(picture via DailyMail) Zuko Qusheka || 11/09/2017 To say its’s been a tough few months for the North London club would be an understatement. If we are honest, it’s really been much of the same for the past 8 seasons. This leaves Arsenal fans more stressed than most European fans, rightly so: nothing makes sense at Arsenal. The transfers, and Arsene Wenger. Anxiety hits Arsenal fans more than most fans in the transfer season. Trust me, it’s not because Arsene Wenger is going to sign a few desperately needed players that could guarantee, bare minimum, a challenge for the English Premier League, but because most fans except or are anxious at the fact that we might lose one of our star players. Think back to August 2012, when Robin Van Persie left for greener pastures at Manchester United or when Cesc Fabregas, our then club captain, moved in the previous year, 2011, to boyhood club Barcelona. So, trust me when rumors of Alexis Sanchez potentially leaving for Manchester City surfaced it was a shock all too familiar. But alas, the issue of transfers at Arsenal are potentially an easy fix. I won’t delve into those anymore but rather what I see as the biggest issue, and proverbial common denominator: Arsene Wenger. The man who has turned Arsenal’s financial troubles into victories has seemed to have the opposite effect with the clubs on-field victories. Charged with the job of being Arsenal’s manager in 1996, it wouldn’t be an understatement to call Wenger a “dinosaur” in football terms. He’s already the current longest serving manger in the English topflight. But since he last managed Arsenal to an English Premier League title in the 2003/2004 season, what really has the beloved Frenchman achieved with Arsenal? Besides 3 more FA Cups in the past 3 seasons, if we’re being honest, nothing much in terms of success. Any other manager would have received the sack long ago. For a topflight team, those stats are horrible. Arsene Wenger has consistently failed to buy the required players nor replace star players. Him buying Alexandre Lacazette was as big surprise as it was to most football fans. The Frenchman definitely has more potential to be huge for the club though, whether he will be managed by Arsene Wenger for long is another story all together. Fans have already lifted the annual #WengerOut banners much earlier than previous seasons. Infact, you could see the signs in the first game of the season already. It’s definitely going to be a long season at Arsenal, I doubt most fans have hopes of finishing this season with a trophy but then again the team has been together for a long time and should gel properly by the tail-end of the season. Then again, that’s just optimism from me (and most fans). By Patson Manda | 2 August 2017 In England, the national anthem is titled, “God Save the Queen”. Football has reached that point it might just need to be saved too, especially in Europe, from the rich, and commercialization. Remember the days where players would come through the ranks in the team in order to play for the first team? So long ago. Now players are bought for millions of euros at tender ages from other clubs. Instead of developing through the game, players are shoved into the limelight without being sufficiently tested. Kylan Mbappe is estimated at €160 million. He’s 18 and hails from a French Ligue 1 that is ranked 5th in the world. It’s really become madness at this point. What we’re seeing in modern football is unprecedented inflation and particularly the financial backing. From the Premier league (leaders of having financial backing) to China. Players are getting very expensive. When you look at how much Premier League teams earned last season, the recent TV deal and popularity of the league has seen the league acquire rich resources. To the extent that Premier Leagues ‘smaller’ teams like Bournemouth can compete financially with an Inter Milan. As well, wealthy owners are acquiring football teams more often. (As shown above) Manchester United have had to wait 11 years to regain their position as the world's leading revenue-generating club and it has taken phenomenal commercial revenue growth to help them achieve this. … In recent years, their ability to secure commercial partnerships with value in excess of that achievable by their peers has been the crucial factor in enabling the club to regain their place at the top of the Money League … That said, they'll face strong competition from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid to retain the top spot in next year's edition, due to the lack of Champions League football, the weakening of the pound against the Euro and, over the longer term, as other clubs enter the commercial market demanding similar deals, using United as the precedent . Tim Bridge, senior manager at Deloitte, said The Money League continues to demonstrate the Premier League's financial strength in depth. The appearance of Leicester City shows that on-pitch success gives any Premier League team a chance of a position in the top 20. … With Leicester having already qualified for the round of 16 in this year's UEFA Champions League competition, we can expect to see them maintain their position in the top 20 and potentially climb a few places Overall, the 20 highest-earning football clubs in the world generated £5.5bn of revenue in 2015/16, which is an increase of 12 per cent on the previous year. So when you see the top clubs plash the cash on players, it is actually at times a small amount of their earnings. I guess this growing trend of high transfer fees is something that is bound to happen. However, the most important question to ask is, to what cost? By Patson Manda | 29th July 2017 If you’re feeling slightly disillusioned by the current state of football, you aren’t the only one. The football market has become pretty insane, with large proportions of money being thrown around. What we’ve witnessed over the years is the gradual progression of money taking a stronghold in the game, as corporate, marketing and financial power has gathered strength. The commercialization of the beautiful game is showing its ugly side, especially in this current transfer window. Current transfer fees are exorbitant to say the least, but then again what can one expect when clubs are backed by some of the richest families and people on the planet? When Cristiano Ronaldo broke the world transfer fee (£80 million) in 2009 by moving from Manchester United to Real Madrid, we all thought football was going mad. However, we then saw the subsequent transfers and figures for the likes of:
Cristiano seems like a bargain now right? In this current 2017/18 summer transfer window, we’ve once again seen the influence of money. Early this transfer window, Liverpool were interested in the acquisition of Virjil van Dijk from Southampton, the Dutch defender who has shown great quality since joining the Premier League from Celtic a few years ago. It was heavily reported that Southampton quoted Virjil at a whopping £60 million. Is he really worth that? We have also seen Swansea City’s talisman, Gylfi Sigurdsson, being quoted at £50 million. Although the fee was officially undisclosed, Romelu Lukaku’s move from Everton to Manchester United cost a staggering £75 million (with £15 million add-ons). That transfer directed Chelsea’s purchase of Alvaro Morata, for £58 million (but is believed add-ons will see the fee rise towards £70 million). Manchester City have spent a lot of money this window, included but not limited to the signing of Ederson Moraes for £35 million, Bernado Silva (£43 million plus £17.5 million in add-on's), Kyle Walker for £45 million (rising to £50 million with add-on's) and Benjamin Mendy for a reported fee of £52 million, making him the world’s most expensive defender. Arsenal signed Alexander Lacazette for £46.5 million (with £6.1 million add-on's). All this begs the question sports junkies; how do clubs valuate their players? What considerations do they base it on? Well, according to the Guardian, the age (most peak in their late 20’s); size of the club; competitions club is involved in; player performance; and the player accolades, play a role. Important to note though that it is argued that English players are over-priced, for various reasons. One being that the doesn’t seem to be enough English players in the top teams in the EPL. The transfer amounts are definitely getting heavily inflated and to be honest, football is losing a bit of its soul, with the added aspect of a player’s reputation getting more significant. The best example of this is the potential transfers of Neymar from Barcelona and Kylian Mbappe from Monaco. Firstly, he’s still 18, secondly HOW DID THEY VALUE HIM? Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) are heavily rumoured to be willing to pay…just wait for it, Neymar’s gigantic €222 buy-out clause…yes, two hundred and twenty-two million. With Mbappe, Real Madrid are rumoured to have offered €160 million (plus €20 million add-ons). At this point sports junkies, I don’t know whether to be happy that there’s more investment in the game or be upset that the beautiful game is being turned into the ‘money game’. What I do know for sure though is that ever since the Galacticos Era began at Real Madrid, player prices have just sky-rocketed. That’s a topic for another time though, till then? May the football gods help us all. (Image: AFP/Getty) Zuko Qusheka | 27/07/2017 As South Africans, we have accepted a few realities: South African Airways is a mess; the South African Rugby Union is extremely slow to transform; Athletics South Africa (ASA) will continuously let down our athletes unless changes are made. The Citizen has released a document that contains the reasons why some South African athletes have not been chosen to represent South Africa in the upcoming IAAF World Championships. Look, I think we’ve all accepted that ASA would not win any sports federation of the year awards – but to exclude an athlete from representing their national team based on a dubious qualifying criteria is just madness to say the least. The issues are clearly bigger than transformation, remember they’re still banned from hosting any major tournaments, but surely to be this incompetent must be a crime (It’s not, unfortunately – I checked). ASA under the leadership of Richard Stander has just been a joke of federation. From not fully supporting the development and training of athletes, now to refusing to allow certain athletes who have qualified to go represent their country is just a step even further backwards. Our beloved ASA refused to let Henricho Bruintjies, ranked 4th in South Africa for the 100m, because, trust me I am not making this up, he is likely to need to run 9.99 to qualify for the semifinals season’s best of 10.06 seconds. Someone who has watched the 100m continuously (me), will tell you that a seasons best of 10.06s is more than enough to qualify. In fact, the time 10.24s was required to reach the semifinals at the biennial World Championships in Beijing two years ago, and 10.23s was needed at last year’s Rio Olympics. It doesn’t end there sports junkies, there’s more incompetence. 400m hurdlers Cornel Fredericks, LJ van Zyl and Constant Pretorius have also fallen victim to the ASA mess, all because young hurdling sensation Sokwakhana Zazini has run a faster time this year unlike his older compatriots. I actually don’t know what’s worse; the level of disregard for athletes or that the sports administrators themselves don’t even know the rules and differences in age groups. Zazini is 18 years, meaning the hurdles he jumps in a race are shorter than those of the older athletes. It’s basic 1+1 at this point, but they decided to do division and find for “x”. Zazini’s time cannot be compared to seasoned LJ Van Zyl or Cornel Fredericks who actually qualify to go race. The most important thing is whether an athlete can qualify for an event or not, after that it is up to his talent and hard-work to make sure he performs to the best of his abilities. If athletes are top 3 in the country for the event AND they qualify for international duty, there is definitely no reason to stop them from going to represent their country. How do you prepare for such an important event while you're still arguing with your own Athletics federation? ASA officials are the same people that don’t seem to understand that transformation in athletics is based more on development than anything else. The criteria is fairly objective for transformation in athletics if we’re being honest, but that’s a topic for another day if we’re honest. This sports junkie has definitely been confused, I have one solution though: BOYCOTT ASA! But then again, many of these athletes have sponsorship deals to uphold and can’t just not compete. Would be beneficial if sponsors were on-board though. That’s all I have to say, for now anyway. Craig Bester | 27/07/17 I have lived in the generation of legends in sport: Lionel Messi, Micheal Phelphs, Lebron James, Tom Brady…and arguably the greatest track & field athlete in the 21st Century; Usain Bolt. This man is the first track athlete in history to win 3 consecutive gold medals in the 100m; 200m; and 4x100m races. He took the world by storm when he broke the World 100m record, first in a time of 9.69 then 9.58s in a star studded 100m final a year later, then followed that up with a world record 19.30s and then lowered it to 19.19 in the 200m (He’s most successful event) AND helping set a new world record in the 4x100m relay race at 36.84s. Usain Bolt stretched the imagination for the speed in the 100m. Taller than sprinters than most sprinters, he stands at 1.95m, he has provided the unimaginable when he gets into his stride. He has captured the imagination of every young athlete who has the ambition of one day taking down the legends records. His speed isn’t the only thing the fans love about this man though. If we’re being honest for a moment, we’ve all done the Bolt celebration to celebrate even our smallest victories. Usain Bolt has one of the most iconic celebrations in sport’s currently. I think we all expect to see statues of his stance when he retires. Speaking of retiring, we might be seeing those statues sooner than we think because the fastest men on Earth is set to step off his throne after the 2017 IAAF World Championships. Quick backstory. Usain Bolt was reported to have been considering retirement after the last Olympics which were held in Rio De Janeiro. The Jamaicans men did a clean-sweep of the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relays, again. This was all before the announcement that Nesta Carter (Nesta Carter was part of the 4x100m team to win) had been cited for having had illegal substances in his bloodstream. The IAAF summarily stripped the Jamaican 4x100m team of the Rio Olympic gold medal meaning Bolt had one less gold medal. Rumors quickly surfaced that the Jamaican sprint sensation could possibly grace the Olympic stage for the last time in the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. As a sports junkie, I’m hoping such rumors are true. Bolt is an abnormal athlete; he could still have the strength for at least one more Olympic final in at least two events. I wouldn’t be disappointed to see him in 2020 in Tokyo, as a winner I am sure that one medal that was stripped is going to sit on his conscious. Either way, who in the current crop of sprinters could dethrone this man. He’s just been too good for anyone to get close, well most of us thought Yohan Blake would be the usurper. But that’s a topic for another day. |
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September 2017
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