Posts Tagged ‘Footballer’

Furious Irish demand World Cup replay after handball

• French have a ‘moral obligation’ to grant rematch
• Irish urge Fifa to display their belief in ‘fair play and integrity’

The Republic of Ireland have told Thierry Henry and France that they have a moral obligation to grant them a rematch of Wednesday night’s World Cup play-off second-leg, from which France progressed to the finals in South Africa following Henry’s controversial “Hand of God” assist.

The Football Association of Ireland, which has made a formal complaint to Fifa, has written to the France Football Federation to urge them to “look at themselves” and, consequently, suggest to world football’s governing body that the match ought to be re-staged.

John Delaney, the FAI chief executive, insists that there is a precedent for such action. In 1999, Arsenal successfully persuaded the authorities to sanction a re-match of an FA Cup fifth-round tie with Sheffield United, after they had scored a winning goal that was against the spirit of the game. Ireland’s manager Giovanni Trapattoni fully supports his association’s campaign. “France can maybe begin the process [for a replay],” he said. “If Fifa feels that the French are upset, we are ready to play.”

• Richard Williams: Henry let himself and game down
• In video: Barry Glendenning on Henry’s handball
• David Hytner: Trapattoni gives Irish hope for the future
• France 1-1 Rep of Ire (agg: 2-1): full report

“From the French FA point of view,” said Delaney, “they need to look at themselves in this situation. Henry is their captain and a wonderful footballer but does he want to be like Diego Maradona and his legacy to be this handball, this goal that got them to the World Cup in an unjust manner? This was a defining game with the whole world watching and if Fifa believe in fair play and integrity, this is their opportunity to step forward.”

It is inconceivable that Fifa will intervene unilaterally to order a rematch, as the tie hinged on an oversight by the Swedish referee Martin Hansson and his assistant, rather than a misapplication of a point of law. Irish hopes, therefore, appear to rest on France making the gesture. Henry articulated an apology on his Twitter page – “I am not the ref … if I hurt someone, I am sorry,” he wrote – and it is understood that Arsène Wenger, his former manager at Arsenal, who was at the game, had been keen for him to do so. But higher powers than Henry appear keen to sweep the issue under the carpet.

There is the feeling in some quarters that refereeing decisions have evened themselves out over the campaign for France. They continue to believe their goalkeeper Hugo Lloris should not have been sent off against Serbia in Belgrade and also feel replays show that Nicolas Anelka was fouled inside the penalty area by the Ireland goalkeeper, Shay Given, minutes before the Henry handball flashpoint.

“We have had refereeing mistakes against us in our qualification campaign,” said Jean-Pierre Escalettes, the FFF president. “If we replayed every match because of an incident like that, we would spend the whole time playing replays. I am really happy. I share the great success of our players on the pitch.”

Nicolas Sarkozy, the France President, interviewed on television said: “It was a really difficult game and Ireland played really well. I was frightened [but] the essential thing is that the French team have qualified.”

The FFF paid €120m at the beginning of the campaign for the TV rights to the finals in South Africa and they would be worth significantly less to them if France were not present in South Africa.

Irish anger, however, continues to burn. “Is there a conspiracy? Definitely,” said the winger Damien Duff. “Adidas sponsor the World Cup, they sponsor France. Michel Platini [the Uefa president] has a lot of influence as well. Maybe we’d have a better chance of going to the World Cup if it was sponsored by Umbro. That’s the way the world goes around at the minute. Fifa have to take a long, hard look at themselves now. The [seeded play-off] draw and now the [handball] decision. Incredible. We feel so cheated.”

“I am disappointed with Henry,” said Given, “he cheated to win the game. I don’t often say that but that’s how it was. He clearly cheated and they won the game from that. I have seen the replays. He stopped it [with his hand] and then he pulled it in again. It was so blatant. The ref tried to say it was his chest but it was nowhere near his chest. It was disgusting.”

Tevez considers retiring after World Cup

• ‘When the team needed goals I couldn’t provide them’
• ‘I’m a bit tired of so much football, so much football’

Carlos Tevez says he may retire from football after the World Cup. Disappointment at losing his first-choice place for Argentina as well as exhaustion have led the Manchester City forward, currently 25, to consider his future in the game.

“My chance passed. I had my possibility and I couldn’t take advantage of it. When the team needed goals I couldn’t provide them,” Tevez said. “So it’s logical that other lads should be in front of me,” he added of players such as Gonzalo Higuain, now the coach Diego Maradona’s first choice as central striker.

Tevez, speaking in Madrid where Maradona’s team face Spain in a friendly tomorrow, said retirement had crossed his mind. “It’s complicated, there’s my family, the desire to return to Boca Juniors, but I think about it. It crosses my mind to hang up my boots if we win the World Cup, although I have a contract [with Manchester City] until 2014,” he said.

“I’m a bit tired of so much football, so much football. I want to enjoy my family a bit. I’m very keen to stop and get a bit of calm. I’ve already won a lot. Living for football has saturated me.”

Tevez has been voted South American footballer of the year three times in a row, winning the Libertadores Cup and the world club title with Boca in 2003, the Brazilian league title with Corinthians in 2005 and an Olympic gold medal with Argentina in 2004.

He helped West Ham avoid relegation in 2007 and Manchester United lift two Premier League titles and be crowned European and world club champions.

Tevez, who last month said he sometimes wanted to quit the national team, added that he got fed up with criticism of Maradona’s side as they struggled in the World Cup qualifiers. “We were criticised a lot, sometimes rightly so, but to have people say we didn’t play well because of the money or we don’t love the [Argentina] shirt, don’t sing the national anthem, there’s a lot of ill will,” Tevez said.

Capello has given England World Cup chance, says Kaká

• Brazil playmaker says England are sharper under Capello
• Full interview: Kaká talks to Fernando Duarte

The England team to play Brazil in Saturday’s high-profile friendly may be missing several first-choice players through injury, but Kaká says the five-times World Cup winners face a difficult and significant challenge against a side he believes can win next summer’s tournament in South Africa. In an interview with the Guardian, Brazil’s playmaker reveals his admiration for the way in which Fabio Capello has turned a group of talented individuals into a formidable team.

“They have cruised through the European qualifiers in a group that was not easy at all,” he said. “I don’t think anybody expected them to go through so strongly, especially with the two emphatic defeats of Croatia. It’s not to say England weren’t a dangerous team before, but there is something different now. They look much sharper collectively, like Mr Capello’s sides are known to be.

“What seems to have changed is the arrival of a better collective awareness. The players look much more aware with regards to movements and positioning. The attitude is also stronger. They are definitely one of the teams to consider for the trophy in South Africa. As much as the Doha game will award no points, it can work as a massive confidence boost when you beat an opponent also tipped to prevail next year.”

The player he respects most in the England side is one of those who has not flown to Qatar, Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool midfielder having struggled with a groin injury in recent weeks. “England have always had individually strong players and I am a huge fan of Stevie Gerrard, who has the heart of a lion and is the icon of the modern footballer with his ability to attack and defend so well.”

Kaká, who won the World Cup with Brazil in South Korea and Japan in 2002, also offered a warning to another of his favourite players, Wayne Rooney. Capello has worked hard to rein in the Manchester United forward’s temper and Kaká advised that a moment of indiscretion, such as when Rooney was sent off in the 2006 quarter-final for stamping on Portugal’s Ricardo Carvalho, could cost England their chance of glory next year.

“The World Cup is a competition in which everything needs to work for your advantage. Players need to be fit, decisions have to go in your favour and details such as a red card can cost a team dearly. I have no doubts that England can do it.”

Depressed Enke feared losing daughter, says widow

• Footballer had spent years trying to hide illness
• Country in shock as star player dies under train

On the surface, Robert Enke’s career appeared to be going from strength to strength. Widely seen as Germany’s number one goalkeeper, the 32-year-old was at the peak of his professional powers. But beneath the surface, he was a deeply troubled man.

Enke threw himself in front of a train on Tuesday night, shocking the football world and leaving his wife to come to terms with a life cut short by his struggle with depression.

Teresa Enke described how her husband spent years trying to hide his mental illness, fearful it might destroy his career and cause the authorities to take away their adopted daughter, before he finally killed himself.

His suicide has shocked Germany, leading many to ask how it was possible that such a high-profile sportsman could have concealed his depression for so long.

Speaking at a press conference today at the headquarters of Enke’s club, Hannover 96, Mrs Enke spoke of her efforts to help him overcome his depression.

“We thought we were capable of managing everything. We thought love would make it possible. But sometimes you just can’t manage it,” she said.

Dressed in black and her voice shaking, she spoke movingly of how she and her husband had dealt with the death in 2006 at the age of two, of their first daughter, Lara, who had been born with a weak heart.

In May this year they adopted a child called Leila who is now eight months. Enke, she said, had lived in fear that were his depression to be discovered, he might lose custody of the child, and could jeopardise his career and he had therefore resisted treatment.

“He was fearful he would lose Leila … I repeatedly tried to reassure him that it wasn’t a problem, that … everyone knew how lovingly he cared for his daughter, until the end,” she said.

Enke, 32, who was a favourite to start in goal for Germany at the World Cup in South Africa next year, having overcome a series of personal tragedies and professional setbacks, left a suicide note in which he apologised to family and friends.

In the note, which has not been made public, Enke said he had deliberately deceived his doctors and family over his mental state over the past few weeks, in order to be able to realise his plans to take his own life.

Fans flocked through the day to the ground of Hannover 96. Many wept as they queued to sign condolence books, lit candles and laid flowers.

Tributes flooded in throughout the day, from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, Franz Beckenbauer and other figures from international football. Referring to Enke as a “great person, a talented footballer” and a “modest young man of great character”, Theo Zwanziger, president of the German Football Federation (DFB), said the organisation would endeavour to discover how his illness could have gone unnoticed for so long.

“The question as to why has been with us since [Tuesday] evening … the team, the trainers, the players, the football fans and people in this country … want to know why,” Zwanziger said.

“I can’t answer that question, but we can say with certainty that we’ll try to never let it happen again that someone who gave us so much … sees no alternative but to take his life.”

Even though it has ruled out any connection between Enke’s death and football, the DFB has said it is keen to answer why a young, talented and celebrated footballer such as Enke, was driven to such an extreme measure and felt he could not ask for help.

As a goalkeeper Enke had sometimes been subjected to a level of abuse which he had found it hard to cope with, such as in his first game while playing for the Turkish side Fenerbahçe in 2003 when fans pelted him with mobile phones and beer bottles after he made a decisive error.

After the incident, Enke, who was himself the son of a sports psychologist, said that he had been shocked by the anger and had “not deserved the hate they showed me”.

Margot Dunne, a Germany-based football reporter and broadcaster, said footballers found it difficult to admit to depression because the sport was notorious for punishing players for showing vulnerabilities.

“Signs of weakness in the past have been seized on by fans and players have suffered bullying from the terraces as a result,” she said.

“Players are under pressure to be the ultimate examples of mental and physical strength. Being depressed … doesn’t fit into that image as far as many fans are concerned.”

Neil Lennon, the former captain of Celtic was one of the first players to break the taboo and write about his battle with depression.

In his book Man and Bhoy he said: “It’s very difficult to come forward and talk about it, but … it is an illness, it’s like getting the flu or breaking a leg. It happens, and it can happen for no reason.”

Ulf Baranowksy, manager of Germany’s Professional Footballers’ Association, said while Enke’s death had come as a shock, he could not rule out that it was linked to the increasing psychological pressure under which footballers find themselves.

No club should sign King, insists Whelan

• Whelan claims no club should sign disgraced striker
• ‘I do not want convicts at Wigan Athletic’

The Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan has reacted strongly to the claims of Marlon King’s agent that the disgraced footballer has a future in football. Whelan, who insists he will sack the striker after he was convicted for sexual assault and actual bodily harm and sentenced to 18 months in prison, was infuriated by his agent Tony Finnegan’s claims that King will find a new club on his release from jail.

“He will still be a good goalscorer and I’m sure someone will want his signature to play football and do the job he’s best at,” said Finnegan yesterday. “There are lots of players in this country who have fallen short of the law, done the crime, done the time, and I’m sure if you’re sitting in a [cell] you do have time to reflect on the change you make as a person.”

Finnegan’s statement, however, has further enraged Whelan. “I do not want convicts at Wigan Athletic. Some club will sign him when he gets out — they’ll take the risk. But they shouldn’t,” he told Sky Sports. “The FA should stop him playing professional football for 18 months after he has served his sentence. They should ask themselves if we want people with criminal records like this lad, especially with the type of crime he has committed over his career. This is not just a one off.

“They should say: ‘Well we have had enough of that”. I can’t see him coming back. He is absolutely sacked. We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. It will be very, very difficult for any club to stick their neck out and take Marlon on. I cannot really see him coming back as a professional. A lot of people will say you do something wrong and you get a sentence and when you have completed it you are allowed back in. But I wouldn’t allow him back in.

“I think it was Steve Bruce who signed him for us and I was a little bit surprised. I knew he had some form in the past. Steve sometimes thinks he can settle these lads down and get them to go on the straight and narrow. I was surprised. We laid out £3m on this lad and we’ve lost most of that money now. But we have standards that we want to keep to. It’s a professional game. I am sure every club in the Premier League would have sacked him like I did.”