentially offering him out and, even if it’s said in jest, sometimes that is a tone hard to convey over the web,’ he added. ‘It could incite rival fans.
"But he is a single-minded individual who will just say anything. Tell him to do something and he will do the opposite."
On a more lighthearted note, after a visit to Knowsley Safari Park earlier this month, Rooney Tweeted: “Monkeys all over my car. Kai loved it.” His RS6 Quattro ­escaped ­serious ­damage and he isn't looking to sell a car.

El-Hadji Diouf reveals admiration for Gaddafi

El-Hadji Diouf: Admires Gaddaffi

Rangers star El-Hadji Diouf has told an Algerian magazine of his admiration for his "friend" Colonel Gaddafi.
And the controversial 30-year-old admitted that he feels sympathy for the murdering tyrant - because Libya's bloody civil war "must be very hard" for him.
Diouf said: "Gaddafi is a man I have always admired. I am telling the truth.
"I know him, and I know his son Saif as well. They are my friends.
"I do not honestly know what is really happening in Libya at the moment but it must be very hard for Gaddafi and his family.
"By the will of Allah, victory will go to the side that is in the right."

Diouf spoke as Gaddafi's forces continued to kill their own citizens by bombarding the besieged city of Misrata.
Senegalese Diouf is a major figure in African football and is believed to have encountered the Gaddafi clan several times over the years.
The Gaddafis' interest in the game is well-known.
Saif Gaddafi, the regime's chief defender since the revolution began, controlled a massive Libyan investment fund that bought shares in Italian giants Juventus.
And another of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi, had a brief but highly-publicised spell in Serie A with Perugia, joining the club in 2003.

Abramovich’s Chelsea adventure touching £1 billion

Abramovich: Chelsea has cost him £1 billion

New finanacial figures for Chelsea's holding company reveal that Abramovich’s total loans to underwrite the football club are rapidly closing in on £1 billion!

The accounts show that the Russian oligarch had already bankrolled the club to the tune of £740 million by the end of the 2009-10 season BEFORE investing a further £73 million on the double purchase of Fernando Torres and David Luiz in January.

The ever-increasing cost of his Chelsea adventure comes at an expensive time for the billionaire.

He has taken delivery of a £600 million super-yacht, Eclipse, and pledged to help fund the £1.25 billion makeover of Moscow's Gorky Park, including a modern art gallery for Ms Zhukova.

He also paid £25 million for a house in Chelsea's Cheyne Walk, his 11th property. The growing losses are mostly due to players' wages, which rose another £19.5 million, and transfer deals.

Fans have also had to pay spiralling ticket prices, with the best seats at Stamford Bridge costing £75. The cost of merchandise has also soared, with a club shirt costing £47.99.

Abramovich is thought to be the ninth richest person in Russia and the 53rd richest in the world, according to the 2011 Forbes list.

His decision to pay huge wages has created some of London's richest men, including Frank Lampard on £120,000 a week and John Terry on £150,000.

Figures for Chelsea's holding company show that the club was £77.8 million in the red last year - making a mockery of the former chief executive Peter Kenyon's prediction that Chelsea would break even by 2010!

Abramovich won't be able to recoup his losses by selling a car. His taste in vehicles is strangely modest with the most luxurious of his seven listed being a Mercedes S500L!