Portsmouth 'likely to close down'

Portsmouth say they are likely to fold after talks with former owner and key creditor Sacha Gaydamak broke down.

The club claim that Gaydamak demanded an upfront cash payment to allow Pompey to exit administration and thereby endangered their ability to trade.

"It appears likely that the club will now be closed down and liquidated by the administrators," said Pompey.

But administrator Andrew Andronikou insisted weekend talks could lead to a "satisfactory conclusion".

The club have been in a precarious position since the most recent plan to exit administration was vetoed on 14 October by the Football League.

The club initially went into administration in February with debts of about £120m and received a nine-point penalty that made their relegation to the Championship almost inevitable.

By that point Gaydamak, who was Portsmouth's owner between 2006 and 2009, had sold the club to Sulaiman Al Fahim.

However he remains one of Portsmouth's creditors, with his apparent demand for an upfront payment drawing an angry response from the club.

"Despite the new owners fulfilling all the requirements of the Football League and the creditors, and agreeing and signing up to the required terms of the purchase of the club, at the 11th hour the goalposts have been moved by Gaydamak," read a Pompey statement.

"It is neither in the interests of the club nor its unsecured creditors for such a ransom payment to be made, particularly where the payment is being demanded by one of the authors of the club's current circumstances."

Andronikou added: "We've reached a serious impasse in our negotiations with Sacha Gaydamak and until we can reach agreement with him there is a significant risk that the club will have to be liquidated.

"We have agreed terms with every other party involved but there is now this new obstacle that must be cleared. We are trying to get Sacha Gaydamak to see sense.

"I'm hopeful that within the next 24 hours we can get the parties around the table and we can renegotiate to everyone's satisfaction."

As well as Barclays, Gaydamak and another former owner Balram Chainrai are the club's main secured creditors.

Gaydamak has claimed he has secured debt of more than £2.2m, of which he has asked for an unspecified amount upfront.

But lawyer Guy Thomas believes the latest development is likely to be a negotiating tactic.

"This looks more like a shot across Gaydamak bow," Thomas of SA Law told BBC Sport. "Andronikou might well be hoping that the kind of public pressure that emerged with Manchester United's spat with Wayne Rooney will bring a change of heart from Gaydamak.

"Other Championship clubs will also be very concerned by the effect of this development on the league."

The last Football League clubs to go out of business were Aldershot and Maidstone in 1992.

After a poor start to the season, Portsmouth are unbeaten in their last five games and have picked up 13 out of 15 points.

They are due to play away at Hull on Saturday and the game is expected to go ahead.

"The atmosphere, I mean it's been very good lately because we're on the up on the field," said Colin Farmery, from the Portsmouth Supporters Trust.

"It's been off the field that we've had all the problems and this is perhaps going to be the death knell of the club."

And Neville Dalton, a season ticket holder for more than 40 years, added: "It seems a bit impetuous to be talking about liquidating the club.

"But if Pompey's future really is in the hands of Sasha Gaydamak, after all the turmoil we suffered during his ownership, maybe this time that drama is justified."

- BBC

Rick Ross Coming to Ghana As He Announces International 'Blowing Money Fast' Tour

Rick Ross has announced he will headline the upcoming international "Blowing Money Fast Tour," in support of his latest hit album, Teflon Don.

The rapper will hit the United States, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Africa with artists on his Maybach Music Group imprint, including Triple C's and crooner, Masspike Miles.

Rick Ross is expected to perform material from Teflon Don, in addition to tracks off his previous albums Deeper Than Rap, Trilla and Port of Miami.

“I have waited a long time for this and I definitely want to touch those fans who have continuously supported me through my 15-year journey, I will not let them down, everybody get ready to Blow Money Fast!" Rick Ross told AllHipHop.com in a statement released on (October 19th).

In the U.S, Rick Ross will hit select cities like the Bronx and Chicago, before heading overseas to perform in African countries like Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. He will be in Ghana on the 28th of December

Dates are also lined up in the Port of Spain, Haiti, England and The Bahamas.

Rick Ross and Triple C's are currently working on their sophomore album, Color, Cut, Clarity.

Tentative tour dates are listed below:

11/5       Springfield, MA

11/6       Bronx, NY

11/12     Lawrence, MA

11/13     Austin, TX

11/16     Leicester, England

11/17     London, England

11/18     Manchester, Englandn

11/19     Chicago, IL

11/24    Detroit, MI

11/25    Newark, NJ

11/26    Rocky Mount, NC

11/27    Greenville, NC

12/5      San Antonio, TX

12/11    St Louis, MO

12/17   Nassau, Bahamas

12/18   Port of Spain, Trinidad

12/28   Accra Ghana

12/29   Cape Town, South Africa

12/30   Lagos Nigeria

1/8       Port Au Prince, Haiti

1/11     Winnipeg, Canada

1/12     Saskatoon, Canada

1/13     Edmonton, Canada

1/15     Toronto, Canada

Rooney Re-Unites United

Wayne Rooney has apologise to his team mates after making unguided statement that manchester united lacks ambition.

Rooney, who was on his way out of the united made a u-turn to sign a five year contract extension with the old trafford team.

He also apologized to the team manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the management of the club as well as the owners and gave a reason for his stay with united.

According to the BBC Rooney stated: "the manager's a genius and it's his belief and support that convinced me to stay."

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson said: "I'm delighted Wayne's agreed to stay."

But the big question is, can the former Everton player be in-form after his mishappenings.

ROONEY APOLOGIZES TO UNITED COLLEAGUES

Wayne Rooney has apologise to his team mates after making unguided statement that manchester united lacks ambition.

Rooney, who was on his way out of the united made a u-turn to sign a five year contract extension with the old trafford team.

He also apologized to the team manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the management of the club as well as the owners.

But the big question is, can the former Everton player be in-form after his mishappenings.

BREAKING NEWS: Wayne Rooney Signs New Five-Year Contract To End Manchester United Exit Saga

Wayne Rooney has committed his future to Manchester United by signing a new five-year deal.

England international Wayne Rooney has made the decision to stay at Manchester United after all. The former Everton star previously stated that he wanted to leave the club, but has now committed his future to United by signing a new five-year deal with the club.

"It’s been a difficult week, but the intensity of the coverage is what we expect at Manchester United.  I said to the boy that the door is always open and I’m delighted Wayne has agreed to stay," was Manchester manager Alex Ferguson quoted as saying on the club's official website.

"Sometimes, when you’re in a club, it can be hard to realise just how big it is and it takes something like the events of the last few days to make you understand.  I think Wayne now understands what a great club Manchester United is.

"I’m pleased he has accepted the challenge to guide the younger players and establish himself as one of United’s great players." - GOAL.COM

Benin under water

                                                                                   By DANIEL-SELLEN

I've written before about floods in Niger and Abidjan, but these experiences left me poorly prepared for what I saw in Benin a few days ago.

Half the country is under water, and it's still raining.

We recently received a request from the President of Benin to assist with recent flooding. I was asked to go take a look, get a feel for the scale of the problem, find out what Government and donors were doing about it, and make some recommendations for Bank action.

 After booking my flight, I did a Google search which revealed no details, even from OCHA, the UN's humanitarian branch. So I was sceptical about finding the type of damage I had seen elsewhere in the region over the past two months. If there was a big problem, the international press didn't seem to know about it. If they did, perhaps they were too tired of Haiti, Pakistan, or spoiling the euphoria following the rescued miners.

So I flew to the capital city of Cotonou, which is built on a narrow stretch of sand dunes between the Atlantic Ocean and a large lagoon. After briefings from the Ministers of Interior and Decentralization, we toured the flooded areas of Cotonou in canoes. I have not been to Venice, so had not experienced the odd sensation of boating down a city street. The water was thick, black and ominous -- a brackish cocktail of floating garbage and the contents of countless latrines (there is no sewage treatment in Cotonou). I could imagine the water-borne diseases happily multiplying in this soup. Indeed, the latest reports are that 800 people have already come down with cholera, a figure which must certainly rise much higher.

 Despite water levels, most people appeared to remain in their homes and many came out to watch us float by. Some were sleeping in boats. Other families were living in schools, displacing the students who had just started the new school year two weeks ago.

The scale of the problem changed when we got up in an army helicopter. We flew over the southern third of the country, and it immediately became apparent that over half of the country was submerged. In terms of food production, the floods could not have come at a worse time, with the harvest just weeks away. The Oueme basin was the worst hit, and it was difficult to say where the river was and where it wasn't. There were no roads visible anywhere. Many families were living in or on their roofs, peeling up a section of sheet metal to act as a door to their attic.

Some people waved at us, obviously asking for help or rescue, reminiscent of the disturbing images from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. After three weeks in the water with no help from the outside, they must be getting desperate.

The UN system is now on the job, although relief has at this time not reached the population. In the brief space of a week, the situation has gone from being completely under the radar to Benin being recognized as the most heavily impacted by flooding in West Africa.

And our role? It is an uncomfortable experience to be World Bank staff on a visit to the site of a disaster.

An NGO asked pointedly what the Bank would put on the table in terms of relief efforts. A journalist interviewed me, wondering what we intended to do to help those suffering. A lady, standing knee-deep in water as we drove by, yelled at me in a local language, apparently expressing her outrage that no one was helping them.

I had no satisfactory answer for any of them. We are not a relief agency and shouldn't try to be. We cannot promise quick fixes like food, shelter, or medical care, no matter how important that is.

However, there is plenty we can do and must do in the recovery period. We can give the government some fiscal breathing room with accelerated budget support. Through the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), we can conduct a post-disaster needs assessment to figure out where the Bank and other donors should focus efforts in the medium term. We can help with an early warning system, as we and the GFDRR are doing in Togo. We have a new urban environment project to address water treatment and solid waste management. We are preparing an agriculture operation that can request emergency financing from the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). Our community development and education projects can re-think the locations of sub-projects like schools and aim for drier ground.

We can do all that, and it will help ease the pain of the next flood. Meanwhile, we have to hope that the rains stops, the water recedes, and that these flood victims figure out how to survive.

- blogs.worldbank.org/africa

Does He Deserve It : Manchester United Striker Wayne Rooney Wants €14m Per Season To Earn More Than Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney wants €14m per year to become world's highest-paid footballer, above Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo.

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney will demand €14 million per season from his next employers should he, as expected, seal a move away from Old Trafford this summer, reports from Spain suggest.

Marca comments that the England international is seeking to become the highest-paid footballer in the world, and edge ahead of former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo in the salary table.

Rooney confirmed in a statement this week his intention to leave the English Premier League side, putting a number of high-profile European clubs on red alert, including Manchester City, Chelsea and Ronaldo’s Real Madrid.

Florentino Perez has made no secret in the past of his admiration for the 24-year-old, and discussed the possibility of bringing him to the Spanish capital during his first stint as los Blancos’ president.

However, Rooney’s exorbitant wage demands cloud the issue of whether Real Madrid would be willing to cause friction between the former colleagues by offering the former Everton attacker a superior salary to that of CR7.

Big-spending Manchester City remains the bookies’ favourites to land Rooney next summer should he fail to resolve his differences with the Red Devils and coach Sir Alex Ferguson. – GOAL.COM

FIFA Suspends Officials in Vote-Selling Scandal

FIFA provisionally suspended two executive committee members and four lower-ranking officials Wednesday in a World Cup vote-selling scandal and said it would continue investigating all six.

Two executive committee members, Amos Adamu of Nigeria and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti, were barred from all soccer-related duty until the investigation ends, said Claudio Sulser, chairman of FIFA’s ethics committee.

Four former executive members — Slim Aloulou, Amadou Diakite, Ahongalu Fusimalohi and Ismael Bhamjee — were suspended while FIFA investigates whether they breached ethical rules. The panel will continue investigating whether two unnamed bidders competing for either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup engaged in collusion.

“Today is a sad day for football,” Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president, said, asking for time to restore the association’s credibility. “We have to fight for respect and especially we have to fight that the people here in charge of FIFA behave as they should do.”

FIFA began its investigations after a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, said that Adamu and Temarii offered to sell their votes for funding toward soccer projects. The Sunday Times gave FIFA full video copies and transcripts of its evidence.

Undercover reporters filmed Adamu requesting $800,000 to build four artificial turf fields in Nigeria and for the money to be paid to him directly. Temarii was filmed asking for $2.3 million to finance a soccer academy in Auckland, New Zealand.

FIFA’s executive committee will select the hosts in voting on Dec. 2. The 2018 tournament will be in Europe, with four candidates: England, Russia and joint bids by Belgium-the Netherlands and Spain-Portugal. The 2022 host race is between the United States, Australia, Japan, Qatar and South Korea.

 - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

For Sale: Michael Jordan's $430,000 Mercedes McLaren

Michael Jordan bought a 2007 Mercedes McLaren SLR 722? That's one of the best cars ever made. Nice move, M.J.

Wait, he's selling it after only driving it 962 miles? Seriously? You give me hope, Michael, and then you take it all away.

So, the McLaren can be yours for $430,000, which is a little dear for that brand even if the wheels were spun for fewer than a thousand miles (considering it cost around $475,000 new). The sellers are clearly factoring in the whole "Michael Jordan owned this car" addition.

The specs? Even three years later, this is one of the fastest things in the world. It has a 5 1/2-liter V8, it'll go from zero to just over 60 mph in 3.6 seconds, it runs with 640 horsepower and it will reach 209 miles an hour; and the rear-wheel driven monster is loaded with all sorts of carbon fiber bits so it's light as a feather in comparison to other supercars.

Also, Michael Jordan drove it. For a few hundred miles, at least.-YAHOO SPORTS

Which European Club Will Wayne Rooney Join If He Quits Manchester United? Here Are The Options

Man Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed that Wayne Rooney wishes to quit the club, and a move abroad has been touted by many as the likeliest option. Here are the clubs he could sign for if he leaves England…
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed this afternoon that star man Wayne Rooney wished to quit the club.Reports were already rife that Rooney has grown tired of the press attention he receives in England, in the wake of recent allegations regarding his relationship with a prostitute, and also previous photographs of Rooney smoking and drinking heavily. The former Everton striker has little over 18 months to run on his current deal at Old Trafford, but contract negotiations have yet to commence. The Red Devils' owners, the Glazer family, could also be encouraged to sell should the offer be substantial enough, given their own current financial difficulties. Here are the clubs that could realistically offer Rooney an escape out of England…
REAL MADRID

Why A Move Is Possible

Real Madrid need a centre forward, and tried desperately to sign a top-class attacker in the last hours of the transfer window. With money to burn, there will be no financial obstacles in funding the move.

Jose Mourinho is a massive fan of Rooney, and particularly loves flexible forwards like the tactically smart 24-year-old. It may not be long before 'The Special One' starts playing his media tricks to wow the United man.

The presence of Cristiano Ronaldo. Rooney would jump at the chance of re-forming the devastating partnership the pair enjoyed at Old Trafford. Indeed, Ronaldo has already issued a "come and join me" plea.

BARCELONA

Why A Move Is Possible

Rooney has played the 4-3-3 at Manchester United, and would feel confident of occupying all three roles in the forward trident. Having lost Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic this summer, and only signed David Villa, Barca could do with another attacker to choose from in what is a quite thin squad.

Chance to improve technically. Rooney has flopped at two successive World Cups, and only really shone internationally in the group stages of Euro 2004. By playing in the best club team in the world with the likes of Messi, Xavi, Villa and Iniesta, Rooney could refine his game in order to make a splash at Euro 2012 and World Cup 2014.

There is arguably no more attractive European team for an Englishman than Barcelona. If Rooney is so desperate to escape his problems in England, the Camp Nou would be a dream destination.

INTER

Why A Move Is Possible

Inter didn't make a single notable signing this past summer, and will almost certainly spend heavily in 2011 - Rooney would be near the top of their shopping list.

Inter are a little short on numbers in attack following the sale of Mario Balotelli. With Diego Milito 31 and Samuel Eto'o 29, a 24-year-old Rooney is just the kind of youthful forward they would be looking for.

Rooney is massively admired in Italy, and was always regarded by the press and public as more important to Man Utd than Ronaldo. President Massimo Moratti certainly falls into this category.

MILAN

Why A Move Is Possible

Silvio Berlusconi loves grabbing the limelight with a superstar signing. Having bought Ronaldinho two years ago, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho this past summer, Rooney could be the next on his hitlist.

Rooney has just over 18 months remaining on his contract. Transfer guru Adriano Galliani is well known to be a master market mover in such delicate situations, and will be tempted to use this to his advantage to snare the ex-Everton man at a cut-price.

Ronaldinho has been tipped by many to leave San Siro next summer in order to join the MLS. Rooney could be the replacement, although Mario Balotelli would probably be the preferred option.

Most likely destination - REAL MADRID

Although Rooney's transfer fee will plummet next summer unless he signs a new contract, Real Madrid will still be able to blow everyone else (but Manchester City) out of the water financially. The presence of Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho provides the Spanish capital outfit with a huge advantage over other interested parties.

Milan are the least likely to make a move, having invested significantly in their attack this summer. Their next significant move up-front should be Mario Balotelli within a couple of seasons. After Real Madrid, Inter are very strong contenders to make a move for Rooney as they will certainly require a top class forward next summer. Barcelona will consider their options carefully, wary not to make the same mistake as last year when they signed Ibrahimovic who was not suited to their pass-and-move game. While Rooney is certainly more tactically flexible than Ibra, he perhaps lacks the explosiveness that characterises a Barca front three.

All in all, this means that if Rooney is to quit England then Real Madrid is his most likely destination followed by Inter. With Barcelona and Milan more outside possibilities.- GOAL.COM

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