Connect with us

News

Gareth Southgate Slams VAR, Says He Never Wanted It

Gareth Southgate has attacked VAR following the Luis Diaz controversy that has left the system under the microscope like never before.

Diaz wrongly had a goal ruled out for offside as Liverpool were beaten at Tottenham last Saturday, leading Reds boss Jurgen Klopp to demand the game be replayed.

England boss Southgate said: ‘I wasn’t for it in the first place. I don’t like it. We should just accept referees’ decisions.

‘But it’s unlikely to go back to a world without technology. It was never going to resolve every issue and there is no solution that will achieve that.’

Diaz saw his perfectly legitimate goal disallowed after VAR Darren England made a mistake during last Saturday’s Premier League match.

By the time the error was realised, play had already restarted and Liverpool went on to lose the match 2-1.

Speaking on Wednesday, Klopp said: ‘Yes, it was a mistake, an obvious mistake and I think there would have been solutions for is afterwards.

‘And I can say immediately, even probably some people don’t want me to say, but not as the manager of Liverpool so much, more as a football person, I think the outcome should be a replay.

‘That’s how it is, probably will not happen.’ He then added: I think the situation is that unprecedented, that it didn’t happen before in that moment.’

The fixture, which Spurs won thanks to Joel Matip’s own goal at the death having finally cracked the Reds’ nine men, isn’t likely to be replayed.

That’s despite referees’ chiefs admitting it was down to a ‘significant human error.’ England wrongly believed the on-field decision had been a goal rather than offside, so said ‘check complete’ once he’d confirmed Colombian winger Diaz was onside.

An audio recording of the exchange between on-field referee Simon Hooper and the VAR team at Stockley Park revealed England saying ‘oh f***’ as he realised his mistake.

England and his assistant VAR Dan Cook have been dropped from their roles for this weekend’s fixtures.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

News

Nigeria National League Holds Monthly Award Ceremony In Abuja

 

The Nigeria National League has concluded plans to organize its monthly award ceremony for players and teams in the league on Tuesday, 15th April in the Federal Capital, Abuja.

 

Chief Operating Officer of the NNL, Danlami Alanana, told thenff.com that the event will commence at 2pm at the West-Point Hotel, Zone 7, Wuse.

 

Award categories include Best Behaved Team of the Month, Best Coach, Best Goalkeeper, Highest Goal Scorer, Best Goal, Best Referee and Most Valuable Player.

 

Crown FC’s Oladeji Joshua has been selected as the best goalkeeper, having kept clean sheets in three matches, while Abdullahi Umar of Kebbi United FC is the most valuable player with four goals, among these a hat-trick scored against Kada Warriors – which happened to be the first hat-trick notched in the season.

 

Umar also takes the highest scorer’s gong, while Solution FC’s Coach Emmanuel Duetsch is best coach and Gateway United is the best-behaved team, having remained without any form of caution in the period under review.

 

Gateway United’s Babatunde Taofeek notched the goal of the season, and Ogunfolaju Joshua from Osun State is the best referee of the month.   

Continue Reading

News

NFF Not Owing Late ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu – Sanusi

 

 

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has decried statements in a section of the social media that the football-ruling body was indebted to former Nigeria captain and coach, ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu, who died on Saturday.

 

Reacting to one statement on social media that claimed NFF was owing the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team captain the sum of $128,000, NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said: “There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu. During the first term of the Board headed by Mr. Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations.

 

“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”

 

Sanusi challenged anyone with genuine and verifiable documents of NFF indebtedness to any coach, who has worked with any of the National Teams over the past two decades, to come forward and tender those documents. “As a credible organization that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”

Continue Reading

News

NDDC committed to developing athletes discovered at Niger Delta Sports Festival

 

 

A new approach to grassroots sports development will see athletes discovered at the ongoing Niger Delta Sports Festival (NDSF) undergo periodical camping where scientific methods of training would be applied.

 

Sir Itiako Ikpokpo, the Co-Chairman of the Main Organising Committee (MOC) of the festival, dropped the hint at a media parley with journalists covering the games and said over 60 athletes have already been spotted as at Day 4.

 

“This festival is not about who came first or who won gold. Our scouts are looking out for hints of potential, quality that can be groomed for future success,” Ikpokpo responded to a question about objectives of the festival.

 

He said the scouts made up of coaches, former athletes and scouts have so far submitted 64 names and most of them were not those that came first or second.

 

“We seek to set up camps for the identified athletes with a view to putting them through scientific research-based training supervised by certified coaches,” added Ikpokpo who is the lead consultant for the project.

 

“The real work is not this festival, it is to design and implement the plan to nurture the talents discovered here to go on and replace those who have been representing Nigeria,” he added.

 

Sponsored by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as part of its mandate to improve living conditions of people of the nine mandate states, the NDSF had about 3,000 athletes and 500 officials competing in 17 sports.

 

It began on April 1 and will end on April 8 in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

Continue Reading

Trending