Brand managers of the week
Uefa – acting against fans disrespecting its jingle, matching 2014’s response after Legia Warsaw fans displayed a banner featuring a pig, the Uefa badge and the slogan: “Football Doesn’t Matter, Money Does.” Uefa fined Legia £63,000 for displaying a sentiment “not fit for a sports event”.
Meanwhile: busy week for
Spain’s FA head Ángel María Villar Llona – promoted to Fifa’s emergency committee; named interim head of its 2018 World Cup committee; and, 24 hours later, named as a suspect in the ethics committee’s 2018 World Cup inquiry. He denies wrongdoing.
• Standing by at Uefa if they have to suspend both Michel Platini and deputy Villar Llona: third-in-line Marios Lefkaritis – who was named in May on the Swiss Attorney General’s list of officials to be questioned over alleged “criminal mismanagement”. He denies wrongdoing.
And elsewhere last week
• Best leadership: “We will do whatever it takes to restore credibility … to send a strong message that those who govern football must be worthy of the task” - Acting Fifa president Issa Hayatou, censured for taking kickbacks in 2011.
• Most credible: “Fifa has no credibility … this is a challenge I would proudly accept, yet the first priority should be delaying the election and bringing sanity to the process” - Paddy Power’s David Ginola.
• Most got at: Nigeria’s Amos Adamu, facing a new ethics inquiry, two years after returning from his three-year bribery ban. Adamu told the press in 2013: “I am free again to contribute to football in Nigeria, Africa and the world. This is the new Amos Adamu.”
• And one to watch: Jack Warner, revealing plans to write a book of personal career reflections, titled: “In the Belly of the Beast”.
Other news: grandeur latest
May 2015: Nike and PSG unveil the club’s new kit, designed to celebrate “the club’s core values of grandeur, respect and passion”. Oct 2015: Nike and PSG fined €5.5m by a French court for failing to declare salary top-ups for players, to avoid tax.
Best laid plan
May 2015: Leeds owner Massimo Cellino: “The fans can tell me I’m a dick. But I look after my club. The fans, they don’t understand. They will.”
• 27: Average days between a Cellino Leeds vote of confidence and a sacking – including 20 days for Uwe Rösler (“the best person for me and the team”) and Dave Hockaday’s 2014 exit, four days after this: “It’s too simple to sack him. If I fire anyone, I should fire myself, or else I’m a coward. I have to control my ego.”
• Meanwhile: Steve Evans’s week one press conference highlights. Evans on morale: “I think the players saw a corner turned when Steve Evans walked in”; On his work ethic: “When Steve Evans asks players to be brave, I want them on the ball”; On his vision: “I’m a realist. Steve Evans doesn’t lie in bed and dream”; And on a fake Steve Evans quote circulating on Twitter: “What a scandalous, horrible thing to attribute to Steve Evans.”
Best assessment
Romania: Astra coach Marius Sumudica – whose side face a points deduction over debts after jailed billionaire owner Ioan Niculae cut off funding for wages and food – advising club officials to try harder to solve the crisis. “If they can’t solve it they must quit. If they fail, everyone at this club is a cretin, a retard. Everyone.”
Best moral stand
Romania: Steaua owner Gigi Becali – given a suspended sentence for kidnapping in 2013 – upset after one of his players was alleged to have hit an ex-girlfriend: “He’s a vagabond! A thug! The boy is talented, but how could he hit the girl? Impossible! A vagabond! That’s my opinion!”
Most exasperated
Costa Rica: Alajuelense coach Hernán Torres, asked about footage showing him making “vulgar gestures behind his back” at fans: “Oh, just let it go. I just put my hands behind my back, then nothing happened. Ave Maria! If you see vulgar gestures, that’s your problem.”
Best celebrity watchers
Costa Rica: 25 government agents suspended pending criminal charges for using a restricted database to spy on national keeper Keylor Navas while he was starring in the 2014 World Cup. The inquiry found the “fanboy” espionage – which included one agent making multiple attempts to “check out” the goalkeeper’s two sisters - had “no possible justification”.
Clarification of the week
Brazil: Fluminense president Peter Siemsen addressing the press after referee Leandro Vuaden reported him for shouting “crook, thief, robber, son of a bitch, you whistle for the rich”. Siemsen: “Yes I was aggressive, verbally aggressive. But let me say this: he deserved it.”
Plus: model of the week
Brazil: Referee Guilherme Ceretta, accusing Brazil’s FA of forcing him out for being “too beautiful”. Ceretta said his modelling work made board members “uneasy … but why? Why must we have just ugly referees?” FA officials deny prejudice: “Ceretta was just substandard.”
