Football News: Weekly Football News Roundup

2/25/09

Manchester United and Barcelona declared "most mediatic"

The English and Spanish giants Manchester United and Barcelona have been found the world's two most mediatic soccer clubs in a research conducted by the University of Navarra in Spain. In the players' category, Cristiano Ronaldo leads the rankings ahead of Lionel Messi while the three coaches with the biggest impact in the media are Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and José Mourinho.
In a complicated rating system devised by the University of Navarra, the English and European champions have collected 89.6 points for media exposure, while Barça occupy the second spot with 72.8 points. Still, in the Americas, the Catalan team have the biggest presence in the media thanks to a huge fan-base in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile.
United and Barcelona are followed by Chelsea (67.2 points), Liverpool (60.2), Milan (59,7), Real Madrid (49.9) and Arsenal (46.8).
Cristiano Ronaldo, winner of the principal individual prizes (the European Golden Ball and the FIFA's Player of the year award), has occupied the largest share of all the players studied, but Leo Messi has closed in on the Portuguese in comparison with last year's rankings.

Chelsea making space for Vágner Love

Didier Drogba was quite close to leaving Chelsea last summer, but the farewell seems certain at the end of the current season. Throughout the campaign, Drogba has been out of the team with injury, or has played badly. According to the English press, Chelsea will do everything to offload the Ivory Coast striker, as they have other plans for the attack.
The Blues' primary target seems to be the Brazilian Vágner Love from CSKA Moscow. Vágner's agent has already been contacted and the last encounter took place on the occasion of last week's UEFA Cup fixture between Aston Villa and CSKA (1-1) in Birmingham. The Brazilian incidentally scored the only goal for the Russians, justifying once again the 15 million pounds price Chelsea are willing to pay.
Vágner Love, his nickname apparently related to his other scoring prowess, was formed in Palmeiras, and has been playing in CSKA since 2004, having won three Russian League titles and the 2005 UEFA Cup.

Darren Fletcher's home raided by robbers

Manchester United's star midfielder, Darren Fletcher, had his Bowdon home looted by criminals on Monday just after leaving for Milan with his teammates for the Champions League game with Internazionale.
The robbery was committed by three masked men at the time when Fletcher's mother and girlfriend were present in the house in the Manchester suburb. Both women were threatened with a knife and Fletcher's fiancee Helen had to surrender her engagement ring. Objects like jewelry and watches were taken away by the bandits but luckily no-one was hurt.
The witnesses described the assailants as youths in their early twenties and the police investigation is underway. The Scotsman thus joins the large group of the Premiership players whose houses have been robbed over the past years. The previous victims include Steven Gerrard, Dirk Kuyt, José Reina, Jerzy Dudek, Daniel Agger, Peter Crouch and Lucas Leiva, intriguingly, all of them Liverpool players during the robbery.

Belgian ethnic divisions spill over to soccer stadia

The bi-ethnic state of Belgium is increasingly resembling the old Yugoslavia before the break in the 1989-91 period. As the Flemings (the Dutch-speaking Germanic people) and the Walloons (the French-speaking Belgians) have been drifting further apart, the ethnic animosity has been transferred to the sports field.
Ten days ago, the Flemish Racing Genk followers chanted to the Walloon team of Tubize "the Walloons are shit"; last weekend the Flemings from once-famous Antwerp joined the nationalist campaign singing to the Walloons from Virton "the Walloons are paedophiles".
Virton coach Sebastien Grandjean said he thought it shameful that the referees failed to react to the racist slogans. After the game, the coach asked his players to present themselves in front of the main stand of the Antwerp stadium and express their protest by applauding the local hooligans.
The Belgian FA has decided for now not to sanction the offensive chants from the stands of the Flemish stadia, but calls have been heard from the media and Parliament to punish both the offending clubs and their fans whom the police succeed in identifying.
Last autumn, Standard, from the Walloon city of Liege announced they would apply for a place in the French first division should the Belgian League fall apart. The Walloon-only soccer championship would be quite weak in comparison with the hypothetical Flemish league, which would presumably include Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Cercle Brugge, Genk, Mechelen, Waregem, Lokeren, Gent, Antwerp, Lierse and Beveren.

AC Milan deny Abu Dhabi connection

Like a thunderbolt out of the blue, the news of Abu Dhabi United Group's interest for acquiring shares in AC Milan shook Italy. According to Corriere della Sera, the Arab tycoons who own Manchester City have cast an eye on the Italian giant and are interested in buying 40% of Milan's shares.
The daily from Rome has also informed that the investors have already notified Silvio Berlusconi, the club owner and the current Italian Prime Minister.
The head of the Abu Dhabi corporation, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is already doing business with Berlusconi as he owns 5% of Mediaset, the commercial television of which the Italian mogul is the majority owner. However, the Italian club today denied the truthfulness of the allegations printed in Corriere.

Compiled by Ozren Podnar