Football
Super League Cannot Go Ahead, Says Agnelli
Founder of the breakaway European Super League and Juventus chairman, Andrea Agnelli, called time on the project on Wednesday after six English clubs withdrew.
He then blamed the involvement of politicians for the league’s downfall.
Twelve of Europe’s leading football clubs from England, Italy and Spain announced a breakaway league on Sunday.
But after 48 hours of intense criticism from fans and politicians, the six English clubs backed out on Tuesday.
Asked whether the project could still happen following the departures, Agnelli told Reuters: “To be frank and honest, no. Evidently, that is not the case.”
Agnelli however said he remained convinced that European football needed change and he had no regrets about the way the breakaway attempt was made.
“I remain convinced of the beauty of that project,” said Agnelli, stating it would have created the best competition in the world.
“But admittedly … I mean, I don’t think that that project is now still up and running.”
Agnelli said other clubs were ready to join the new European league before the English sides left.
“I’m not going to say how many clubs contacted me in just 24 hours asking if they could join,” he said, declining to name them.
“Maybe they lied, but I was contacted by a number of teams asking what they could do to join.”
Agnelli said he felt the British government’s intervention, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatening legislation to stop the breakaway, had pushed the English clubs to withdraw.
“I have had speculation to that extent that if six teams would have broken away and would have threatened the EPL (Premier League), politics would have seen that as an attack to Brexit and their political scheme,” he said.
Asked if he regretted the way the breakaway was conducted —- which was heavily criticised by his former ally UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin —- Agnelli referred to the nature of the football business.
“If you tell me other methods for putting together such projects, … if you were to ask the authorisation of others, I don’t think you would have carried out a project like this.
“The relations are there. I have seen relations changing in time. Some people I am quite sure that people will be open and talk to each other.
“I don’t think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general,” he said. (NAN)
According to the Italian publication II Mattino, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Paris Saint-Germain are prepared to make an offer of €90 million for Victor Osimhen, the top striker for Napoli.
According to the report, Osimhen’s contract has a release clause worth about €120 million, although Napoli President Aurelio de Laurentiis might accept a price less than that.
The Nigerian forward signed a new contract with Napoli last December, but the club is ready to let go of him at the end of the current campaign.
PSG, Chelsea, and Arsenal have all been mentioned frequently as potential suitors for the forward.
To resolve the striker’s future, intermediaries are allegedly collaborating with Roberto Calenda, his agent.
Osimhen, who left Ligue 1 team Lille in 2022 to join Napoli, has made 125 appearances for the Partenopei and scored 72 goals.
Super Eagles of Nigeria goalkeeper, Maduka Okoye has won Udinese’s Player of the Month Award for February after having one of the best runs of his football career.
Maduka Okoye is just coming out from a very difficult phase of his football career after losing his place in his club and international teams.
Recall that after the 24-year-old Nigerian goalkeeper made an error that contributed to the Super Eagles’ exit from the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cameroon, the goalkeeper has found it impossible to retain his first spot in the team.
Things got more complicated for Maduka Okoye when former Super Eagles coach, Jose Peseiro, didn’t invite him for the just concluded 2023 AFCON in which Chippa United goalkeeper, Stanley Nwabali made his name and grabbed the team’s first spot.
As he was struggling with the national team, Okoye was also struggling in Europe as he couldn’t get game time at Championship side, Watford.
His lack of game time forced him to move to Udinese on August 24, 2023. Initially, Okoye couldn’t make the first team at the Italian side until last January.
Okoye’s best month at the club came in February 2024 in which he helped the struggling team to win two games, draw once, and suffer one defeat. The Nigerian out-of-favour goalkeeper kept two clean sheets in the said month.
Due to that, before Udinese’s 2-0 defeat at home to Torino on Saturday, March 16, the Italian Serie A club presented him with the Player of the Month Award.
Note that the Nigeria international has made 13 Serie A appearances for the Italian club in which he conceded 18 goals. Football statistics platform, Opta, claimed that Maduka Okoye has never made an error leading to a goal since he joined Udinese.
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