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Finalists
have emerged at the 11th edition of the All Stars Football
Championship, organized by the Amalgamation of Women Football Coaches,
in conjunction with the Lagos State Sport Council.

The finalists at
this year’s edition of the championship are Russia and Italy. In
advancing to the final, Russia inflicted a 5-2 defeat on Ghana in the
first semi final match, while Italy defeated South Africa 5-4 on
penalties. Both games were decided on Thursday. In a relatively easy
game for the Russians, Ghana initially had the upper hand but by the
end of the first half, the score line stood at 2-2. Coming back in the
second half, Russia was more energized, scoring three more goal, thus
earning a ticket to the final.

The second semi
final match, between Italy and South Africa, was not easily decided as,
after regulation time, the game remained goalless and extra time was
required to separate both sides. The additional 30 minutes failed to
separate both sides and the game drifted into penalties with Italy
winning 5-4.

Commendations

Speaking on how the
championship has fared so far, Okunwa Ogunbor, a former striker of the
Super Falcons, said the competition was conceived to prepare women
football players for the challenges of playing at the bigger stage.
“The turn out at the tournament has been a big relief on we the club’s
coaches and the players are already in competition mood to win
laurels,” he said. Also speaking at the end of Thursday’s matches,
Agboola Dabiri, the Chairman of the council, said the tourney was a new
beginning for women football in Lagos State and Nigeria. He also
advised the players to remain focused so as to improve on their game.

Today will be the last day of the tournament; with losers in the
semi-final playing to pick the third place winner, while the final will
come up afterwards. Both games will come up at the Legacy Pitch of the
National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos State. Wife of the Lagos State
governor, Abimbola Fashola, is expected at the event as the guest of
honour.

Heartland
goalkeeper, Bassey Akpan, is the latest player to incur the wrath of
the Nigeria Premier League, as the Super Eagles invitee was yesterday
handed a one-match ban, along with a hundred thousand Naira fine by the
league body for improper conduct.

The league, in a
statement, said the punishment was handed out following his poor
behaviour in last Sunday’s game against Sunshine Stars. Acting
Executive Secretary of the Premier League, Tunji Babalola, said Akpan
was fined and suspended based on the match report submitted to the NPL.
According to Babalola, the report revealed that the Heartland
goalkeeper shoved the centre referee, Friday Awogo, during the game.
“He (Akpan) pushed the referee during the game between Sunshine Stars
and Heartland,” he said. “That incident was in the match report
submitted to the NPL. So we have decided to act on it.”

Babalola added that
the wave of fines and suspensions in the Nigerian topflight is to
ensure that all actors in the championship keep to the rules guiding
the Premier League. “NPL will remain steadfast in sanitising the league
of any unprofessional conduct on and off the pitch at regular
interval,” said Babalola. With this suspension, Akpan will now miss
Heartland’s next match against Zamfara United, expected to hold this
weekend in Calabar. He is the second player to be slammed with such
charge this week after Enyimba’s Austin Kadiri suffered a similar fate
for punching an opponent in last Sunday’s game against Warri Wolves.

Sunshine appeals

In another
development, Sunshine Stars have declared that they will challenge the
punishment slammed on them by the NPL earlier this week. The parent
body of the Premier League side, the Ondo State Football Academy, in a
statement said it will challenge the charge of playing their next two
games behind closed doors by the NPL since Sunshine Stars were not
allowed to defend themselves. The football agency said, in a statement,
that they believe there are forces trying to plot the fall of Sunshine
Stars this season. “We are not afraid of playing anywhere but we are
going to appeal this ban because it has justified insinuations that
some people are after the fall of Sunshine Stars. We are appealing so
that we can clear our name,” said the statement.

Sunshine Stars have
also alleged that the Protocol Officer of Heartland, Tonnex Chukwu, is
to blame for the trouble that erupted in the stands during last
Sunday’s game between Heartland and Sunshine Stars at the Gateway
International Stadium. “We got privileged information that Chukwu
planned to cause trouble and we were not surprised when he sat among
the spectators and started inciting the fans,” stated the club. “Apart
from the argument in the stands between Chukwu and the fans, no
official of Heartland was harassed. It was a pre-meditated plan to
cause trouble because Chukwu is known for that. We are advising the NPL
to watch him closely. He did the same to Lobi Stars when Heartland
played them in Aba and got away. He has done it with us and got away.”

Sunshine Stars are also requesting that the Premier League watch the
video of the match in order to determine if the second goal scored by
Sunshine Stars should have stood or not. “A shot was played from
outside the 18-yard box and the Heartland keeper parried it for our
player to slot in for the goal. I wonder if they know the rules at
all,” added the statement.

Manchester
City will be at Villa Park on Saturday in the hope of securing a win
that will keep them in close contact with Premier League leaders
Manchester United, and in the process further compound the woes of
their hosts who have been far from impressive this season.

City are level with
United at the top of the table, but the Red Devils have two games in
hand on the Citizens, meaning City have to keep picking up full points
if they are to stay in the title race. And considering the outcome of
their last encounter with Aston Villa at the end of December, which
ended in a 4-0 win for City with Mario Balotelli grabbing a hat-trick,
Roberto Mancini’s side, at least on paper, look good enough to inflict
another loss on Gerard Houllier’s side; a loss that could send 17th
placed Villa into the relegation zone.

But a lot has
happened at Aston Villa over the past couple of days as they can now
count on the service of Darren Bent who recently completed a massive 18
million pounds switch from Sunderland, and looks set to make his Villa
debut on Saturday.

Bent arrives at
Villa Park with an impressive scoring record – he scored eight of
Sunderland’s 26 Premier League goals this term – and, according to
Houllier, has a knack of finding the back of the net when he starts
afresh at clubs.

“Regarding his
debut, all I can say is that he has a good habit, that when he starts
somewhere, he scores,” said Houllier, who is hopeful history can repeat
itself on Saturday at Villa Park.

The Frenchman then
added: “Maybe a warning to Roberto Mancini and Manchester City, but if
he starts, maybe he will score.” Maybe, but the 26-year-old appears
keen to hit the ground running and instantly repay the Aston Villa
management for splashing such a huge amount for his services.

“I want to help
Villa get some points on the board. They are in a false position. They
have shown great faith in me, which I’m very proud of,” Bent said.

But City have the
stingiest backline in the Premier League – they have been breached only
19 times – and don’t look like a side ready to concede a goal to this
Villa side.

Birmingham face unbeaten United

Another side with
a mean defence is Manchester United and they will be aiming to maintain
their push for a record 19th league title with a win at Old Trafford
over a Birmingham City side that has not won a game at the Theatre of
Dreams since 1978.

United remain the
only unbeaten side in the Premier League, but will be without the
services of Rafael, who was given a red card in the scoreless draw with
Tottenham.

The last time both sides met at Old Trafford ended in a 1-0 win for United with Wayne Rooney grabbing the only goal of the game.

But Rooney has
scored just twice in the league this season. However, the visitors will
have a bigger problem to deal with in the form of Dimitar Berbatov who
tops the league’s scorers chart with 14 goals, and has set his sights
on finishing the season that way.

“I hope I can stay
on the top (of the scoring charts) until the end of the season,” the
Bulgarian said. “Obviously the goals I score help the team to win
points, which is the most important thing.

“For now everything
is going according to plan but there are other players doing well, and
not just (Manchester City’s) Carlos Tevez. It is a good competition but
when you are at the top, you always look back to see who is coming
behind you.” Elsewhere, Liverpool will attempt to arrest their
three-match ‘winless’ slide on a trip to meet the Wolves; Arsenal will
continue their pursuit of United with a game against lowly Wigan, who
will be without the injured Victor Moses.

FIFA
has quashed talk of a winter World Cup in 2022, saying it has no plans
to change the international calendar and that any switch of dates would
have to be proposed by the Qatari hosts.

Qatar has already
said it wants to stage the tournament in the summer as presented in its
bid. “Any potential move of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, from a summer to a
winter period, would have to be initiated by the football association
of Qatar and would have to be presented to the FIFA Executive
Committee,” FIFA said in a statement. “At this stage there are no
concrete plans to change the international match calendar.”

The statement
appeared to mark a U-turn by soccer’s governing body as FIFA president
Sepp Blatter said this month that he expected the tournament to be
staged in the winter. Blatter’s comments echoed those of other leading
figures, including UEFA president Michel Platini, who even suggested
that Qatar could co-host the event with some of its neighbours. But
Mohammed Bin Hammam, the Qatari president of the Asian Football
Confederation, said the 2022 World Cup hosts would resist efforts to
reschedule the tournament. “We submitted a bid suggesting we are going
to be ready in June and July. And we said we are going to face all the
challenges and we are going to meet all the requirements,” Bin Hammam
told Sky News last week. “Our focus is June, July. It is never our
interest to change one week beyond June and July.”

Blatter’s comment
led to suggestions that FIFA was effectively changing the rules as the
contest for the 2022 World Cup, in which Qatar beat Australia, the
United States, Japan and South Korea, was based around a June-July
tournament. U.S. media called for the contest to be staged again if the
tournament was moved from its original spot. Qatar has insisted that
the fierce summer heat will not be a problem as all its stadiums will
be air-conditioned. It has also said the stadiums can be dismantled at
the end and shipped off to developing nations.

However, this has failed to allay fears about the summer weather.
Philipp Lahm, who captained Germany at last year’s World Cup, said it
would be “madness” to stage a summer World Cup in the Middle East and
FIFA’s inspection team said conditions were a potential health hazard
to players and supporters. FIFA executive committee member Chuck
Blazer, who represents the U.S. told Reuters that switching the event
to winter may take 10 weeks out of the international club season and
would “upset the entire football world.”

Real Madrid have
had to deal with a number of unwelcome distractions this week including
speculation that coach Jose Mourinho was unhappy and thinking of
leaving at the end of the season.

Last weekend’s
shock 1-1 draw at bottom club Almeria, which left them four points
adrift of leaders Barcelona, was hardly the best preparation for
Sunday’s potentially tricky La Liga clash at home to Real Mallorca.
Goalkeeper and captain, Iker Casillas, moved to quash the reports about
Mourinho’s possible exit, which came the same day the club clashed with
Spain’s soccer federation over an article on the their website that
mentioned Mourinho. “He wants to stay and (the club) wants him to
stay,” World Cup winner Casillas said in a radio interview on
Wednesday. “I am saying that and I am the captain. We have a young team
and he knows that it can bear fruit over the long term. He is delighted
with the city and with the club.”

Real issued a
sharply worded statement on Wednesday criticising the federation for
what the club called a lack of respect and objectivity.

They were
responding to an article saying the referee for Real’s King’s Cup match
at Atletico on Thursday would be “under the close scrutiny of Mourinho,
who feels he has been mistreated by officials in recent league
matches.” The line was later removed from the piece and the federation
said it had been written by an intern and was not official policy.

Clear penalties

The outspoken
Mourinho has been critical of some La Liga officials since joining from
Inter Milan at the end of last season; and on Wednesday repeated his
view that Real had been denied what he felt were two clear penalties at
Almeria. He has also expressed frustration at the club’s failure to
find a replacement for injured striker, Gonzalo Higuain, and local
media have reported his relationship with director general Jorge
Valdano has become strained.

Mallorca, coached
by former Real midfielder, Michael Laudrup, will be depleted by injury
and suspensions on Sunday but are no doubt hoping their opponent’s
off-field distractions will improve their chances of causing an upset.
The Balearic Islanders held Real to a 0-0 draw in Mallorca on the
opening day of the season. Barca booked their place in the last four of
the King’s Cup on Wednesday despite having their club record 28-match
unbeaten run ended by second-division leaders Real Betis. Coach Pep
Guardiola, who turned 40 this week, rested a number of first-team
players and although his side were beaten 3-1 on the night they went
through 6-3 on aggregate and host Racing Santander in La Liga on
Saturday (1900). “It takes a lot to go 28 matches without losing,”
Guardiola told a news conference. “We have to lose to appreciate
things. This result shows how hard everything is and was good for
putting us in our place.”

Villarreal, nine
points behind Real in third, host Real Sociedad on Sunday (2000) and
fourth-placed Valencia, two adrift of Villarreal, are at home to Malaga
on Saturday (2100).

Rafa
Nadal and Kim Clijsters continued their smooth progress through the
Australian Open as Melbourne Park finally witnessed a smattering of
upsets and sustained periods of sunshine on Thursday.

The morning after
Roger Federer survived a huge scare in his second round match, Nadal
resumed normal service for the dominant top-two in the game with a
102-minute 6-2 6-1 6-1 battering of world number 116, Ryan Sweeting.
The world number one eased to his 23rd successive victory at a major on
Rod Laver Arena as he continued his pursuit of a fourth successive
grand slam title, a feat only achieved by two men before him. Sweeting
was game, but if the gap between Nadal and Federer and the rest of the
top 10 is wide, there is a chasm separating the Spaniard from players
outside the top 100. Nadal married his usual muscular aggression with a
fully functioning serve to set up a third-round meeting with local
teenager, Bernard Tomic, who shocked 31st-seeded Spaniard Feliciano
Lopez 7-6 7-6 6-3.

Clijsters’s 6-1 6-3
victory over world number 62, Carla Suarez Navarro, was so
straightforward that the highlight came afterwards when the third seed
handbagged the courtside interviewer over a text message he had sent to
another player. “You said you thought I was pregnant!” she told the
former grand slam doubles champion Todd Woodbridge. “The text said:
‘She looks really grumpy and her boobs look bigger’.” The three-times
U.S. Open champion denied she was expecting a second child, laughing as
Woodbridge cringed in embarrassment and declared his television career
over.

Jankovic flops

Jelena Jankovic had
no cause for such levity after she became the first top-10 seed from
either draw to exit the tournament, losing 7-6 6-3 to China’s Peng
Shuai. The seventh seed blew a 4-1 first-set lead and racked up 39
unforced errors as she slumped to her seventh defeat in her last eight
matches. “I mean, as a top player – I’ve been number one in the world –
it’s tough to sometimes accept those mistakes,” a despairing Jankovic
said. “Really at times I couldn’t believe I can do that, why am I doing
that?”

Russians seeds; Maria Kirilenko (18) and Alisa Kleybanova (24,) as
well as Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez (26,) also headed for the
exit after second round defeats. Another upset came in the men’s draw
where big-serving Canadian qualifier, Milos Raonic, beat French 22nd
seed, Michael Llodra, 7-6 6-3 7-6. “This is my biggest result,” the
20-year-old said. “It’s my biggest achievement to date. But I hope to
do more than this. I feel that I can. I feel like I’m playing at a
level… that I’m there with the top guys.” Raonic will test his
confidence against Russian Mikhail Youzhny in the third round after the
10th seed came through a gruelling five set match against Slovenian
Blaz Kavcic 6-3 6-1 5-7 4-6 6-1.