"CHELSEA FC WAS BOUGHT WITHIN 10MINS", SAYS CHIEF EXECUTIVE BIRCH

Former Chelsea chief executive Trevor Birch, has revealed that the deal which saw Roman Abramovich buy the London club in 2003, happened in 10 minutes. Birch also spoke about how the Russian spent over €160 million on new players in the first six weeks.
“Abramovich didn’t speak English [when the pair first met],” he told the London Evening Standard. “There was an interpreter. I wasn’t totally convinced he was the real thing. I had googled him but he just didn’t appear anywhere.
“Nobody knew anything about him. So I wasn’t sure whether it was a scene from Candid Camera and that suddenly Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out at me.
“But we did the deal in 10 minutes, nothing like that had ever happened. I don’t think people appreciated what a game changer it was. I suggested he spent £20m [€23m] on players. He spent £140m [€165m] in six weeks, the biggest change I’ve seen in English football.”

He also revealed how he planned to sit down with Abramovich and advise him on how to run the club well, with stratgies like investing slowly and lowering ticket prices, before he left the club.
“I said to [Abramovich]: ‘Look, you’re living every supporter’s dream. Why not allow them to share in that dream and therefore, at one fell swoop, just reduce the season-ticket prices? So it announces your arrival with a bang and supporters from every other club would wish they had an owner like you.
“What I thought Chelsea should try was to become everybody’s favourite second team. There are certain ways that you need to act to gain that kind of affection from people. I was voted down. They said, ‘We’re going to run it as a business, break even and be the biggest club.’

"First Lady Is In Good Health" Presidency Insists

The Presidency has refuted allegations that the First Lady, Patience Jonathan, was dropped from a State visit delegation to Namiba and South Africa due to ill health.

 

The Special Assistant (Media) to the First Lady, Ayo Osinlu, said this is a statement released on Tuesday.

 

“This morning, we woke up to the latest in the series of deliberate efforts by Sahara Reporters, both to mislead the innocent public and demonize the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dame (Dr.) Patience Goodluck Jonathan.

 

“This time, it is about the First Lady being “dropped from President Jonathan’s upcoming official visit to Namibia and South Africa” for, according to their evil imagination, reasons of “deteriorated” health,” the statement by Mr. Osinlu said.

 

The First lady’s spokesperson claimed the “report is absolutely untrue and a creation of the wicked expectations of Sahara Reporters and those who pay their bills”.

 

According to Mr. Osinlu, for the avoidance of doubt, “the First Lady is not an official of the Federal Government of Nigeria, and is therefore not under obligation to join every foreign trip made by her husband, in perfect expression of his statutory duty to foster both bi-lateral and multi-lateral advantages for the country”.

 

He also said that the First Family is at liberty to determine what trips they make together.

 

Part of the statement reads: ”The mischief behind this online medium’s sudden worry that the First Lady is not on the President’s trip abroad is betrayed by the fact that the same medium led its allied choristers to belly-ache in the past about the frequency of her presence by her husband’s side on official engagements outside the country.

 

“The question therefore is, what exactly does Sahara Reporters and its sponsors want?”

 

Mr. Osinlu said “the First Lady effectively participated in the tasking National Conference on 100 years of the Nigerian Woman, which she hosted as a component of the Centenary Celebration of the country in Lagos, April 18-19, 2013.”

 

“Those who attended or watched the event on live television (NTA and AIT) will confirm that we saw a healthy and active First Lady in attendance during the Conference.

 

“Only last Friday, she also presided at the Official Commissioning of the Nigerian Prisons Staff School, built in the Federal Capital by the Prisons Officers’ Wives Association (PROWA). Media reports of the event were still trickling as at yesterday.

 

“Meanwhile, the First Lady is also billed to be the Keynote Speaker at a Religious, Traditional and Adolescents Leaders Conference, as part of the launching of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy in Sierra Leone next week. Her preparation for this is well advanced.

 

“It certainly does not appear that someone with this sort of schedule is suffering deteriorating health or has been under close medical observation.

 

“We are however grateful to the “medical gurus” at Sahara Reporters, whose original diagnosis that the First Lady was experiencing a “terminal ailment” has now improved to one that “may be manageable!”

Bayern Getting Ready For Barca Showdown

German side Bayern Munich are in top preparation for their almighty return leg of the UEFA Champions League against Barcelona tomorrow as the German side travel to Nou Camp.
Last week, It was Champions League wins for German teams at home to Spanish opponents prompted talk of a power shift in the European game, but Bayern Munich feel it is too early to draw such a conclusion.
Bayern beat Barcelona 4-0 and face them again in Spain on Wednesday.
Borussia Dortmund beat Real Madrid 4-1 and face them on Tuesday.
Bayern were the last German team to win the Champions League, back in 2001 and were also the last Bundesliga side to win the UEFA Cup/Europa League, the continent’s second-tier club competition, in 1996.
Spanish teams have won four Champions League crowns since 2001, with Barca triumphing three times, and five UEFA Cup/Europa League titles since 1996.
World and European champions Spain have dominated the international game in recent years, beating Germany in the final of Euro 2008 and knocking them out of the 2010 World Cup in the semi-finals.
Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes, who has experience coaching in Spain at Barca’s great rivals Real, Athletic Bilbao and Tenerife, should have a full squad available for Wednesday’s game, with only defender Dante, who has a cold, a doubt.
A striker himself in his playing days for Borussia Moenchengladbach and Hanover 96, Heynckes said Bayern would not be curbing their attacking instincts.
Heynckes also said he will not be instructing his team to play a cautious game on Wednesday despite six players, including defender Philipp Lahm and midfielders Bastian Schweinsteiger and Javi Martinez, risking suspension for the final.
The final is on May 25 at London’s Wembley stadium, where four-times champions Barca won European titles in 1992 and 2011.

Bribery Allegations: Havelange Quits As FIFA Honourary President

Joao Havelange has stepped down as FIFA’s honourary president while Sepp Blatter has been cleared of misconduct in the ISL bribery case, a report by FIFA’s ethics committee said on Tuesday.
The report described the behaviour of Havelange as “morally and ethically reproachable” in his dealings with ISL, FIFA’s former marketing partner which went bankrupt in 2001.
The report by Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the ethics committee’s adjudicatory chamber, cleared FIFA president Blatter, who was secretary-general at the time, of any wrongdoing but added that his conduct had been “clumsy”.
It also said that former South America Football Confederation president and FIFA executive committee member Nicolas Leoz, who quit his posts last week, had taken “bribes” from ISL.
A Swiss prosecutor said in a legal document released last July that Havelange, FIFA president from 1974 to 1998, and former executive committee member Ricardo Teixeira, took multi-million bribes from ISL on World Cup deals in the 1990s.
Swiss Member of Parliament Roland Buechel said at the time that FIFA needed to further investigate the actions of Leoz in the case.
FIFA subsequently set up its own investigation led by Michael Garcia, a U.S. attorney who heads the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee.
“It is clear that Havelange and Teixeira, as football officials, should not have accepted any bribe money, and should have had to pay it back since the money was in connection with the exploitation of media rights,” Eckert’s report said.
“From money that passed through the ISMM/ISL Group, it is certain that not inconsiderable amounts were channelled to Havelange and to his son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira as well as to Nicolas Leoz, whereby there is no indication that any form of service was given in return by them.
“These payments were apparently made via front companies in order to cover up the true recipient and are to be qualified as “commissions”, known today as “bribes”,” the report said.
It added: “There are… no indications whatsoever that President Blatter was responsible for a cash flow to Havelange, Teixeira or Leoz, or that that he himself received any payments from the ISL Group, even in the form of hidden kick back payments.
“It must be questioned, however, whether President Blatter knew or should have known over the years before the bankruptcy of ISL that ISL had made payments (bribes) to other FIFA officials.
“President Blatter’s conduct could not be classified in any way as misconduct with regard to any ethics rules.
“The conduct of President Blatter may have been clumsy because there could be an internal need for clarification, but this does not lead to any criminal or ethical misconduct.”
The report was noted with satisfaction, Blatter said.
Blatter went saying “I have no doubt that FIFA, thanks to the governance reform process that I proposed, now has the mechanisms and means to ensure that such an issue – which has caused untold damage to the reputation of our institution – does not happen again”.

I Was Not Paralyzed – Salawa Abeni

As waka singer, Queen Salawa Abeni, plans to release another album, she speaks on the nature of a sickness that has kept her off the musical arena in the past few years.

About four years ago when Waka Queen, Salawa Abeni, was still very sick, fuji creator, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, went to see her in her house. As soon as the woman who was in a deep pain saw him, she struggled to say, “Alhaji, am I going to die now?”
Trust Barrister. In his characteristic life-is-good inspiring candour, he tried to rekindle her hope and assured her that she still had many beautiful years ahead of her.
But just imagine how nature can play a fast game on any mortal. Today, the Barrister that was prophesying longevity into Abeni’s life is no more. The waka singer recalled this encounter in Lagos on Friday when she was narrating the difficult experience she went through in the past five years when she went from one hospital to the other, trying to get healing for a sickness that started as a general weakness of the body.
She says, “Yes, my one and only daddy Barrister! I paid a tribute to him in this album. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace. Dr. Barrister used to call me Omo baba e – daughter of his father. He asked me to send my house address and he came with five members of his band. He talked to me and made a strong statement, saying,  Omo to maa sin Alhaji oni ku loju wa. (The child who will bury Alhaji will not die young.) It is unfortunate that he could not witness my recovery,” she says.
Enthusiastically noting that the tough days are over,  she is now returning with a new album which, although she declined to give its title, can best be called ‘Testimony’, based on its contents.
She says, “I just finished work on the album. I was out of the scene for some time due to the sickness but I’m telling you that I’m fully back on stage. I just finished work on the album last week Saturday. In the album, I first sang about my sickness. People have said a lot of things like, ‘She has a stroke’, ‘She is now paralysed ‘and all sorts of things. Instead of answering them one after the other, I have decided to put everything in the album to let people know that I am a human being. It is true that I fell sick, but God has taken control. I thank God I have survived.”
But there are indications that she still needs some time to fully recuperate. According to her, during the five days she recorded the songs, she only went to the studio in the morning. The reason, according her, is that once it was afternoon, she got stressed up. She adds that she recorded with all the members of her band.
On how the ordeal started, she explains that in the first week of her sickness, she felt a bit of tiredness and she called her doctor to check her blood pressure.
“The doctor said my BP was up and I needed some rest. After four days, I was discharged from the hospital and, two days after, the headache persisted. After some days,  I went for another check-heck up in England. Although the doctors discovered nothing,  I was still very weak. I later went to Paris, France and stayed there for two weeks. When they did not discover anything major, other than the fact that I was weak, I returned to Nigeria.”
She adds that the doctors eventually told her that the stress she suffered had developed into hypertension.
Acknowledging that Lagos State Government supported her when the she was sick, she gave kudos to her 96-year-old mum who, she notes, took care of her. She had lost her father in 1990, when she was 23.
Salawa assures her fans that she will not disappoint them now that she is back on her feet.
She notes, “My sickness pushed  me a little backward but by the special grace of God, I will re-gain all I have lost. My lovely fans at home and abroad have been calling me and contacting me on Facebook and Twitter asking, ‘Alhaja what happened?’ I am using this opportunity to thank them and urge them to continue to support me.”
Born in 1961, Salawa started singing very early, when she was in the primary school – which she never started until she was 13.
Although the contemporary waka music was created by Batili Alake, it was the exploits of Salawa that popularised it, especially beyond Nigerian shores. While she has had her own share of some of the tell-tales that trail celebrities – including marital ones – she has proved that talent is a big thing when discovered and put to proper use.
Her fans will always remember some of her hits that include Indian Waka and Experience.

TINUBU, ACN BIGWIGS MEET IN OSUN

Top echelon of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the South-West geopolitical zone of the country will today converged on Osogbo, the Osun state capital, to discuss vital issues affecting the party in the region.
Nigerian Tribune authoritatively gathered yesterday that the meeting which will be hosted by the state chapter of the party will be attended by the five governors of the ACN controlled states of Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and Ekiti states among other chieftains of the party.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that two of the major issues to deliberated on at the summit include the recent merger of the progressive parties, which fused into a new political platform, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the modalities to implement the new alliance in the South-West.
The party in the South- West, would, at the meeting, take a position on the interest of the ACN with regard to the sharing of political offices in the newly formed APC.
Also expected at the meeting are the National Chairman of the party, Chief Adebisi Akande; National Leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu; former Governors of Ogun and Ekiti states, Chief Olusegun Osoba and Chief Adeniyi Adebayo.
Confirming this, the ACN Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy in Osun State, Mr Kunle Oyatomi in telephone interview said “the meeting would discuss the new merger, sustenance of political control in the South-West and how the party can take over the power at the federal level through electoral means in the next general election.”
“It is not an emergency meeting of the ACN.
It is a zonal meeting and tomorrow would be the turn of Osun State to host the meeting and issues that germane to the party would be discussed by the participants and some of them are already arriving in the state ahead of the meeting”, he stated.
Culled from Nigeria Tribune