Author: Chief Editor

Manchester City’s Abu-Dhabi project and the future of UEFA’s financial fair play (FFP) rules face a pivotal day on Monday when the Court of Arbitration for Sport delivers its verdict on City’s appeal against a two-season ban from European competitions. The stakes could not be higher for the English side, who have always strongly denied any wrongdoing over allegations they deliberately inflated the value of income from sponsors with links to the Abu Dhabi United Group, also owned by City owner Sheikh Mansour, to avoid falling foul of FFP regulations between 2012 and 2016. In February, UEFA imposed a fine…

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admits Manchester United’s plans for next season are “up in the air” due to the uncertainty over the calendar for the 2020-21 campaign. Solskjaer’s side are chasing Champions League qualification and silverware in the FA Cup and Europa League. United are on a 17-match unbeaten run in all competitions after a 3-0 midweek win at Aston Villa, but Solskjaer says it is tricky to look too far ahead at present. “There’s quite a lot of planning going on,” Solskjaer said on Saturday. “When do we start the league? That obviously is determined by how far we go…

American billionaire Bill Gates said on Saturday he was “optimistic” about the battle against COVID-19 and called for medicines and vaccines to be distributed to those who need them rather than to the “highest bidders”. Gates’ foundation pledged $7.4 billion to global vaccines alliance Gavi in June to help immunisation programmes disrupted by coronavirus. “If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidders, instead to the people in the place where they are most needed, we will have a longer and more unjust, deadlier pandemic,” said the Microsoft founder in Saturday’s video message to a virtual international…

By Segun Odegbami There is a new development in Nigerian sports that excites me despite the pall of a pandemic over our heads. The National Stadium in Lagos is about to be ‘fixed’. For 20 years since 2000, the stadium has been in the throes of abandonment or neglect, or both. The last time that I can recall that a major football match, or any major sports events, took place there was the night the Super Eagles suffered the ‘injustice’ of the absence of VAR technology and lost a match they should have won on the balance of performance. Those who…

By DELE MOMODU Fellow Nigerians, please, allow me to make some quick clarifications as a preamble to my epistle to you this week. I do not know Ibrahim Magu personally. What I know of him comes mainly from what I have read on the pages of newspapers and saw on television and social media platforms. On a few occasions, I have been privy to and been regaled with stories about some of his exploits and that of his agency, the much dreaded, all-consuming Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) From a distance, I have always been bemused by Magu’s swashbuckling…

Gal Pissetzky, counsel for alleged international fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi, has said his client was illegally taken to the United States. Pissetzky of Pissetzky & Berliner said the Federal Bureau of Investigation kidnapped his client from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The Chicago-based lawyer argued that the Dubai Police should have extradited Abbas to Nigeria as a citizen of the country and not to the US, adding that the UAE had no extradition treaty with the US, according to The BBC. He said on Friday, “In my opinion, the FBI and the government here acted illegally when they kidnapped him…

Chelsea teenager Billy Gilmour could be sidelined for up to four months after undergoing knee surgery, Chelsea boss Frank Lampard said on Friday. The 19-year-old midfielder has enjoyed a fine breakthrough campaign at Stamford Bridge but will not feature again this term. The Scot started Chelsea’s 3-2 Premier League win at Crystal Palace on Tuesday but was replaced in the closing stages by Jorginho. “Billy Gilmour has had an operation on his knee this morning, so he will be out we estimate somewhere between three and four months unfortunately,” said Lampard. “I’m obviously very disappointed as we all are here…

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp confirmed on Friday that captain Jordan Henderson’s season was over due to a knee injury but said he would still lift the Premier League trophy. The England international was forced off 10 minutes from the end of Wednesday’s 3-1 win over Brighton following a collision with Yves Bissouma and a scan has revealed a knee problem that will keep him out of the club’s remaining four matches. But Klopp is confident it will not impact on next season — and will not stop him standing on the podium at the club’s final home match against Chelsea…

An advance team from the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the global pandemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday. The virus is believed to have emerged in a wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, since then closed, after jumping the species barrier from the animal kingdom to infect humans. The two WHO experts, specialists in animal health and epidemiology, will work with Chinese scientists to determine the scope and itinerary of the investigation, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said, declining…

There is a developing fear of a likely cover-up in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the ongoing investigation of its suspended chairman, Ibrahim Magu, as some unknown people allegedly broke into the new office of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and destroyed computers containing certain vital and sensitive documents that could help in the investigation. This development, THISDAY gathered, followed the appearance of some officials of the NFIU before the Justice Ayo Salami panel, investigating Magu Thursday, to clarify certain grey areas especially, as relating to some accounts suspected to have been used to move money.…