Borussia Dortmund midfielder Christian Pulisic said that the “awesome” Westfalenstadion was a factor in Wednesday’s 4-0 win over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. Pulisic, 20, told reporters after the match: “The key for today’s win was that we fought until the very end. We know that when we play as we currently do, then the substitutes will come on and score more goals.” Axel Witsel scored the opener in the 38th minute, profiting from a deflection. In the second half, substitutes Raphael Guerreiro and Jadon Sancho put their names on the scoresheet with the former grabbing a brace. The…
Author: David Folami
Liverpool’s run to last season’s Champions League final earned them £72 million, more than double the total amassed from the tournament by Manchester United, figures released by UEFA have showed. Jurgen Klopp’s side lost 3-1 to Real Madrid, the top earners with £78m, in the final in Kiev. Beaten semifinalists Bayern Munich made £62.3m, and Roma were the tournament’s second-highest earners with £74.1m. United, who went out to Sevilla in the round of 16, made £35.3m, while Paris Saint-Germain, knocked out by Madrid at the same stage, got £54.9m. Manchester City, who reached the quarterfinals, picked up £56.5m, with fellow…
AC Milan will have their Europa League prize money withheld by UEFA as a punishment for breaking financial fair play rules, the club’s president has confirmed. The Rossoneri were initially banned from competing in Europe this term before seeing the decision overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Milan are still seeking an agreement with UEFA — which will likely result in a fine. And club president Paolo Scaroni has confirmed the club will not receive any prize money from this season’s European campaign. “We are waiting for the judgement,” Scaroni said at a shareholders meeting. “UEFA can and…
Robin van Persie has said he will retire from football at the end of the season. Van Persie, 35, joined Arsenal from Feyenoord in 2004 and spent eight seasons with the North London side, winning an FA Cup before moving to United in 2012, where he helped guide the club to the Premier League title — finishing the campaign as the leading goal scorer with 26. And, in January 2018, he returned to Feyenoord following a two-and-a-half-year spell in Turkey with Fenerbahce. “That is probably at the end of this season,” he told AD in response to being asked when…
Maurizio Sarri admitted that he is finding Chelsea’s large first-team squad a “problem” after Ruben Loftus-Cheek staked a compelling claim for a regular starting spot with a hat trick in Thursday’s 3-1 win over BATE Borisov in the Europa League. Loftus-Cheek, making only his second start of the season, netted twice in the first half and once in the second from midfield to the delight of Stamford Bridge, becoming the first Chelsea academy player to score a hat trick for the senior side since Clive Walker in 1982. Chelsea delivered a convincing performance despite Sarri making eight changes to the…
Unai Emery wasn’t happy with the team’s continued habit of poor first-half performances. Emery’s side needed a late winner from Danny Welbeck to secure a 1-0 victory over Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League on Thursday, after struggling to create any dangerous chances before the break. Emery said he used his half-time team talk to improve things as Arsenal dominated the match after the break. But he still hasn’t solved the dilemma of getting his players to off to better starts. “We cannot impose our ideas in the first 45 minutes, but in the second half we have the chance…
The Presidency has assured all Nigerians that there is no reason to worry about the hollow outburst by Nnamdi Kanu, the disputed leader of IPOB on returning to the country “with hell’’. Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity gave the assurance in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday. The presidential aide restated that Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari was strong enough to defend its territory against any threat. He said: “Instead, we see the re-enactment of his bizarre, episodic threat as a mere distraction which will not be allowed to detract from…
A group in Bauchi, under the aegis of Protein and Food Vendors Association on Tuesday donated N4.2million to support the re-election campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the donation was presented to Vice President Osinbajo during the launching of the National Small and Medium Enterprise clinics, held in Bauchi. Gov. Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi, who announced the donation on behalf of the group, said the donors were impressed by the poverty alleviation programmes of the Federal Government, especially the Home – Grown School Feeding Programme. The group said…
Kayode Fayemi has denied receiving N30b from the Federal Government. This following several reports online stating that the Federal Government recently disbursed the said amount to the Ekiti state government. Lere Olayinka, the new media aide to the former Ekiti Governor, Ayo Fayose also alleged that the funds were disbursed. According to Vanguard, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr Yinka Oyebode said Fayemi urged the people of Ekiti to disregard the reports, describing them as fake news. Oyebode said “The fact remains that the new administration has not received any money from the Federal Government or any of…
Yemi Osinbajo said in Abuja that Nigerians spent about 8 billion dollars, annually, on importation of vehicles. Osinbajo, who was represented by the Director-General, National Automotive Design and Development Council, Jelani Aliyu, disclosed this at the 19th Abuja Motor Fair on Tuesday. “The government is fully committed to industrialisation and the mining sector to enable it create direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians “About 8 billion dollars goes to overseas for importation of vehicles while Nigerians are suffering, also most of the used vehicles imported are unsafe and not good for the citizens,’’ he said. Osinbajo said that government had…
Vice president Yemi Osinbajo said on Tuesday that corruption remained the major challenge of Nigeria, saying the country was lucky to have President Muhammadu Buhari as the nation’s leader. Osinbajo made the statement in Bauchi when he paid a courtesy visit on the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwanu Adamu. “One of the things that have surprised me the most in government is that it is not that we do not have money. “It is that most of the money that should be used on projects and the poor, is stolen; corruption is the major problem of this country,” he said.…
A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, on Monday commended the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for promising to give the South-West the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) slot, if elected. Ogunlewe, a former Minister of Works, gave the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos. NAN reports that the Director-General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation (ACO), Chief Gbenga Daniel, had revealed Atiku’s SGF plan to newsmen on Sunday in Lagos. The South-West is at present not yet visible in PDP’s power equation for 2019 as the…
Lai Mohammed has described the re-emergence of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, as a distraction to the country. Kanu had not been seen in public since an alleged attack on his father’s compound by soldiers on September 14, 2017, until he was pictured praying at the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, Israel, on Friday, October 19, 2018. Since his re-emergence, Kanu has addressed his followers and vowed to return to the country to lead a boycott against the 2019 general elections. “I will be back soon in the land of Biafra and I will bring…
Ike Ekweremadu is about dumping the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), report understand. Ekweremadu recently got the PDP ticket to represent Enugu West Senatorial district for the fifth time. However, it appears that the 56-year-old lawyer and politician is dissatisfied with the treatment meted out to him by the PDP especially after the Port Harcourt primary election which produced Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate. Sources say there is a general feeling that Ekweremadu has been sidelined by the PDP after Atiku’s emergence. While condemning Ekweremadu’s alleged maltreatment, a Senator who craved anonymity said Ekweremadu would have made a better vice…
No fewer than 300 aspirants who had contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State have dumped the party. The aspirants said their decision was due to “gross injustice” allegedly meted out to them during the recent primary elections. The spokesman of the aggrieved aspirants, Sen Isah Zarewa disclosed this while briefing newsmen shortly after a meeting of the aggrieved aspirants at his residence in Kano on Monday. “In any democratic dispensation, the issue of internal democracy must be allowed to take precedence when it comes to the issue of according one the leverage to…
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned politicians in the country not to see the election process as a do-or-die affair. Ahead of the forthcoming general election, INEC urged politicians to see the process as a means to an end and not an end in itself. INEC’s National Commissioner and chairperson of its Election and Party Monitoring Committee, Prof. Antonia Okoosi-Simbine, gave the warning at a workshop on Leadership and Conflict Management Skills for Electoral Stakeholders organised by European Centre for Electoral Support, ECES, in Abuja Tuesday, October 23, 2018. She said “This is particularly so in developing democracies…
Thomas Tuchel has admitted that the 3-2 defeat away at Liverpool to open Champions League Group C prompted him to make changes. The German tactician saw his team come from 2-0 down to be level at 2-2 until a last-gasp Roberto Firmino winner, but the Ligue 1 giants have reacted strongly after the loss. A 6-1 mauling of Red Star Belgrade followed in Europe and Tuchel stressed the importance of PSG being at their best in the next few weeks. “We have changed many things in the way we play since losing to Liverpool,” said the former Borussia Dortmund and…
Jordi Alba is confident Barcelona can overcome Lionel Messi’s absence against Inter Milan and Real Madrid this week but warned there’s no one in the world capable of filling in directly for the Argentine. Messi is set for three weeks on the sidelines after fracturing a bone in his arm during Saturday’s win over Sevilla. He will miss Wednesday’s Champions League game against Inter as well as Sunday’s Clasico and may not reappear again until after the November international break. “There is no other player that can substitute Leo, however good they are,” Alba said in a news conference on…
Pep Guardiola hailed the best 45 minutes of his time at Manchester City as they regained control of Group F with an impressive 3-0 victory at Shakhtar Donetsk. City had made a disastrous start to the Champions League with a shock defeat at home to Lyon but have now moved top after following up their win over Hoffenheim with a victory in Ukraine. David Silva and Aymeric Laporte gave them a 2-0 half-time lead, which could have been much greater but for a number of missed opportunities, before second-half substitute Bernardo Silva added a third. “Our first half was the…
Sadio Mane is in contention to play for Liverpool in Wednesday’s Champions League encounter with Red Star Belgrade, but Jordan Henderson and Naby Keita have been ruled out with hamstring injuries. Mane sat out Saturday’s trip to Huddersfield Town after undergoing surgery on the fractured thumb he sustained while on international duty with Senegal. Henderson, meanwhile, came off at half-time at Huddersfield after complaining about his hamstring, while Keita is still suffering from the issue he picked up when playing for Guinea. “Sadio looked good in training the last two days. He trained completely normal, so if nothing happens he…