The Soccerphile World Cup 2002 Archives Click here to go to the current Soccerphile.com
Nine people have been arrested in London on suspicion of planning to kidnap Victoria Beckham, the wife of England captain and Manchester United midfielder David Beckham. The gang, who include a number of Albanians and Romanians, planned to seize the former 'Posh' Spice Girl, and if possible the couple's two young children and hold them for a reported £5 million ransom. The plot was foiled by undercover reporters for the British tabloid newspaper The News of The World who alerted British police to the threat.
Kidnapping famous footballers' relatives for ransom is a growing industry. The brother of AC Milan's Georgian international, Kakha Kaladze is still being held in the lawless Pankisi Gorge on the Chechen border after being abducted over a year ago. Last year, Barcelona's midfielder Juan Roman
Riquelme was forced to hand over US$700,000 to an Argentinian gang who held his brother and also in Argentina, Jorge Cervera, a midfielder for first division soccer club Banfield, was briefly kidnapped in September
before being freed by police.
Adam Crozier, the chief executive of the English Football Association and the man behind Sven Goran Eriksson's move from Lazio to take over the England team, has resigned from his £600,000 a year position following a power struggle with Premier League chairmen who are demanding a greater share of revenue generated by the national team and the FA Cup and have been increasingly critical of his 'autocratic' management style over the last few weeks. In a sense the 38-year old Scotsman and former Saatchi & Saatchi executive became a victim of his own success as the FA grew in power and revenue under his direction to rival the clubs themselves as a magnet for lucrative sponsorship and TV deals.
Football's world governing body FIFA has proposed using a trio of match officials from the same country in response to criticism of the standard
of officiating at this year's World Cup finals.The move - backed by such former soccer greats as Eusebio, Roger Milla and Michel Platini as well
as England's manager Sven Goran Erikkson came despite opposition from the North and Central American federation CONCACAF.
FIFA is also considering introducing the use of five substitutes instead
of the three now allowed to counter the affects of tiredness among leading
players, who had little time to recover for this year's World Cup, which
was brought forward to avoid the worst of East Asia's monsoon season.
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Franz Beckenbauer, the chairman of Germany's 2006 World Cup organizing committee has spoken out in favor of giving Asia five spots at the next World Cup as he believes Asian teams have 'improved significantly'.
Chile's most popular club, Colo Colo, has been ordered by a judge to sell off its 50,000 capacity Monumental stadium in an attempt to clear its debts. The former 1991 South American champions are in financial adminstration after being unable to pay its players and many of its employees for much of last season.
Oita Trinita won promotion to the J.League first division following a 1-0 win away to Omiya Ardija. The Kyushu club with a new World Cup stadium have narrowly missed out on promotion the last three seasons.
Yokohama F. Marinos have sacked their Brazilian striker Will following an incident in last weekend's game with Jubilo Iwate. Will was shown the red
card and then kicked team-mate Daisuke Oku as he left the field. Will had
previously clashed with the club's director, which was also a factor in his being shown the door by the struggling Marinos, who last month ditched
their Brazilian coach Sebastiao Lazaroni.
Songnam Chumna closed in on their second successive K.League title with
a 2-0 win over Chonbuk Motors.The Chunnam Dragons were held to a scoreless
draw by Pohang Steelers and drop to fourth behind Suwon Bluewings and Ulsan Tigers. The Tigers beat Taejon Citizen 2-1 at home while the Bluewings demolished
the hapless I.cons 4-1 in Busan.
The English Football League and British terrestrial broadcaster ITV have signed a £5 million pound deal for the channel to screen a highlights program
over the next two years. The new deal follows the the collapse of ITV Digital
- the pay-per-view cable channel jointly owned by ITV's Carlton Communications
and Granada which went bankrupt in April owing around £200 million
to the Football League. A subsequent court action brought by the League
against both Carlton and Granada was unsuccessful.
A number of Football League clubs including Leicester City, Watford and Derby County are struggling with large debts and have asked playing staff
to accept pay-cuts and wage deferrals to stave off the threat of bankcuptcy.
Deportivo Cali player Giovany Cordoba died three days after being struck by lightening while training with the Colombian league-leaders. Team-mate Herman Gaviria died soon after being struck along with Cordoba.
Newly-crowned Madagascan champion AS Adema beat Stade Olympique l'Emyrne 149-0 in national league match on Thursday after Stade Olympique l'Emyrne deliberately scored one own goal after another straight from the kick-off in a protest over a refereeing decision.
Monochrome Images from the Far East
The Soccerphile World Cup 2002 Archives
Click here to go to the current Soccerphile.com
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