The lifestyles of some high-earning footballers have put them out of touch with reality, Newcastle United midfielder Joey Barton said on Wednesday.
Barton, who has resurrected his career after being jailed for assault in 2008, told BBC Radio Four that being forced to face up to his own problems and failings had given him a sense of perspective some other players lacked.
The South African public must show more enthusiasm for the 2010 World Cup in their country, organizers said on Wednesday.
Ticket sales have been sluggish locally, with just over half purchased by South Africans.
Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the organizing committee, said the tournament would be one of the grandest nation-building initiatives undertaken since the death of apartheid.
Italy’s former leading referee Pierluigi Collina has said he is not in favor of the use of video officials.
Collina appeared to come out in favor of video evidence in an interview published in Tuesday’s La Gazzetta dello Sport but he later clarified his comments.
Italy’s former leading referee Pierluigi Collina has come out in favour of the use of video technology in soccer.
‘Things cannot continue as they are,’ Collina, who now appoints officials for Italian games, told Tuesday’s La Gazzetta dello Sport. ‘Referees take the field knowing the match will be dissected to find their mistakes.
‘I’ll make a provocation: at this point we might as well use technology, otherwise the referee is the only one who has to decide with his own eyes, while everyone else assesses things with increasingly perfect technology.’
South Africa’s World Cup stadiums could change the image of Africa forever, or stand as spectacular monuments to extravagance and waste in a country still struggling to spread the fruits of majority rule.
South Africa has confounded skeptics who said the stadiums would never be finished in time for next June’s soccer spectacular and is close to completing 10 top class venues that bear comparison with the world’s best.
‘Tis the season – even for the man in the middle.
Christmas, it appears, came early this year for Mark Halsey. In truth it couldn’t come early enough for one of the most experienced referees in the English Premier League.
Not that Mark’s been doing much refereeing of late. Indeed, he took charge of only one game this season before the bottom dropped out of his world.
At the age of 48, and embarking on his final season before retirement, Halsey was suddenly an indiscriminate victim of cancer.
Despite all the teeth-gnashing complaints and blogger treatises in 2009 about MLS referees, never did someone ask, “Where do I sign up?”
Early this year there was an online campaign demanding that MLS Commissioner Don Garber provide better referees. But the answer is a little more complicated than, “they’re on backorder at LL Bean.”
A Moroccan soccer referee was hospitalized with serious head and neck injuries after being hit in the head by a ball during a game this week.
The official, Khalid Ramsis, was working a game between Moroccan teams DHJ El Jadida and FUS Rabat when midfielder Fussiste Souiyat took a shot on goal that drilled Ramsis in the head.
The Daily Mail reports that Ramsis immediately fell to the ground unconscious, and that the game was delayed for almost 10 minutes while on-site medical personnel performed first aid. Ramsis is currently hospitalized in Casablanca.
Soccer could be sped up by replacing throw-ins with kick-ins, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said on Saturday.
The Frenchman believes some clubs gain an unfair advantage simply because they have a player who can propel the ball long distances with their throws.
Former French midfielder Zinedine Zidane is glad he was sent-off for his head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final because he has not had to live with regret over escaping punishment.
Zidane received a red card for head-butting Italy defender Marco Materazzi in the 2006 final, the last match of his career, which Italy won 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.