NIGERIA
The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, has appointed former Super Eagles winger Finidi George as the new head coach of the senior men’s national team, Super Eagles.
NFF confirmed his appointment on Monday after approving a recommendation from its technical and development committee to hand over the reins to the former Ajax and Real Betis forward.
George, who spent twenty months as an assistant to the outgoing José Peseiro, had been serving as the interim coach after the Portuguese tactician’s departure following the Super Eagles’ impressive run to the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.
The new Super Eagles boss’s immediate task will be to guide the team to victory in two crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against South Africa and the Benin Republic in Uyo and Abidjan, within the next five weeks.
Former Nigerian International, Victor Ikpeba has finally disclosed why the Nigeria Football Federation settled for Finidi George as the head coach of the Super Eagles.
Ikpeba, who was among the technical committee that recommended Finidi, stated that the NFF settled for him because of financial constraint.
Former Nigerian International, Mutiu Adepoju has warned that South Africa and Benin will give the Super Eagles a tough battle in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
Adepoju stated that both South Africa and Benin were desperate to pick points from the Super Eagles.
Recall that Nigeria will play the Bafana Bafana on 3rd June, 2024, before confronting Benin on 10th June.
Super Eagles star, Ademola Lookman has insisted that Atalanta will keep pushing hard to qualify for the UEFA Champions League.
Lookman, who stated that Atalanta’s are desperate to play in the Champions League next year, has scored eleven goals and seven assists across all competitions this season.
La Dea currently occupy sixth position on the Serie A table following a two-nil home win against Empoli.
Five teams will represent Italy in Europe next season.
Rangers technical adviser, Fidelis Ilechukwu has expressed satisfaction with the team’s two-nil win over Plateau United.
Ilechukwu believed that his team’s adequate preparation was responsible for the victory.
Rangers maintained their position at the top of the table with fifty-seven points.
Remo Stars head coach, Daniel Ogunmodede says the battle for the Nigeria Premier Football League title will be a fierce one.
The Sky Blue Stars, who have garnered fifty-three points, are four points behind leaders Rangers.
Remo Stars will face Rivers United in their next league game.
A Five-A-Side Primary and Secondary Schools’ Football competitions will begin 2nd May as part of activities for the Oredo Local Government Games in Edo.
The schools football fiesta is expected to last for 12 days would be played in four divisions of male and female categories each for Primary and secondary School categories.
The World Table Tennis, WTT, has fixed 17th–23rd June for this year’s WTT Contender Lagos, one of three WTT events in Africa this year.
The week-long event, expected to be rounded off on 23rd June followed the successes recorded in the 2023 edition of the tournament.
Lagos is one of the top cities in the world, hosting the WTT Contender Series.
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Scorpion Spikers Volleyball Club has defeated Life Camp 3-0 in the final of the women category of the maiden edition of the FCT Volleyball Challenge.
The match played at the Moshood Abiola stadium in Abuja, saw scorpion girls playing a game of supremacy to defeat their opponent.
Scorpion Spikers won in all the three sets to record 3-0 ( 25-14, 27-25, 25-11) in the final match of the competition.
ENGLAND
England may have no Premier League clubs left in the Champions League but two of the country’s biggest stars will go head to head for a place in the competition’s final.
Three Lions captain Harry Kane has been prolific for Bayern Munich despite the German giants failing to win the Bundesliga for the first time in twelve years.
Jude Bellingham, meanwhile, has lit up the Bernabeu during his debut season at Real Madrid.
England boss Gareth Southgate will no doubt be among the keenest of observers when the pair meet in the first leg in Munich on Tuesday.
Chelsea defender, Thiago Silva will leave the club at the end of the season.
The Brazilian, who joined the Blues on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain in 2020, has made one hundred and fifty-one appearances for the Blues.
He won three trophies in that time, including the 2020-21 Champions League.
Silva made thirty-four appearances in all competitions for Chelsea this season, including twenty-five starts in the Premier League.
Premier League clubs have voted in favour of developing plans to introduce a spending cap.
A majority of clubs voted in favour of the Premier League doing the final economic and legal analysis needed to create a spending cap model.
The model will be presented to clubs at June’s AGM and – should clubs vote in favour then – it will replace the Profit and Sustainability Rules currently in place, from the 2025-26 season onwards.
Manchester United, Manchester City and Aston Villa voted against the possible introduction of a spending cap on Monday, while Chelsea abstained.
Manchester United are open to selling the majority of their squad in an explosive fire sale this summer with just three players off limits.
The club’s new hierarchy, led by co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and incoming CEO Omar Berrada, are prepared to be brutal with potential outgoings at the end of the season, especially with United restricted due to the Premier League’s spending rules.
United missed out on Champions League football next season in a significant blow to INEOS’ plans for a sprawling overhaul and the futures of many of their players, and embattled boss Erik ten Hag, currently remain uncertain.
Manchester United will look to sign a centre-back this summer and reportedly have a list that includes two Premier League names.
The centre of defence has been one of United’s major issues this season, with Lisandro Martinez, Victor Lindelof and Raphael Varane all suffering from injuries over the campaign.
Leicester City will be free to sign players in this summer’s transfer window despite being placed under embargo by the English Football League, EFL, last month.
The EFL imposed a registration embargo on Leicester for allegedly breaching the upper loss limits in their PSR forecasts for this season, but the Premier League have no current plans to extend it following their promotion despite being locked in an extraordinary legal battle with the club.
Leicester will officially become a Premier League club at the top-flight’s Annual General Meeting on 6th June, effectively triggering the end of the transfer embargo before the summer window opens later in the month.
A football agent Saif Alrubie accused of sending a threatening email to a former Chelsea director, demanding payment over the twenty-nine million pounds transfer of Kurt Zouma to West Ham, has been cleared.
Saif Alrubie is said to have believed he was owed a percentage of the fee and wanted payment from Marina Granovskaia.
He was found not guilty of sending an electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety.
Prosecutors at Southwark Crown Court had accused Alrubie, of Fulham, west London, of sending a threatening email to Granovskaia on 22nd May 2022.
The cumulative attendance for both the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championship has passed one million for the 2023-24 season.
The milestone was reached during the weekend’s round of fixtures, which included Crystal Palace’s promotion to the WSL.
In March, the previous WSL attendance record of 689,297 was broken with thirty-six games still to play.
OTHER LEAGUES
Sinead Farrelly has retired from international football after one year as part of the Republic of Ireland squad.
The United States-born midfielder made her debut in April 2023 and played in eight games overall, including all three of the group matches at the 2023 World Cup and in three Nations League fixtures.
Farrelly, who qualified for the Republic of Ireland through her Cavan-born father, plays for NJ/NY Gotham in the National Women’s Soccer League, the top tier of the women’s game in the US.
Republic of Ireland manager Eileen Gleeson thanked Farrelly for her efforts and wished her the very best in her career going forward.
A row over a map of Morocco displayed on a football shirt deepened as the second leg of the Caf Confederation Cup semi-final between RS Berkane and USM Alger was called off on Sunday.
USM Alger refused to take to the pitch in Morocco because the strip the hosts were wearing showed a map of the country which included the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
A Confederation of African Football (Caf) committee punished USM Alger with a 3-0 defeat in the first leg, and a different board then dismissed an appeal on Friday.
Algeria’s football federation is expected to launch an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with its case centred on the argument that Berkane’s kit breaches Fifa’s equipment regulations.
OTHER SPORTS
In Basketball; The Minnesota Timberwolves won a play-off series for the first time in 20 years after defeating the Phoenix Suns 122-116 to complete a 4-0 Western Conference first-round win.
Anthony Edwards top-scored with 40 points – 31 in the second half – and also had nine rebounds.
Karl-Anthony Towns added 28 points and 10 rebounds for Minnesota while Jaden McDaniels had 18 points.
The victory came despite big efforts from Suns duo Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. with Booker scoring a play-off career-high of 49 points and Durant adding 33.
Minnesota will face either the Denver Nuggets or the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semi-finals.
In Boxing; Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson’s July 20 fight against YouTube sensation Jake Paul in Dallas will be a sanctioned heavyweight professional bout, fighters and promoters announced on Monday.
The fight will be over eight two-minute rounds with the result to count on the record of both Paul and Tyson, who lost his last official bout in 2005.
Tyson, 50-6 with 44 knockouts, has not won a fight since beating Clifford Etienne in 2003.
In Tennis, Top seed Iga Swiatek is through to the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open thanks to a dominant straight-set victory against Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo.
The world number one was broken in the first game of the match but then won the next 12 in a row for a 6-1, 6-0 triumph.
Swiatek needed just sixty-eight minutes to seal the win and will now play 11th seed Biatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil in the last eight.
Haddad Maia beat fifth seed Maria Sakkari of Greece 6-4, 6-4.
Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has described England’s Six Nations campaign as terrific as they have taken the game to another level.
Sweeney also confirmed that the RFU is on schedule for the Red Roses programme to cover its cost by the 2028-29 season.
The Red Roses won a sixth consecutive Six Nations title with victory over France in Bordeaux with Sweeney crediting the impact of head coach John Mitchell.
England scored forty-four tries on their way to lifting the title, double that of their nearest rivals France with twenty-two.
In Cricket, Essex batter Nick Browne scored his first County Championship century for more than a year and Callum Parkinson collected his maiden five-wicket haul for Durham, but a weather-affected match at the Riverside ended in a draw.
Such an outcome had always appeared probable once the third day’s play had been lost to rain, but having made 488 and taken a 130-run lead in the first innings, Essex did their best to force a victory on the final.
Athletics, Gjert Ingebrigtsen, the father of Olympic one thousand and five hundred metre champion Jakob, has been charged by Norwegian police with physical abuse.
Jakob and his older brothers Henrik and Filip, who are also Olympic athletes, made public claims that their father, who had coached them until 2022, had been violent.
The 58-year-old has strenuously denied the allegations.
Police in Norway, who had been investigating the case, said on Monday that Gjert had been charged with one offence.
TODAY’S FIXTURES
IN UEFA Champions LEAGUE – SEMI-FINALS
Bayern München vs Real Madrid
TODAY’S THOUGHT
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