Nigeria Content Online

FIFA’s
executive committee began a two-day meeting on Thursday with the task
of reducing the confusion surrounding a World Cup bidding process being
played out against the backdrop of a corruption scandal.

FIFA’s executive
committee is due to choose the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups
in Zurich on December 2 but, with barely more than one month to go, the
voting process has not been announced and it is not clear how many
voters there will be. The bidders – Russia, England, Spain/Portugal,
and Belgium/Netherlands for 2018 and Japan, South Korea, Australia,
United States and Qatar for 2022 – say they are carrying on regardless
of the troubles. “Actually, it hasn’t had any effect,” Alexei Sorokin,
the Russian bid’s chief executive officer, told the International
Football Arena conference in Zurich. “We’re doing as we did before.
Today, we don’t know the number of executive committee members who will
vote. Other than that, we don’t see any impact. We are still
concentrating on presenting our case.”

Cleaning the mess

Last week, FIFA
provisionally suspended two members of the executive committee – Amos
Adamu of Nigeria and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti – over allegations they
offered to sell their votes to undercover newspaper reporters from the
Sunday Times. FIFA’s ethics committee is due to make a definitive
decision on the pair by mid November. It could extend the suspensions,
meaning that there will be only 22 or 23 voters at the December 2
election.

FIFA is also
investigating claims of collusion and vote-swapping between unnamed
bidders for the 2018 and 2022 bids, which is banned by the rules. The
ultimate penalty for this is disqualification. This week, the Swiss
parliament’s legal committee said it was considering an amendment to
the country’s anti-corruption laws, which do not currently cover
officials from the international sports organizations based in the
country. FIFA are due to hold a media conference after the meeting on
Friday (9 a.m. ET) to announce the committee’s decisions.

No other match comes close to the AC Milan versus Juventus tie, billed for this weekend, at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan.

Juventus have had
27 triumphs in the Serie A, as against the 17 that Milan can boast of,
but this match will not be for those foregone battles, they now have a
common enemy in Inter Milan. Inter Milan have now won five straight
Scudetti and are gunning for a record sixth, and both these teams will
do all in their power to stop the Nerazzurri in this record march. Both
teams are in the process of rebuilding and the Milan giants now have in
their ranks the likes of former Inter player, Ibrahimovich; and former
Real Madrid winger, Robinho, added to the tested legs of Clarence
Seedorf, Andrea Pirlo and the others. Now in second place on 17 points
from eight matches, this has been largely on account of the four goals
scored by Alexandre Pato. Milan seems to have found their foot under
the aptly named Massimiliano allegri in the Serie A.

Loss of Krasic could be profound

Juventus will miss
dearly the services of Milos Krasic, who has been suspended for two
matches for simulation in the match against Bologna. Also Coach Luigi
Delneri has been accused of being fixated on the 4-4-2 formation, to
the detriment of the various players that he has in the squad. Krasic
has been one of the more positive notes in Turin since he transferred
from CSKA Moscow. A statement from the league read: “The TV replay
showed that there was no contact between the two players and that the
Bianconero player’s dive was the cause for the referee to make a
mistake.” Vincenzo Iaquinta lost the resultant penalty dubiously
earned, and Juve had to settle for a 0-0 draw. Krasic is Juventus’
joint-top scorer with Fabio Quagliarella on three goals, but will miss
the game against AC Milan and the next encounter against Cesena.
Another striker, Amauri, has also been ruled out from between 10 – 14
days with a right Achilles tendon injury which gives a chance for club
captain, Allesandro Del Piero to partner Quagliarella, if the coach
decides to stick to his favourite formation. Milan had a perfect record
against Juventus last season, six points and six goals for and none
against. That will be playing on the mind of the Juventus’ players as
they step on the San Siro pitch on Saturday.

Man. United vs. Tottenham

Old Trafford have
found a new hero in Javier Hernandez – fondly known as Chicharito. The
little Mexican striker has scored five goals in his last five matches
for United and the fans are already saying – ‘Who needs Rooney when we
have Chicharito’. Meanwhile Wayne Rooney is in Dubai cooling of his
heels after signing the new bumper £200,000 a week contract till 2015.
United and Spurs have always served up interesting matches with plenty
of goals, but if there is a side that Tottenham is still pining to
beat, it will be United. The teams are separated by two points on the
table and a win from either side will enhance their positions on a
league table that is already looking choked after just nine weeks of
action. In the last six league meetings between the clubs, Spurs won
just two points. And the task may have has just got harder with the
form of Chicharito and the return to fitness of Rio Ferdinand, who has
been restored to his partnership with Nemanja Vidic.

Another negative
for Spurs is the loss of Ledley King to another injury. When King
plays, Spurs look a different class to when he is absent. Harry
Redknapp will hope that William Gallas fills the king-sized hole
efficiently. Redknapp will be counting on Gareth Bale to infuse some
turbo-charged runs down the left flank and service either Peter Crouch
or Roman Pavlyuchenko in attack supported by Robin Van Der Vaart and
Luca Modric.

Barcelona must keep on winning

Another intense
match is in the offing at Nou Camp after the hard fought 2-1 win over
Valencia in the last home match. With no let up in the momentum of
arch-rivals, Real Madrid, the Catalan giants cannot afford to drop any
points and expect Real to slip up. They must do the business on the
pitch. Sevilla have not had a stellar start to the championship and are
already on a second coach for the season after the sack of Antonio
Alvarez, who was replaced by Gregorio Manzano. Brazilian striker, Luis
Fabiano, the subject of a summer transfer move, just scored his first
two goals against Atletico Bilbao last weekend and will want to
continue at the Nou Camp in partnership with Fredi Kanoute. Pep
Guardiola does not have any fresh injury worries. Lionel Messi
continued his braces with another two against Gijon but David Villa
must get over his scoring drought for Barca to hit the high notes of
last season. Expect a tough match but Barcelona should prevail.

Boy
Westerhof, of the Netherlands and Slovak, Zuzana Kucova, are on the
brink of getting to the finals of the 10th Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis
as both have one more hurdle to cross.

Westerhof, who was
sent packing by Amir Winteraub, winner of the first leg of the
Governor’s Cup, has been able to improve his chances at the second leg.
Westerhof was stretched to the limit in Thursday’s quarter final match
at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, by Ivorian star, Terence Nugent,
but won the match in straight sets of 7-6(4),6-4 . He will now face
South African player, Klassen Raven, today for a final ticket. Raven
beat Indian, Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan, in straight sets of 6-3, 6-4.
Valentin Sanon, of Ivory Coast, had no answer to Ben Zvi Gilad’s ground
strokes as he lost out in straight sets of 6-3,7-6. Gilad will next
meet Rastogi Karan of India who defeated Frenchman Rochette Laurent
6-1, 6-1.

In the Women’s singles, Kucova looks unstoppable on her way to
winning the double as she defeated Russian, Anastasia Mukhametova, in a
largely one sided game that ended 6-1,6-1 in the Slovak’s favour. She
will face Melaine Klaffner of Austria, who defeated Agnes Szatmari 6-0,
6-2 in another quarter final match. Nina Bratchikova beat Kosinska
Karolina of Poland in straight sets of 6-1, 6-1. She will battle
Piquion Natalie of France who beat Perrin Conny of Switzerland in a
game that ended 0-6, 7-5 and 6-4. The Nigerian ladies, who made it to
the semi final of the doubles’ event, Fatimah Abinu and Sabath Omotayo,
were however stopped by the pair of Nina Bratchikova of Russia and
Agnes Szatmari of Romania in straight sets of 6-0,6-0. The finals of
the tournament will come up tomorrow at the Lagos State Lawn Tennis
Club.

The
Search and Groom partnership with Europe-based GLEN continued on
Wednesday at the Ikeja Sports Centre with a two-hour football clinic.
The session was facilitated by Helen Schonbrodt and Lenka Schropferova,
both interns, with the European body.

This was a clinic
for girls between the age of six and eighteen and 24 ladies presented
themselves at the session. It consisted of various drills and
exercises. There was also a 15-minute question and answer session at
the end, which dwelled mainly on future perspectives for the ladies.

Helen and Lenka
have an initiative called ‘FEMPOWER’ – which primarily helps women kick
away the boundaries that have held them down due to the societal and
cultural values.

Some of the
participants expressed satisfaction with the output of the facilitators
and expressed interest in being part of the last session that will be
held on Friday before the two European ladies take their bow.

Helen said: “We had two on two sessions and also matches that involved five players a-side.

It was interesting
and we also talked to the ladies on making sure that they do their
home-works. Education is very important even if they are to pursue a
football career.

“All in all it has
been a fruitful three months and we expect to be back next May to
continue. At that time we will be taking some of the more skilled girls
back to Germany for competitions and if they do very well, they will
have the opportunity of being attached to various clubs.”

In need of sponsorship

But there was a
caveat to all of this – ‘FEMPOWER’ will need a lot of sponsorships and
Helen and Lenka are hoping that some Nigerian companies will see the
value in this initiative and chip in.

Yomi Kuku, director
of Search and Groom said the ladies have contributed positively to
Nigeria in their three-month stay in the country.

“They have been
excellent in their relationship with our people and with the kids and
we will love to have them back. It has been three months of hard work
and I must confess, these ladies have not shirked any situation. They
have gone about their jobs with smiles on their faces. It will be
wonderful to get some companies to support this as it will help elevate
some of our young girls who are interested in making football a
career.”

The last clinic by the duo will hold tomorrow at Ikeja Sports Centre from 9am. The ladies will be leaving Nigeria on Sunday.

The annual ‘Brewery Manager’ sports competition got underway yesterday at the Onikan Stadium in Lagos.

The competition,
themed ‘AIGBEDO 2010’ and organised by the Nigeria Breweries Plc is
open to its staff within the Lagos region and will run for one month.

Participants will
compete in nine events – chess, tennis, table tennis, athletics,
snooker, table soccer, scrabble, chart, and swimming.

The main attraction
of the competition as usual is football, which will feature four teams
drawn from four different units within the organisation and last year
winners, BET.

BET has mainly
staff from the engineering unit as members and they will start their
title defence with a game against their colleagues operating from the
headquarters.

The two teams emerged as finalists in last year’s edition and it took a penalty shootout for BET to win.

The other teams are
the Packaging, and Administrations departments. Both teams will slug it
out at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, tomorrow.

The women will also taste action in football.

Anticipation is high among staff; they expect the knock out stages of the annual sporting event to be thrilling.

According to Vindah Edem, the Public Affairs managers for Lagos,
“the initiative is a platform for promoting unity among all members of
staff of the company as well as promotes their health through sports.

After
spending three months in Nigeria, Lenka Sehropferova and Helen
Schonbrodt will complete their internship with a clinic at the Ikeja
Sports Ground today. Both ladies, in partnership with Search and Groom,
a non-governmental association (NGO), have been in Nigeria helping to
facilitate training of coaches and young female football players.

Lenka, who is a Ski instructor in the winter periods, said the trip to Nigeria has been very colourful and interesting.

“I was able to come
to Lagos, Nigeria for an internship in non-profit organisation trough
the GLEN program organised by INEX – Association for Voluntary
Activities.”

Her partner, Helen, is an amateur footballer in Germany. For her, doing non-profit work in Nigeria is a dream come true.

Good experience

“I have always had
the dream of coming to Africa and Nigeria was the first point of call
and I am so happy because it was the fulfilment of a dream,” Helen said.

“This trip has given me an opportunity to experience first-hand how development and cooperation works.”

The clinic is
especially organised for the women as the two interns have structured a
programme or an initiative called ‘Fempower’ – which is a female
empowerment programme using football as the tool of communication.

Yomi Kuku, the
director of Search and Groom said: “The programme is basically to
connect females to their inner strength and help to build capacity.
There seems to be a barrier to growth in this neck of the woods and the
ladies will be trying to help through short drama sketches and football
training to help dispel these doubts.

Kuku said even
though the focus is on football, the ladies also encouraged to take
their education seriously as that it will prove helpful if they fail to
make it in football.

Helen hopes Fempower will give women the freedom to make their dreams come true.

“We have noticed in
all our clinics over the past three months that the women are more
inhibited than the men, maybe by the culture and society and that is
why the watchword for Fempower is kicking away the barriers. We hope to
help in our own little way to help the girls achieve their dreams. That
is why we have been here for the past three months.”

The ladies will be leaving Nigeria on Sunday on a road trip to North Africa.

England performed
well below expectation at the World Cup in South Africa and judging by
the FIFA Ballon d’Or list announced on Tuesday the stock of the Premier
League is not at its highest either.

Just three players
from the league that likes to call itself the best in the world are on
the list and it would be a huge surprise if any of them made it into
the top three:

Have a glance
through the full list (in all its glory above) and you’ll see just
Didier Drogba, Cesc Fabregas and Asamoah Gyan representing England’s
Premier League, and the latter has barely figured for his new club
Sunderland.

I doubt anyone in
English football will be too worried by this, with the money from TV
rights still rolling in, but perhaps they should be.

In terms of star quality La Liga makes the Premier League look strictly second division.

Serie A, derided
over the past few seasons, now boasts the European Cup holders and a
resurgent AC Milan and even the Bundesliga has a healthier than usual
representation thanks to the exploits of Champions League finalists
Bayern Munich and Joachim Loew’s fearless Nationalmannschaft – the
national team.

It was different,
perhaps, when Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Fernando
Torres and the likes were being described as among the world’s finest
but performances at the World Cup that were indifferent to poor have
made those assessments look like so much hype.

The Premier League still commands enormous global appeal which
translates into massive revenues for the clubs. That will continue for
the foreseeable future but the fact that the most exciting players from
the World Cup are all delighting audiences elsewhere should at least
give the Premier League pause for thought.