Football family: best newcomer
Phillip Chiyangwa – Zimbabwe’s multimillionaire bible-quoting self-styled “King of Selfies”, YouTube star and nephew of Robert Mugabe - elected FA president on a landslide. Chiyangwa, 56 – a former Mugabe regime MP nicknamed “Captain Fiasco” – denies vote-buying: “Let’s get football back where it belongs.”
• Weighing up Chiyangwa’s election success: Fifa’s interim president Issa Hayatou – offering “warmest congratulations ... Your experience, knowhow and leadership will benefit football.” Chiyangwa’s first act: taking three weeks off. “I am going on leave forthwith. I’ll be back towards the end of December.”
Meanwhile: also starting over
Concacaf’s executive committee – reacting to the arrest of their last three presidents by deciding not to pick a fourth. Concacaf says the vote will be delayed to next year to secure “transparency”, with an interim team of seven executives taking over instead – including Jamaica’s Captain Horace Burrell, who served a six-month bribery ban in 2011. Burrell: “This leadership structure will allow the continued implementation of strong reforms.”
Staying relaxed
Peru’s indicted FA head Manuel Burga: “I’m calm, I knew the police were coming, I waited calmly. There’s nothing to hide.” Burga’s arrest comes five years after he attacked six Peru players who hired prostitutes at a casino for “lacking morals ... It’s deeply painful to me. There’s so much hypocrisy from these players. The saying is true: a tree born crooked will never grow straight.”
Saddest exit
Russia’s head of world chess Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, stepping out of public life, three months after linking himself with the Fifa job. Ilyumzhinov, a millionaire mystic who was abducted by aliens in 1997 (“They wore yellow spacesuits. It’s all perfectly normal”), had his US assets frozen last week over alleged links to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. He denies wrongdoing.
One to watch
2009: Sepp poses for photos with Egypt’s then-president Hosni Mubarak at an under-20s game. Sepp: “I am extremely honoured by the presence of President Mubarak here today. Egypt can be proud.” 2015: Fifa goes head to head with Mubarak in the Transparency International vote for the world’s top 15 worst cases of alleged “grand corruption”. Voting closes in February.
And rising above it all
Fifa.com, looking to move the news agenda on: “2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ organisers have named a panel of judges to select the official mascot. Once all stages have been completed, the winning character will have invoked the most public participation of any brand asset in FIFA World Cup™ history.”
Other news: best timing
The Premier League – easing Nike’s tough week of bad press over allegations relating to Fifa corruption and the IAAF – signing a new extended Official Ball deal to 2019. “As the leading global sports brand, Nike are an excellent fit.”
Best vision
Bolton chairman Phil Gartside, May 2001: “One of our directors, Eddie Davies, has loaned the club £2m and given us tremendous support. Eddie is a Farnworth lad and has put more money into Bolton than any other person in the history of the club. But we can’t constantly rely on that sort of generosity. We have to run the business properly.”
Most got at
Spain: Luis Suárez: not taking criticism of his stamp on Valencia’s Aymen Abdennour – “I stood on him by accident. These things happen” – a year after he faced down more press lies about his clash with Giorgio Chiellini: “In no way was it a bite or intent to bite. I lost my balance, fell over, and hit my face on the player. It left a small bruise on my cheek, and a strong pain in my teeth.”
Row of the week
Kuwaiti club al-Jahra suspended indefinitely after a director invaded the pitch to beat the referee, prompting “mass violence”. The director resigned quoting the Qur’an: “This is a work of Satan; for he is an enemy that misleads”; an FA statement condemned “this rude attack on match referees”.
Manager news
South Africa, July: Chippa United owner Chippa Mpengesi rehires coach Roger Sikhakhane for a fourth spell, having sacked him three times since 2011. “He always does well for me, I like him. He is our Alex Ferguson. This time it will work.” Dec: It doesn’t.
• Sikhakhane’s agent’s view on his client being placed on “special leave” by Mpengesi for “allegedly smelling of alcohol”: “We will take legal action … We aren’t saying Chippa shouldn’t change the coach – it’s like when a woman doesn’t want you any more, you can’t force her to love you. But these are unfounded allegations we’re dealing with here. We will challenge this nonsense.”
Model news
Italy: Sara Tommasi, moving on from links with Mario Balotelli, Ronaldinho and Silvio Berlusconi to become director of lower league club Marruvium. In 2011 Tommasi revealed how Berlusconi had made his move – Sun headline: “Balotelli’s busty beauty badgered by Berlusconi at bunga bonkathon”. Tommasi: “He said I had beauty and wit. He said I should get into politics.”
Plus: moving on
Model Carol Muniz, 29, listing the upsides of her 2014 affair with newly indicted 74-year-old Brazil FA head Marco Polo Del Nero: 63,000 Instagram followers and a Sexy Magazine covershoot. “Soon I will become an actress too. I’d say I am made for it.”
• Last year Muniz attacked press questions over what first attracted her to the millionaire Del Nero. “Let them talk; this love is pure. You know, the Dalai Lama once spoke of truth and authenticity. That’s how I live my life.”
.png?w=600)
