FIFA examines evidence of international football naughtiness
This week, FIFA president Sepp Blatter took a break from being ridiculous to respond to allegations that an Asian gambling syndicate affected the outcome of several games in the 2006 World Cup finals. Following the findings of journalist Declan Hill in his book The Fix, the German version of Bild reports that the Swiss oaf is on the case:
“FIFA are actively trying to bring clarity to the situation.”
Blatter also promised to examine Ghana’s 3-0 loss to Brazil in World Cup 2006, one of the games said to have been fixed by the Asian mafia. Bild recently spoke to Ghanaian goalkeeper Abukari Damba, who is accused
The Cameroon player’s minute of madness could cost him a winner’s medal
In case you missed it last night, here’s Andre Bikey’s unusual reaction to teammate Rigobert Song’s medical treatment during Cameroon’s 1-0 win over Ghana. Apparently, Bikey took issue with the speed at which the medical treatment was taking place. Even though it was the last few minutes of the game and his team were 1-0 up. The mind boggles.
The bookies fancy the hosts and the favourites to meet in the Africa Cup of Nations final this Sunday, but the former must defeat a strong Cameroon team, while the latter must overcome current holders Egypt. Read our betting previews of Ghana/ Cameroon and Ivory Coast/ Egypt, then head to the oddschicken to have a punt.
The best sports programming on the telebox tonight
Namibia’s odds of a victory against Africa Cup of nations hosts Ghana are at 28-1, which is depressing for Namibians, considering the current odds of Alan Shearer managing Sunderland are 10-1. Find the best odds for all of tonight’s football by using our oddschicken.
Ex-Zimbabwe striker lifts the lid on hotel steamrollering incident
In his monthly column on footyhighlights.com, Peter Ndlovu recalls a salacious incident from the Africa Cup of Nations 2006:
We had just played our final group game, ending on a high by beating a strong Ghana side but still crashing out of the tournament. At the hotel that night we decided to have a few drinks and toast to our victory. I had invited my friend, who I can’t name for legal reasons (fans of English football will remember him from his highly successful period with Leeds United), along as he had been watching the match.
The lads started giving my friend a lot of stick for his country’s loss, especially our head coach. My friend was taking it quite gracefully but, as a proud Ghanaian, I could sense his patience was wearing thin. Nevertheless, the drinks kept flowing and so did the jokes.
It came to the end of the night and some of the lads had disappeared to bed, most notably our coach and my friend. Now during the whole tournament the manager had personally entered the hotel rooms of our most lazy players (Benjani was the worst) and pulled them out of bed in the morning to get ready for training so myself and a couple of the other lads decided to repeat the routine on him. We got the keys from reception and seven of us bundled into his hotel room at 4 a.m. To our horror it was not our coach who we found in bed, it was my friend. The worst part was that he was having sex with the coach’s wife!
I quickly rounded the boys up and ushered them out of the room, frantically hoping to keep a lid on the situation. After all, it was I who invited him to the party! We found the coach in one of the hotel bathrooms. He had had far too much to drink and crashed out.
The next morning, at breakfast, I quizzed my friend about what happened and he delivered a line which I will remember all my life:
“When a man insults my country, I insult him by taking his woman“
Our manager did eventually find out about the incident and I think he separated from his wife for a period. The last I heard though was that they are back together and he’s now coaching in the USA.
The moral of the story is never to slag off someone’s country!
Ndlovu is hardly subtle about revealing the identity of his ‘friend’. A Ghanian striker who was successful at Leeds? He might as well have titled the story ‘Don’t let Tony Yeboah near your wife.’
