Football News: Review Of The Day 19th February 2023

Review of the Day

Contracts

Former club captain Tyrone Mings has signed a 2-year contract extension with Aston Villa, keeping him with the Premier League side until 2026.

Transfers

Former Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper Andreas Sondergaard has signed for Swansea City for the rest of the season. The 22-year-old was a free agent after being released by Wolves in January.

Mexican international full-back Julian Araujo has signed for Barcelona from LA Galaxy for €4m plus a significant sell-on percentage and will join Barca immediately despite the player's registration failing to go through on deadline day in January. The teams have appealed to FIFA to allow the transfer to go through but, in the meantime, he will officially join Barca B and train with the first team.

Former Real Madrid left-back Marcelo has terminated his contract with Olympiakos.

Former Chelsea and Sunderland defender Papy Djilobodji has joined Kasimpasa on a free transfer from Gaziantep.

Injury Round Up

AS Monaco full-back Ruben Aguilar has been ruled out for a fortnight. Aguilar's competition for the right-back berth, Vanderson, has been out since the beginning of the month and has yet to return to training, leaving the French Ligue 1 side without a recognised fit right-back.

Job Changes

Lee Mason has been sacked by, er sorry, left the PGMOL by mutual consent after repeated ineptitude came to a head when he failed to draw the guidelines to check for offside. Mason was so utterly abysmal as a referee that he was made into a full-time VAR-only official, yet even that was too much for him. The scary thing is that, despite being incredibly and embarrassingly bad at refereeing, Mason managed to last 15 years as a Premier League referee!

After almost 30 years with Everton, David Harrison has left to return to Manchester United as Director of Football Operations. Harrison was working in the ticket office at the Red Devils before leaving to become Box Office Manager at Everton in 1995. Harrison rose to become Head of Football Operations and CLub Secretary at the Toffees.

Disciplinary Charges

Arsenal and Manchester City have been charged by the Football Association for failing to control their players after both sets of players surrounded referee Anthony Taylor, of Manchester, (how does a Mancunian consistently get picked to referee Manchester City in big games?) at different points of the game. Arsenal protested against the decision to award Erling Haaland a penalty for City, which was overturned by VAR. City protested against both a first-half penalty given to Arsenal and after an Eddie Nketiah foul on Ruben Dias, which led to the Arsenal forward being shown a yellow card.

Sheffield United captain Billy Sharp has been charged with improper conduct over his comments regarding the referee after his team beat Wrexham in the FA Cup. The veteran striker told ITV Sport after the game that the referee had been "helping" Wrexham and had not "given him one foul all night": "I am glad we've beaten them. They are doing well in their league and we are doing well in ours, but I wasn't happy with a few of their players there. The way they've been as a club before the game, eyeing up Spurs before the game - they had not even beaten us. They thought we would just roll over when they got back in it and I think the referee was helping them as well, I don't think he gave me one foul all night."

Lincoln City defender Lewis Montsma has been given a 3-game ban for violent conduct after his elbow on Bristol Rovers defender James Connolly was missed by the officals but caught on camera. Montsma admitted the charge.

Ex-Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has launched his defence of the payments made to La Liga referee Enriquez Negreira, claiming that Negreira attempted to extort more money out of Barca after the club stopped making payments to his company in 2018. Bartomeu also denied that the €6.65m paid without tax or invoices was intended to gain any kind of illegal advantage on the pitch. Current Barca president Joan Laporta has claimed that the whole thing is just a conspiracy intended to damage Barcelona and stop them winning La Liga, even though it has been confirmed that Barca will avoid any kind of sporting sanctions as Spain's statute of limitations make it impossible to punish clubs more than 3 years after offences have taken place. The payments themselves began in 2001, when Joan Gaspert was president of the Catalans. Former Deportivo La Coruna president Augusto Cesar Lendoiro said of the scandal: "I think it's the worst news in the history for Spanish football, not just for Barcelona, ​​due to the real global impact it has had. When the exact date of the beginning of the million-dealing professional relationship between Enriquez Negreira and Barcelona is known, there will be many clubs and fans, Deportivo and I the first, who will remember those games against Barca. Those that we all have in memory, in which we complained extremely harshly about the referee on duty, but then we only related it to the so 'accepted' thing about 'referees always helping the big teams.'"

Italy have requested that Neymar's close friend Robinho serve his 9-year prison sentence for gang rape in his homeland Brazil. Brazil refuses to extradite its nationals, despite the international arrest warrant that was issued for Robinho's arrest after he and five other Brazilians were found guilty of gang-rape in a Milan court in 2017. An appeal was rejected in 2020 and then the conviction was confirmed by Italy's Supreme Court in January, leading to the request by Italy. Brazil have confirmed receiving the request and have said they will analyse the request.

Cross border ultra wars are now becoming a big thing with Red Star Belgrade hooligans teaming up with Napoli ultras to ambush AS Roma's own thugs outside the Stadio Olimpico earlier this month and stealing a Roma banner. Red Star's ultras hung up the banner, upside down in a deliberate show of disrepect, in the match against Cukaricki at the weekend, alongside a banner reading 'You chose the wrong friends'. The reference was to Roma's ultras friendship with Dinamo Zagreb ultras. The Roma banner was then burnt in the stands.

Pointless List Of The Day

The CIES Football Observatory has published its list of the top football academies worldwide based on their estimation of the transfer value of youth academy graduates that are active in one of the leagues they cover:
1. SL Benfica - Graduates: 104 - Total Value: €670m
2. Chelsea - Graduates: 78 - Total Value: €630m
3. Barcelona - Graduates: 102 - Total Value: €581m
4. Ajax - Graduates: 114 - Total Value: €555m
5. Manchester City - Graduates: 81 - Total Value: €510m
6. Paris Saint-Germain - Graduates: 83 - Total Value: €491m
7. Sao Paulo - Graduates: 73 - Total Value: €474m
8. Santos - Graduates: 61 - Total Value: €444m
9. Flamengo - Graduates: 58 - Total Value: €438m
10. Sporting CP - Graduates: 97 - Total Value: €399m
11. Arsenal - Graduates: 79 - Total Value: €399m
12. River Plate - Graduates: 80 - Total Value: €391m
13. Fluminese - Graduates: 60 - Total Value: €383m
14. Real Madrid - Graduates: 97 - Total Value: €359m
15. Porto - Graduates: 71 - Total Value: €350m
16. Stade Rennais - Graduates: 58 - Total Value: €346m
17. Olympique Lyonnais - Graduates: 78 - Total Value: €342m
18. Dinamo Zagreb - Graduates: 89 - Total Value: €337m
19. Bayern Munich - Graduates: 56 - Total Value: €331m
20. AS Monaco - Graduates: 54 - Total Value: €330m
21. Villareal - Graduates: 57 - Total Value: €317m
22. RB Salzburg - Graduates: 55 - Total Value: €317m
23. PSV Eindhoven - Graduates: 62 - Total Value: €313m
24. Liverpool - Graduates: 67 - Total Value: €299m
25. Valencia - Graduates: 59 - Total Value: €298m
26. Boca Juniors - Graduates: 95 - Total Value: €293m
27. Penarol Montevideo - Graduates: 40 - Total Value: €289m
28. Girondins Bordeaux - Graduates: 40 - Total Value: €279m
29. KRC Genk - Graduates: 40 - Total Value: €277m
30. RSC Anderlecht - Graduates: 60 - Total Value: €266m
31. Athletic Club Bilbao - Graduates: 45 - Total Value: €263m
32. Manchester United - Graduates: 88 - Total Value: €257m
33. Borussia Dortmund - Graduates: 44 - Total Value: €250m
34. Palmeiras - Graduates: 57 - Total Value: €248m
35. FK Partizan - Graduates: 70 - Total Value: €248m
36. VfB Stuttgart - Graduates: 41 - Total Value: €240m
37. Birmingham City - Graduates: 24 - Total Value: €228m
38. Racing Club (Argentina) - Graduates: 52 - Total Value: €225m
39. Internacional - Graduates: 65 - Total Value: €223m
40. Atalanta - Graduates: 48 - Total Value: €217m

Neymar In Fresh Controversy

Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar has managed to make himself the centre of a fresh controversy in France after following up the first-leg defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League with a late night poker game followed by a trip to McDonalds. While teammate Kylian Mbappe is talking about the importance of preparing for the second leg with good sleep and proper diet, Neymar is pictured filling his face with junk food and playing poker late into the night. Some are viewing Neymar's actions as a dig at Mbappe over his comments, though it does seem unlikely as it is just the way Neymar lives. Others think it is Mbappe who is making the dig with his comments, which preceded Neymar's trip to Maccies in the early hours after the defeat to Bayern.

Written by Tris Burke February 19 2023 09:19:46