Soccer: Fans and officials playing with fire
The News Review:
- Soccer: Fans and officials playing with fire
- Key figures fail to arrive for Nepad summit
- Souness to target proven recruits
- Ford follows in wake of GM profits gloom
Soccer: Fans and officials playing with fire
International Herald Tribune – Apr 20, 2005
It should, and it will be talked about in the corridors and over the meal breaks. The rocket flares hurled with such contempt at players during last week's abandoned Inter Milan versus AC Milan match, and the explosion of a so-called "firework bomb" in Rotterdam last Sunday send out loud warnings that the game is once again under attack from hooligans firing deadly weapons. UEFA, the European soccer authority, planned for its Congress in Tallinn to be dominated by proposals that clubs across the Continent must, from next year, include "home grown" players. The federations will wholeheartedly support the imposition on clubs to nurture and not just buy or import talent. However, if soccer does not get to grips with the worsening disorder around its stadiums there will be no professional sport to protect…
So why is UEFA's four-match closed-doors order (with an additional two to be added if there is further violence within the next three years) inadequate? Principally because the punishment rebounds on the innocent. That is not merely the 78,800 in the San Siro audience who behaved last week, but also the clubs and fans who will be drawn against Inter next season. For the home club, especially after the first, eerie experience of performing in an empty house, there comes a familiarity as succeeding games arrive. For each visiting team, the experience is fresh, and the sensation of playing in an abnormal atmosphere makes concentration and motivation harder. Yet in the Netherlands there are new and serious suggestions for a parliamentary ban on fans of the away team traveling to high-risk games. This initiative comes after Sunday's match in which Feyenoord lost 3-2 to Ajax in Rotterdam. For a decade, contests between the clubs have served as an opportunity forwarfare between rival factions.
Key figures fail to arrive for Nepad summit
Independent Online – Apr 20, 2005
Yet none of these four states dispatched their president, keeping their representation at minister level. The poor attendance was a blow to NepadThe poor attendance was a blow to Nepad, as the continent’s home-grown plan for development was created with the aim of attracting private investment in return for evidence of improved governance. Nepad was still reeling from the scathing comment made at 2004′s summit by Wade. “I have great difficulties explaining what we have achieved when people at home and elsewhere ask me that question,” he said in Johannesburg. He said nothing had been achieved in eight key sectors, including health, agriculture, education, infrastructure, information technology and telecommunications and science and technology. Meanwhile, opening speeches by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Nigerian counterpart, Olusegun Obasanjo, were expected to focus on a plea for financial assistance, as the fledgling body struggles to spread its wings.
Souness to target proven recruits
Telegraph.co.uk – Apr 20, 2005
When you’re not playing well yourself, you shake that off too. That’s what you need at Newcastle. ” Souness also said he wanted to develop a home-grown core. “I would like a British team and if not, then certainly with foreigners who’ve played in this country and you know right away it’s not going to take six months to pick the pace up. ” Nicky Butt, Newcastle’s England midfielder, has apologised to the club’s supporters failing to acknowledge them after the FA Cup semi-final defeat by Manchester United. “There has been suggestions that I deliberately snubbed the fans on Sunday,” he said. “If anyone has been left with that impression, I apologise.
Ford follows in wake of GM profits gloom
British Industry – Apr 20, 2005
MG Rovers chances of ever surviving may have been slim because of its diminutive size in the global scheme of things, but yesterday (Tuesday, 19 April) the worlds biggest car maker posted its heaviest three-month loss for more than 10 years. As the company blamed the burden of providing healthcare insurance for its workers, lower sales, lower output, a tough market and the wrong sort of cars, pundits were quick to raise questions about its long term survival and the detrimental effect of its problems on the US economy. Some commentators suggest the American public are tiring of gas guzzling SUVs and old fashioned designs and turning to slicker Japanese models, salving their nationalistic consciences with the thought that companies like Honda with its new manufacturing plant in Alabama were sourcing as many if not more components from the US domestic market than its home-grown competitors. Then, hot on the heels of GM announcing that it had clocked up a loss of $1. 1 billion (611m) in the first three months of the year, compared with a profit of similar proportions just a year ago, Ford added to the North American industrys woes. The big three carmaker today reported income of $1. 21 billion for the first quarter of 2005, down 38.