Already onto their third manager of the season, a disjointed Marseille welcome Shakhtar Donetsk to the Orange Velodrome for the second leg of their Europa League knockout round playoff tie on Thursday night. Les Olympiens threw away a pair of one-goal leads to draw 2-2 with the Ukrainian champions in the first leg, in what has proven to be Gennaro Gattuso’s penultimate game in the hotseat. Twice Marseille propelled themselves into the ascendancy through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Iliman Ndiaye in last Thursday’s opening tie with Shakhtar, and twice the French unit were pegged back, as Mykola Matvienko and Eguinaldo saw Marino Pusic depart the happier manager. Pusic’s opposite number Gattuso will not be barking orders from the…
Author: ROSEMARY UGIOMOH
With one foot in the Europa League’s last 16, AC Milan aim to finish the job on Thursday, when they take a three-goal lead to Rennes. Milan cruised to victory in the first leg of their knockout-round playoff tie, leaving Les Rennais with a mountain to climb back at Roazhon Park. After seizing control of last week’s contest through a pair of Ruben Loftus-Cheek headers, which were followed by Rafael Leao’s strike on 53 minutes, Milan went on to wrap up a comfortable 3-0 victory at San Siro that sees them travel to France as hot favourites to progress. Loftus-Cheek became the first Rossoneri player to score…
Africa’s only surviving team at the ongoing ITTF World Team Table Tennis Federation (WTTC), Egypt, on Wednesday, February 21 exited the tournament after an impressive outing in Busan, South Korea. The Egyptian ladies, led by six-time African Champion, Dina Meshref, worked their way to the second round after finishing second in their group which included France, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Croatia. Apart from losing to France 3-0, the Egyptian ladies defeated the three European sides to finish second behind France as the only African team that progressed to the second round of the competition. They were then set…
The board of the Nigeria National League (NNL), led by veteran journalist, George Aluo, has vowed to be firm and fair to all clubs ahead of the league’s second stanza billed to get underway early next month. This was confirmed by the chairman of the league’s Disciplinary and Organising Committee, Yakubu Sarma, at a media parley held recently at the NNL secretariat in Abuja. Sarma who is also the chairman of Gombe FA said the NNL board has zero tolerance for hooliganism, even as he urged clubs to play by the rule in the crucial second stanza of the on…
Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau, the president of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has charged Nigerian referees to make conscious, deliberate efforts to change the running narratives of sheer incompetence, flagrant disregard of the rules by some and blatant roguery by a few, by saying the truth to themselves and resolving to uphold their professional tenets. Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja as 30 different referees were decorated with their FIFA badges to represent Nigeria this year, Gusau reiterated that a big sore point with the NFF and the Nigeria Football fraternity was the absence of any Nigerian arbiter of any cadre at…
Nigeria shot put star, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi has set a new indoor African Record. The big athletes threw a distance of 21.63 m in the men’s Shot Put event at the Hvezdy v. Nehvizdech in the Czech Republic on Tuesday. He broke the indoor African Record of 21.47m that has stood since 2001, by Janus Roberts of South Africa. He also put together his best series ever in the event, going over 21 metres on every attempt, 21.32m, 21.63m, 21 57m 21.52m and 21.11m. Eneckwechi is one of Nigeria’s medal hopefuls in the upcoming 2023 Africa Games scheduled to take place…
British billionaire, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now officially a co-owner of Manchester United. The petrochemicals billionaire and lifelong United fan has taken over a quarter share in the club after he completed his 27.7% acquisition of the club, following approval of all conditions, including the FA and the Premier League. Ratcliffe and his INEOS group have paid more than £1billion for 27.7 per cent, which will rise to close to 30 per cent following a further £238million injection into the Premier League giants. Ahead of the announcement, the new arrivals had effectively taken control of footballing operations at the club…
The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) has hailed the president of Taekwondo Federation of Nigeria (TFN), Abdullahi Saidu, and Taekwondoist, Elizabeth Anyanacho, for her qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games The Taekwondoist, competing in the 67 kg weight class, dispatched Kenyan Jully Musanga in two rounds at an African/Olympic qualifier in Dakar, Senegal. For Anyanacho, this would make it a back-to-back appearance at the global showpiece. She was at the Tokyo 2020 Games, where she appeared as a bronze medalist from the Morocco African Games in 2019. ”Anyanacho will be attending the Paris Games later this year as a more mature Lady.…
Nine-time African champions Nigeria will hit Cameroon’s industrial and economic capital, Douala, as they would leave this night in continuation of the search for a ticket to another appearance at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament after 16 years. This is even as a cross section of Nigerians spoken to said they had confidence in Coach Randy Waldrum delivering the Olympic Ticket. The Super Falcons last participated at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament in China in 2008, when they lost by the odd goal to both Democratic Republic of Korea and Germany in Shenyang, and 1-3 to Brazil in Beijing to…
Nigeria’s planned friendly against Argentina that was due to take place at China’s Olympics Sports Centre in Hangzhouom between March 18 and 26 looks to have now been rescheduled to take place in the US. Originally billed to take place during the next Fifa window, the game was part of Argentina’s preparations for the Copa América taking place between June 20 and July 14, for which it is also the defending champions. However, earlier this month, the Chinese pulled out of hosting the game following contractual disagreements with Argentine skipper Lionel Messi. This put the Nigeria game, as…