It's just after 9am the morning before he collects his Footballer of the Year Award, writes Ken
Dyer, but
Scott Parker is already at West Ham's training ground, changed and ready
to test his troublesome Achilles tendon. On top of a cabinet in the club's media office stand three
big bottles of man-of-the-match Champagne.
An investigative report by the Mediapart website revealed that numerous managers of the National
Technical Directorate (DTN) and the French Football Federation (FFF) approved the "principle of
discriminatory quotas" in November 2010. Their objective? To limit the number of players of West
African and North African origin.
Moi, je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
David Sullivan admits he prefers to watch West Ham on TV than travel to away games. The club's
joint-chairman came clean following fierce criticism that not one Hammers director travelled to
watch the Premier League's bottom team lose 2-1 at Manchester City on Sunday.
Here is a Demba Ba interview with Simon Hart from today's Independent. I'm reproducing it here for
posterity...
Ba backs West Ham to find the fighting spirit needed to survive by Simon Hart
Had things worked out differently for Demba Ba, he might be preparing to face Manchester City in
the FA Cup final at Wembley in a couple of weeks.
Two of Bahrain's top footballers, Ala'a Hubail and his brother Mohammed, have been arrested for
participating in anti-government demonstrations. "The dismissals are widely believed to have
occurred at the behest of the government," writes James Dorsey over at the mideastsoccer blog. 200
Shi'a sportspeople in the Gulf kingdom have been suspended as the hardline Sunni government
continues its repression campaign against the democratic reform movement.
Uruguay's fee for materializing on the Ice in Estonia.
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By Hikabwa Decius Chipande in Gaborone, Botswana
Saturday, March 26, 2011, was a day of jubilation in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. The
Zebras Botswana's national football team –- made history by qualifying for next year's African
Nations Cup in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
Indi Cowie a 16-year-old soccer phenom from North Carolina can freestyle with the best. "The family
garage is her laboratory," notes the New York Times Magazine. "There are times when
there's an enormous bang and I wake up at 5 in the morning thinking there's an intruder in the
house," says Indi's father, Logan Cowie.
The Spanish Football Federation fined Lionel Messi between 2000 and 3000 euros for revealing a
t-shirt during a goal celebration that wished his mother a happy birthday. The referee did not
issue the world player of the year a yellow card, but noted this "crime" in his match report.
In today's Disneyball, communicating anything other than a marketing message or sales pitch is not
tolerated.
