Nigeria Content Online

United manager, Alex Ferguson will be seething after his team
was mugged at Anfield 3-1 by a resurgent Liverpool.

Led by their £23 million signing from Ajax, Luiz Suarez,
Liverpool threw everything at the league leaders. And in the 33rd minute, the
move paid off as Suarez bamboozled the United defence with a fine waltz before
setting Dirk Kuyt up for the opener. The display by the Uruguayan striker was
an indication that the Kop now have a new hero after the departure of Fernando
Torres to Chelsea.

The fallout of the fiercest rivalry in England, ensures that
Manchester United will have to wait for the next nine weeks to confirm if they
will be able to boast of a 19th title, one better than Liverpool.

After the supposed injustice of referee Matt Atkinson at
Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, Ferguson will start feeling that his team are being
ganged upon by the other teams in the league.

Hostile atmoshpere

A bad tackle by Jamie Carragher on Nani in the 45th minute
should have warranted a straight red card but referee Phil Dowd brandished a
yellow. Nani, who will be credited for the assist for Kuyt’s second goal had to
be rushed to the hospital due to the tackle.

It was definitely not the best 45 minutes of the Portuguese
winger’s career in a United shirt. He was replaced by Javier Hernandez, who
went on to score United’s consolation goal.

Shortly after, United’s right back, Rafael lunged (with his
studs showing) on Lucas Leiva – in what was a clear case of retribution.

At that point, the match threatened to degenerate into violence
with a dozen players involved in a session. After the consequent round of
shoving and pushing, Referee Dowd booked Rafael for the foul and Martin Skrtel
for being too enthusiastic in the melee that ensued.

Less intensity

The second half was more of the same, though a little less
intense. Liverpool had the rub of the green in the 65th minute when a Suarez
free-kick proved too hot for Edwin Van der Sar and Kuyt reacted the fastest
when he fired home the rebound to score his third goal, and bag his first hat
trick in the Premiership.

Hernandez’s 92nd minute goals will be scant consolation for Ferguson, who
has now seen his side lose for the third time in five consecutive league
matches.

Injured AC Milan
midfielder Kevin Prince Boateng is doubtful to face former side
Tottenham Hotspur in Wednesday’s Champions League last 16 second leg but
the stretched Rossoneri still go to London with renewed confidence.

The Serie A leaders
were crestfallen after the 1-0 home defeat in the first leg last month
when fiery midfielder Gennaro Gattuso’s post-match clash with Spurs
assistant coach Joe Jordan summed up the frustration of the seven-times
winners.

Three weeks on and
all seems rosy again after deserved domestic wins over Chievo, fellow
title challengers Napoli and arch rivals Juventus. Boateng’s ankle
problem, which forced him off in Saturday’s 1-0 victory in Turin, is the
only negative.

“We will try to have
him back,” coach Massimilano Allegri told reporters while chief
executive Adriano Galliani said they were “worried” for the Ghanaian.

Boateng’s fitness is
key as midfielders Andrea Pirlo and Massimo Ambrosini are injured
long-term while Mark van Bommel is ineligible and Gattuso is banned.

A makeshift midfield of Clarence Seedorf, Mathieu Flamini and German
youngster Alexander Merkel may be an option while with Antonio Cassano
ineligible, Alexandre Pato should recover from ‘flu to partner Zlatan
Ibrahimovic and Robinho upfront.

Chelsea go into today’s match against Blackpool knowing that
another victory could spark up a season that was gradually degenerating into a
farce two weeks ago. After the impressive 2-1 victory over Manchester United on
Tuesday last week, the Blues know that another three points will put them back
in a title race that Coach Carlo Ancelotti had long conceded will be won by
Manchester United.

After United’s loss to Liverpool yesterday, John Terry’s
rallying cry seems to be bringing dividends. But Blackpool is one of the sides
in the Premiership who cannot be easily dismissed.

Ian Holloway and his Orange gang have been a breath of fresh
air. In their first season in the top flight, they have been proving their
mettle. They had defeated another London club, Tottenham Hotspur, 3-1 in their
last league match so Chelsea have to be prepared to battle for the three points
at Bloomfield Road.

Lampard and good times

Frank Lampard’s injury woes this season have coincided with
Chelsea’s bad fortunes and his return to full fitness is a return to good times
for the Blues. However, Lampard has warned his team not to take anything for
granted in today’s match.

“It was an obvious statement because three points is three
points and having beaten Manchester United, we’ve edged our way back into
looking upwards rather than sideways and around us. We can’t sit on that, we’ve
had a couple of false dawns over the last couple of months and played our way
out of it, so now we need to build, starting with Blackpool,” he said.

Lampard knows that Blackpool have surprised some big teams this
term and they almost beat United, taking a two goal lead before capitulating to
lose 2-3.

“They have surprised me this season, not so much recently
because we’ve come to terms with what they’re doing, but at the beginning of
the season I’d have called them to be down there and that’s no disrespect,
because what a great feat it was for them to get into the Premier League, but
they’ve surprised me with their quality and hard work.”

When the two sides met in September Chelsea cruised to an easy
4-0 win. Salomon Kalou and Didier Drogba scored one each, while Florent Malouda
bagged a brace on the day.

Striker Solomon Kalou is predicts a win for his team.

“I think we are showing the good side of Chelsea, because we
can’t just fight for one competition, we always fight for every competition,”
said Kalou, who has scored nine goals this term.

The Blues may not win the title but will have a say in who wins with games
against Manchester City, Tottenham and Manchester United still to come.

With a new set of
people from major cities across the nation, the Heineken Champions
Planet House is ready for the return leg of knockout matches in the UEFA
Champions League.

Barcelona’s quest to
overturn the 1-2 loss to Arsenal at the 99, 354 capacity Camp Nou
tomorrow will be high point of events planned for the day as arrangement
have been concluded to ensure visitors have fun filled experience.

“We are looking
forward to a full house knowing full well the followership the two teams
(Barcelona and Arsenal) command in global football. In other word the
visitors will have a great memory of this special night for a long time
to come because there will be a lot in-house games and entertainment for
all visitors,” the Assistant Brand Manager, Heineken, Kehinde Ebuoma
disclosed.

When both team met
at the Emirates stadium in London three weeks ago, it took two late
goals from Robin van Persie and Andrei Arshavin to give Arsenal the slim
win in the first leg at the Emirates. “We appreciate the emotion of
loyal consumers and their affinity to the clubs and these show of
emotions is most expected but the celebration went far beyond
expectations,” the Assistant Brand Manager concluded.

The English FA would have been within its rights to sanction
Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney following an elbowing incident last
week, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said on Saturday.

The FA said it could not retrospectively take action against
Rooney for elbowing Wigan Athletics’ James McCarthy in the back of the head in
a Premier League match because, under FIFA rules, as referee Mark Clattenburg
had already given a foul against the England man for obstruction, they could
take no further action.

However, Blatter told a news conference after a meeting of the
International Football Association Board (IFAB): “This is up to the discretion
of the national association.

“They can use video evidence in the discipline and control
committee.

“They can impose or change a decision if a red or yellow card
has been given to the wrong player. If there’s violence the national
association can intervene and punish a player — this is permitted at the
discretion of the national association.”

The FA were roundly criticised for taking no action against
Rooney.

Right decision

FA chairman David Bernstein, who was sitting next to Blatter at
the news conference, said he was convinced the FA had done the right thing.

Bernstein added: “In the Wayne Rooney situation, under FIFA
regulations if the referee sees the incident, which in this case he did do, the
FA has no authority except in what is called exceptional circumstances, really
exceptional — the Ben Thatcher incident is the only one where that has been
used.

“If you open the door to ‘halfway exceptional’ the floodgates
will open.

“I think that has more merit than meets the eye, the basis of
the primacy of the referee staying in place has some merit even though that
will upset fans sometimes and quite understandably.” Bernstein added: “If the
referee states he has seen the incident, the FA is not able to make decisions
except in exceptional circumstances.” The most famous case of “exceptional
circumstances” in the Premier League was when former Manchester City defender
Ben Thatcher received an eight-match suspension after he led with an elbow and
fractured the skull of Portsmouth midfielder Pedro Mendes in 2006.

FIFA’s rule 77 covers “sanctioning serious infringements which
have escaped the match officials’ attention” and national associations can
rectify “obvious errors” in the referee’s disciplinary decisions.

Blatter said: “Everyone deserves fair play. Respect starts with
self-discipline.

This is what we are asking everywhere, from youth teams upwards
and it is also valid for personalities.

“The higher your position the higher your responsibility. Those that have
more power should be more responsible towards others. This is a principle in life.”

Here
we go again. Our very worst is again put on display. For the umpteenth
time, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) bespatters mud on Nigerians
through rank chicanery. Once again, the men who run football in Nigeria
prove to be goblins incapable of ennobling conduct. How long shall we
suffer these creatures, these men who seem unable to rein in their
destructive demons? Yesterday, it was the sleaze of the Hampshire
Hotel, the $236,000 that ‘miraculously’ flew out of a locker in the
NFF’s stained glass house and Sani Lulu’s familial jamboree to the 2010
Africa Cup of Nations in Angola. Today, it is the tragicomedy of the
Obama Cup. The signs were all there from day one. Discerning Nigerians
saw the tournament for what it was — a caper designed to profit a few
individuals who surely must be unmasked as long as God lives.

When Jide Fashikun,
the radical journalist based in Abuja, alerted Nigerians to the phony
nature of the tournament, the spin masters at the NFF vilified him in
the same manner they had reviled him when he told his countrymen that
the botched international friendly game with Guatemala existed only in
the opaque minds of the NFF’s top brass.

Now we know better.
Their caper is exposed and the world is witness once again to their
greed, if not criminality. The signs were all there. Twenty-four hours
before Coach Samson Siasia and his boys left for the United States,
Nigerian newspapers had reported that the tournament was off. Some of
them, using the Panama football federation as a source, said the
tournament had been shifted to the second week of this month.

Officials of the
NFF pretended not to have heard. Was it because they had information
about the tournament Nigerians were not privy to or was it important
that the team travelled just so the racket of a few individuals who
will sure be unmasked, came to fruition?

A convenient scapegoat

I am inclined to
believe that there was at play what lawyers refer to as mens rea
(criminal intent) and it should not be difficult to establish once the
matter is brought before officials of the Economic and Financial
Commission (EFCC) as it rightly should. With the racket unravelling,
the football federation has found a convenient scapegoat in match
agent, Pius Oleh. Speaking on Friday, NFF president, Aminu Maigari,
said the football federation was going to ask FIFA to have Oleh’s
licence revoked. It is all very well to blame Oleh, who the federation
says misled and embarrassed them, but the question remains, where were
Maigari and his men when reports indicated the tournament had been
called off? Were they on a trip to Mars?

Does Maigari really
want us to believe the NFF was ignorant of the latest developments
surrounding the tournament when we are not ninnies? There are
definitely questions that Maigari and his men need to provide answers
to. One of them is: how did Oleh come into the picture? Was he
contacted by the federation or did they approach him to help arrange
for them to participate in the tournament? If he was approached, who
made the initial contact and who exactly did he deal with at the
federation?

Answers to these questions will prove useful in determining whether
fraud has been perpetrated and who pays for the money expended by the
federation on the ill-fated tournament. We need to get to the bottom of
this so it doesn’t end up like the missing $236,000. Nigerian football
cannot continue to cope with the malfeasance that is slowly strangling
it to death. It needs a vitality that its present custodians cannot
provide. It is a shame that given the plenitude of decent
football-loving and God-fearing individuals in this country, the
commanding heights of Nigerian football are being held captive by
mediocrities, men incapable of rational or logical thought and action
as far as the administration of the game is concerned. Clearly, we need
to get out of this bind. Anyone who loves football must rise up and
demand that the game be saved from certain death, which will come if it
is left in the hands of its present superintendents.