Connect with us

Sports

FIFA President Advocates Criminal Charges Against Racists

Published

on

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has spoken forcefully against racism in football, adding the naked injustice being meted to players across some football grounds ‘is no longer acceptable’.
Racism has dogged association football for many years as players, officials, and fans suffer abuse because of their skin colour, nationality, or ethnicity.
But speaking Thursday, February 8, at the ongoing UEFA Congress in Paris, France, the Swiss was unequivocal that racism remains a danger to the beautiful game of football even as he advocated for criminal charges against perpetrators.
He said: ‘’I don’t want to make a long speech today, on the contrary, I want to be very short, I want to mention just one topic and that one topic is racism,” the 53-year-old told the UEFA gathering in Paris. “We live in a divided world. We say that Football unites the world but our world is divided, our world is aggressive, and in the last few weeks and months as we have witnessed unfortunately a lot of racist incidents.
“This is not acceptable anymore. We have to stop this, we have to do whatever it takes to stop this. Racism is a crime, racism is something terrible and I can be standing here and say to you all this and you can be sitting there nodding at me and saying yes, that’s right and we will continue and still racism moves on.
“We have to eradicate that and we have some tools in place, the problem is that we have different competition organisers, different competitions, different rules, and what we all do is not enough. So we have to take responsibility for this. The tools that we have are of course a three-step process of the referee who can stop the game, interrupt the game, and ultimately even abandon the game, the disciplinary consequences will have to be a forfeit against the team who has been responsible for the abandonment of the game if a game has been abandoned.”
Apart from the three-way process mentioned to curb racism on the pitch, Infantino has equally advocated that criminal charges should be brought against perpetrators of the dastardly act.
He continued: “We have to start criminal charges against those people who have acted in a racist way, we have to ban them from stadiums worldwide, we have to invest in education because, obviously racism is a problem of society but that’s not enough, that’s not the answer.
“So what I suggest to you in addition to all these is that we work all together in the next three months before the FIFA congress in May, in Bangkok and at the congress in May in Bangkok, we come all together with a strong resolution united all together, all 211 countries of FIFA for the fight against racism. Let’s stop racism, let’s stop it now, let’s do it all together in a united way.”

Continue Reading

Sports

New Coach Promises Trophies At Barça

Published

on

Hansi Flick has said that Barcelona’s desire to always win trophies is why he is at the cub during his official unveiling as the club’s new head coach.
The former Bayern Munich and Germany coach signed a two-year deal with the LaLiga giants and said: “Before signing my contract I had a dinner with the president and I felt from the first second that I was arriving at an impressive club.”
“The squad has worked very hard from the first day in training. Each player wants to give 100% to show that they can play. The quality of the 16 or 17 year olds from La Masia is incredible.”
Two of the most recent standout products from Barça’s fabled academy are Lamine Yamal and Ansu Fati, two players who find themselves in very different situations.
On his 17-year-old star man, Flick was complimentary but also had words of warning.
“In the last year he has improved a lot. What he did in the Euros was incredible,” he added.

Continue Reading

Sports

Chelsea Will Concede Goals This Season – Coach

Published

on

Chelsea manager, Enzo Maresca says his side “are going to concede goals this season playing out from the back” after two defensive errors in a 2-2 draw with Wrexham in his first game in charge.
Midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu scored an 82nd-minute equaliser in Santa Clara, California, cancelling out two second-half strikes by the League One side.
A sharp finish in the penalty box from Christopher Nkunku opened the scoring in the 35th minute of Chelsea’s opening friendly on their pre-season tour of the United States.
But Wrexham took a surprise lead after both teams made wholesale changes at half-time with Luke Bolton and Jack Marriott scoring following mistakes.
The defensive errors were part of a weak second-half performance as Chelsea adapt to Maresca’s possession-based approach.
Wrexham impressed – adding to their 1-1 draw against Bournemouth on Saturday in a half-empty Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers.
It is the Welsh club’s second consecutive US pre-season tour, capitalising on their popularity under co-owners, Hollywood actors, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, with Phil Parkinson’s side preparing for third tier football for the first time since 2005.
Maresca was asked about conceding goals through his playing philosophy, which included more patient build-up from back to front.

Continue Reading

Sports

France’s Olympics Come Alive With Les Bleus Victory

Published

on

The French starting 11 was worth more than $250 million. Their home crowd was stirring, waving flags, chanting “Allez Les Bleus.” Their fearsome front three alone had played more than 300 games in the English Premier League. They entered these 2024 Olympics as the men’s soccer gold medal favourite, and an early candidate to bring the Games to life.
And on Wednesday in Marseille, they did just that, beating the United States 3-0.
For an hour in Marseille, on opening night, a feisty American team stood up to them.
But in the 61st minute of Paris 2024’s first prime-time headliner, Alexandre Lacazette struck, and the Stade Vélodrome erupted. Kids kissed the French Football Federation badges on their shirts. Thousands of blue, white and red flags twirled.
Until that moment, the game had been somewhat dormant. And the Games, more broadly, were still waiting to awake. In Paris, many locals have escaped the craziness of the Olympics. Areas around the River Seine are all but locked down to prepare for today’s opening ceremony. Tuesday and Wednesday, in some ways, felt like normal Parisian nights, sans buzz.
The best cure for all of that was France’s most popular sport, the one that led the media’s front pages on Tuesday in a non-Olympic context, just three days before the official start of the Olympics.
This, of course, was not a full French soccer team. The Games are a mostly under-23 tournament. But it was still a French soccer team. And it was, by Olympic men’s soccer’s JV standards, stacked.
It came from Bayern Munich and Sevilla, RB Leipzig and Crystal Palace, in the German Bundesliga and throughout France’s Ligue 1. There were players valued at 25 million euros stuck on the bench. There were athletes all over the field whom, unlike many Olympians, the French public knows.
And the two biggest stars among them ignited the public. Lacazette, a veteran striker, one of three over-age picks, broke through the United States resistance.
Michael Olise, a 22-year-old creator who recently signed with Bayern, scored the second.

Continue Reading

Trending