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Two
premier league sides with differing tales to tell meet today in the
fourth round of the FA Cup. Fulham lost to Liverpool on Wednesday but
gave a very good account of themselves and should have at least
finished on level terms if not for some wayward shooting by Belgian
forward, Dembele. Today they will have to step up with the visit of
Tottenham. The London side have been playing some eye-catching stuff
and are fifth on the league table. Dickson Etuhu should return to the
Fulham team after a bout of injury but his replacement, Steve Sidwell,
gave a good account on his debut for the Cottagers. Tottenham are in
danger of losing Gareth Bale to a back injury but have the good luck of
having bought Steven Pienaar from Everton.

Harry Redknapp told
Reuters, “He’s been to see a specialist and it shouldn’t be too long, a
bit of work on it and he should be okay.

“He’s never, ever
needed an operation. That’s the last resort when you have a back
problem. He has a little back injury that went into a spasm, but he
should be back in 10 days.” Roman Pavlyuchenko and Benoit Assou-Ekotto
should return to the team after the both missed the trip to Newcastle.

Fulham have already
lost twice to Spurs this season but Fulham captain, Danny Murphy
believes the defeat was based on small margins. Murphy spoke on his
club site that, “I thought we were desperately unlucky in both the
games we played against them so far this season. We’ve also got nearly
a fully fit squad to choose from, other than one or two missing and
hopefully we’ll be able to give them a good game. We owe them one for
knocking us out last year.”

Adebayor to make his debut

The charge
continues for Jose Mourinho and his boys at the Estadio Reyno de
Navarra, where they have to face Osasuna today. Real Madrid managed a
slim 1-0 win over Mallorca last weekend courtesy of Karim Benzema’s
third goal for the club in 20 appearances and with the loan signing of
Emmanuel Adebayor completed on Thursday, Mourinho now has more options
in attack. He can decide to play the conventional 4-4-2 or continue
with the much vaunted 4-3-3 all-out attacking frame. Mourinho’s team
continued to show character with the 1-0 win over Sevilla in the Copa
del Rey first leg semi-final match. Adebayor is keen to get straight
into action. “I have no idea where Pamplona – the home city of Osasuna,
but they have told me it will be difficult to win there. I hope to
play,” Adebayor told Spanish radio station, Cadena Ser on Thursday.

“My first
conversation with Jose Mourinho was positive but we haven’t gone into
details yet (about his role),” the Togolese international concluded.

Meanwhile Osasuna
are just a point above the relegation places, so a loss could push them
furtively closer to the ignominy of the second division. The first leg
ended 1-0 in favour of the Los Blancos courtesy of a 48th minute goal
by Ricardo Carvalho. That match witnesses fans jeering the ‘Special
One’ but Mourinho said it was expected as his team did not perform
well. “The public can jeer if they want and I can respect it,” said
Mourinho.

“I work for the
total satisfaction of the public and they pay me to work and not to
criticise the fans. I will never say anything against the fans of Real
Madrid. Is it only at the Bernabeu where they demand more? I don’t know
any supporters of any big clubs that settle for less. “It is nothing
new for me.” Today the battle will be won by the team that shows the
most desire.

Inter Milan need all three points

After the first
loss had been digested by Inter’s new manager, Leonardo, it will be a
return to the safe surroundings of the San Siro to host Palermo, who
are two places below but separated by a point. Inter MilanMilan’s
defence of their Scudetto had decidedly gone off the tracks before the
Club World Cup triumph in Abu Dhabi. Samuel Eto’o made all the
difference in the first leg, when he scored two goals to cancel out
Josip Ilicic’s opener after 28 minutes. But Eto’o equalised in the 63rd
minute before getting the winner, seven minutes later at the Stadio
Renzo Barbera. Palermo chairman Maurizio Zamparini has blamed the
referee for that defeat and his players will be keen to pay Inter
Milanback. Zamparini said after the September 19 defeat that, “Maybe
the referee got heatstroke today, as if those incidents had occurred in
the Palermo area, he would’ve awarded four penalties against us. He
lost us the game.

“There were four
penalty incidents. Two were absolutely clear; two could’ve been given
or not given depending on the interpretation. It’s a bit much,
especially considering the penalty awarded against us in Brescia last
week was non-existent.” Juve are floundering Udinese humbled Inter
Milanlast weekend and get another chance to continue their
giant-killing act as they face Juventus today at the Stadio OLympico.
Juventus were roundly beaten 2-0 by Roma on Wednesday in the Coppa
Italia and Coach Luigi Del Neri will start looking over his shoulder as
his team is dragged towards mid-table existence. Juventus have been
performing below par in recent weeks and Del Neri knows that the
fortunes of his team must rebound or he could be out of a job very soon.

Battle of the Nigerians

Monaco are looking
down the barrel and their case could be worsened by the visit of
defending champions, Olympique Marseille to the Velodrome. Monaco’s
young Nigerian midfielder, Lukman Haruna has also not been having the
best of seasons. Marseille also have another Nigerian in Taye Taiwo,
bombarding down the left flank, so it could just become the tale of two
Nigerians. While Monaco need all the points they can get to stave off
relegation, Marseille need the points to keep pace with pace-setters,
Lille Metropole, who are six points better with 38 points.

Though
they have been awful away from home getting only one point outside the
Nnamdi Azikwe stadium, Enugu Rangers will be seeking to maintain their
perfect home run when they face Warri Wolves today in the star fixture
of the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) for the weekend.

Currently fifth on
the log, the Flying Antelopes will be hoping to replicate the form that
has seen the side score an impressive 17 goals in six home matches.

However, that will
be a tough task against a side like Warri Wolves that are currently
third on the league table and have not done too badly on the road,
winning once and drawing two games. The Enugu-based team must be at
their best to maintain the enviable record it shares with Sunshine
Stars and Dolphins FC; the other two teams yet to drop points at home.

A victory for the Alphonsus Dike-led side will see it upstaging their opponents from the third spot.

Other matches In
other games, Shooting Stars will be home to city rivals, Crown FC and
this is one of the four derbies in the Premier League this season.

Crown are living on
the edge after sacking their coach, Ganiyu Salami, at the weekend and
losing two key players in Harrison Egbune and Asuquo Phillip to
title-chasing Sunshine Stars. 3SC look good to pick maximum points in
this game as they will not want a repeat of their last home game in
which they were held 1-1 by visiting Kaduna United.

More games

At the Gateway
International Stadium in Ilaro, Sunshine will be up against Lobi Stars
and one thing that will be paramount in the mind of Coach Gbenga
Odubote of Sunshine will be to close the gap on the current league
leaders Dolphins FC, who lead them by four points, but will be playing
away to Ocean Boys in Yenogoa.

A win for Sunshine Stars will leave them with just one point off the top spot they occupied as at the end of last year.

In the lower ranks of the league, 16th placed Zamfara United will be home to Juth FC who are second from the bottom.

In four meetings
between the two sides in the topflight over two years, The Healers have
won just once against Zamfara United. Surprisingly, JUTH have picked
three draws on the road from four games but have capitulated at home by
losing two games. Zamfara lost just once at home to Kaduna United but
looks good to claim the maximum points in this tie.

The last fixture of the day is a game between two former champions,
Ocean Boys and Dolphins FC, who are currently on top of the league and
are sure to remain there at least for this week despite today’s result.
The Port Harcourt side currently has a four point gap on the top a feat
no team can achieve for this weekend.

Current
Nigerian League champions, Enyimba FC will today begin their quest for
honours in the 2010/11 Orange CAF Champions League competition when
they confront Congolese side, Saint Michel du Ouenze in one of the
day’s crunch fixtures.

The Aba Elephants
who are having a torrid season on the local front would have to forget
their domestic worries going into today’s game. Currently placed 13th
in the Nigeria Premier league with 16 points from 12 games, the
two-time African champions will have to step up their game if they hope
to go far in this year’s Champions League or perhaps complete a hat
trick of trophies in the continent’s biggest club competition.

Tough task

The Chairman of the
club, Felix Anyansi Agwu, said he does not expect an easy ride over
their host who are the current champions in Congo.

“We know they are
the defending champions of their domestic competition so that means
they are a solid side,” Anyansi Agwu told SuperSport.com.

“Whenever teams
play against us domestically or on the continent, they tend to raise
their game because of the name, Enyimba. We have achieved so much and
teams go the extra mile when they play against us.”

Already Enyimba’s
first choice player in right back position, Samuel Tswanya has been
ruled out of today’s game as he failed to recover from a knock he
picked in the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) game against Warri Wolves a
fortnight ago.

Nonetheless, the
team’s coach, Okey Emordi, is confident that his lads are capable of
getting the desired result in today’s match.

“It’s been a
difficult season no doubt, but I have the belief that if we can get
something together as soon as possible, we will do our best to avoid
defeat,” he said.

Reunion

Coincidentally, one of the Star players for the Congolese team, Sam Ledor is a former Enyimba player.

Ledor has already
promised his former teammates a tough time in today’s tie as he reckons
with the princely treatment being given to him by Saint Michel.

“My team has done
so well for me, and I am grateful to them. I owe them a duty to put in
my best regardless of who is involved,” he said.

Ledor further
hinted that some people in Congo have asked him to take up Congolese
citizenship so that he could play for the national team.

Ledor won several League titles and a Federation Cup title with Enyimba.

A total of 44 clubs
will be involved in action in the preliminary round whilst holders TP
Mazembe and eight other clubs namely; Entiente Setif(Algeria), Al Ahly
(Egypt), Ittihad (Libya), Stade Malien (Mali), Hilal (Sudan), Merrikh
(Sudan), Esperance (Tunisia) and Dynamos (Zimbabwe) are exempted from
this stage of the competition.

The second leg matches is scheduled for February 11-13 with winners advancing to the 1/16th round.

UEFA president
Michel Platini has stepped up the pressure to adopt his idea of a
winter World Cup co-hosted in several Gulf countries in 2022 by saying
it was untenable to play in the “55 degrees” desert summer heat.

Platini, a member
of the FIFA Executive Committee who gave the World Cup to Qatar last
month, has said the finals should be spread around the region, an idea
Qatari Mohammed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football
Confederation, has rebuffed.

FIFA has said that
at the moment there are “no concrete plans” to switch the timing of the
finals from the summer to the winter months but that statement carries
little weight.

FIFA president Sepp
Blatter said this month he “expected” the finals to be staged in winter
but the Qataris have not yet formed an organising committee for the
finals and detailed debate has not started.

Platini told
Wednesday’s edition of the French sports daily L’Equipe: “It’s
imperative to have the best possible conditions for the players, the
spectators and all those who intend to go to Qatar in 2022. It (a
winter World Cup) is not such a stupid idea is it?

“The best way to promote this competition is not to play it in 55 Celsius (131 Fahrenheit) degree heat.

“I’m in favour of
playing it in winter and sharing out the matches among several Gulf
countries. This would be good for the development of football in the
region.” Qatar won the right to stage the finals in Zurich last month
and is currently hosting the Asian Cup, the continent’s top
international tournament comprising 16 teams.

The conditions are good for soccer in Qatar in January, although several matches at night were played in very cold weather.

Referring to a
summer World Cup, Platini added: “The stadiums will be air conditioned
but the streets and the beaches won’t. When it is 55 degrees no one
goes out, while when it’s 30C degrees (86F), like in January, it’s
different. For all football lovers, a winter World Cup in several Gulf
countries would be ideal.

“I was in South
Africa (for last year’s World Cup) and at five in the evening it was
cold and already dark. In June/July 2022 in Qatar, it will be
oppressively hot.” Platini agreed that holding the World Cup in winter
would mean a change to the international soccer calendar, adding: “It’s
a complex problem. “We will know the dates of the tournament long
enough in advance to decide to stop (domestic) football for a month or
a month and a half.

“Whether it is in January, in October or in March, we can do it. Where’s the problem?” Platini asked.

In the 2003/2004 Season, Taiwo Ogunjobi, then Secretary-General of the NFA, in tandem with my good friend Mike Itemuagbor,

official marketer
of the NFA consummated league sponsorship and signed-off to MTN. The
equation suddenly changed. Political weight and other muscles, high
level connections an electrician would be envious of and government
apparatchik pushed MTN aside.

It has happened again in a very deplorable manner.

Back at one The NPL
has allegedly cancelled a contract duly entered into with MTN. All the
many issues that beset the NPL could not summon its Congress to parley
not even the Chairmanship dispute, but the sponsorship matter did. It
will be very instructive to know who footed the bill for the NPL
Congress that held in Abuja to repudiate the title sponsorship given to
MTN even in the face of a legal suit. Perhaps a review of what has
been, what should be and what in civilised climes sponsorship truly is
will suffice at this point.

In 1993, I went to
Cadbury to ask for sponsorship for the Football League with a bill of
just N5.5million. On offer was two million, five hundred naira for
title sponsorship and three million naira for leveraging the rights.
The Cadbury officials I spoke with then told me all kinds of put-off
things including the fact that the price was too much but I knew better
than that.

One year later,
having lost the bid to be official food drink of US ‘94 World Cup bound
Super Eagles, Cadbury took my proposal to the NFA to request the league
sponsorship rights. The NFA promptly accepted a cheque for N2 million
and Cadbury became title sponsor of the League.

Cadbury’s title
sponsorship lapsed in 1995 without any visible exploitation and quite
curiously, at a press briefing to announce its discontinuance, the
organisation moaned loudly that it got nothing from the sponsorship.
Then many of us wondered how they expected to benefit from just paying
for and then warehousing the property.

Origins

In 1996, a
discerning Pepsi Co International sought and got my assistance for the
obtaining of the sponsorship rights of the Pro-football League.
Together with their brand custodians, Insight Communications Ltd, we
fought a bloody battle against late intruders, Coca-Cola and got the
title sponsorship rights for Pepsi. It was ground breaking achievement
for football.

Eighteen million
sponsorship was powered by about nearly thirty million leveraging spend
by the sponsor. Pepsi national marketing Manager, Iain Nelson, a man
who knew his onions gave vent to many creative and innovative
leveraging planks for the sponsorship.

This was the face
and experience of the Pepsi League sponsorship until the fifth
columnists visited the League and Pepsi sponsorship of it.

The NFA with Tijani Yusuf as Secretary-General snuffed the life out Pepsi’s sponsorship of the league thereafter.

Warehousing not sponsorship

Then came the
battle of the GSM Companies. In 2003, with a deal seemingly locked in
by MTN, Glo suddenly emerged as league sponsorship rights owners. I
will not go into all the shenanigan that went down. Taiwo Ogunjobi, NFA
Secretary-General “got” instructions from the Presidency as we were
told and Glo edged-out MTN.

After years of Glo
sponsorship in which the stories were always that of expression of
dissatisfaction by both sponsor and the sponsored, and in which we saw
nothing near what Pepsi did in terms of exploitation and financial
obligations of the sponsorship being addressed promptly, the league
sponsorship is haemorrhaging again.

Who then are the
undertakers of the league? The Presidency whose name is ever often
called into the fray and sworn by when evil is about to be perpetrated
in our football? A sponsor who would rather warehouse the property than
leverage it? Paid drummers and rented commentators who stand facts on
their heads and swear by a sleeping sponsor yet cannot give us a good
reason for the position they have taken beyond talking through their
pockets?

Shameless inverters
of truth have been on pages of our news papers telling us hogwash about
MTN not being a Nigerian company and so cannot sponsor the league.
Since when did that become a criterion for the league sponsorship? We
all saw what the MTN sponsorship made of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in
South Africa, throwing up thrills, excitement, style and delivery of
the event. Ought we not to avail our football the opportunity to grow
and blossom instead of compressing it into yet another Nigerian ill-fed
and undernourished activity?

MTN’s bid was
through an agent, Total Sport International, so what? How does that
vitiate the right to title sponsorship which they won and had a
contract duly executed? The local laws on Agency and Supplies certainly
recognise the role of an agent, which does not appear to have been
breached in this transaction. All that balderdash we are being served
now is to fan the ego of a narrow interest at the expense of our
football and the growth of the NPL. If any party feels short-changed
the law courts are there for redress instead of the Shakespeare’s
Malviolo style clowning going on.

In concluding my
disapproval at the turn of event in the matter of title sponsorship of
the NPL, I venture to say that the Glo sponsorship has been gravely in
warehousing of the title sponsorship rights these many years which only
compounded the many problems that have snuffed life out of the NPL. And
it is not the kind of sponsorship I nor any reasonable man recommends
for the league.

A real and honest
sponsorship; this is what our football and the NPL need, not an
ego-war. If anyone can say sponsorship of the League in the last six
years met the criteria set above he or she should raise his hand.

The present imbroglio is not good for the game.

Someone please stop that small interest group in the name of God.