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Barcelona announce the signing of Eric Garcia
Finally, the signing of Eric Garcia has been officially announced by Barcelona. The 20-year-old centre-back has been linked to the club for almost a year now. He came very close to signing for his boyhood club last summer before the talks broke down on the deadline day, as well as January of this year. Garcia had spent nine years at the youth level in Barça before moving to Manchester City in 2017. The youngster has been captain of almost all the youth Barça teams he played at. He was also the captain of the U-19 team of Manchester City. After a triumphant spell with Manchester City in England, Garcia will return to Catalonia, securing the Premier League winners medal twice. Manchester City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, rates the young centre-back very highly. When asked about not selecting Ga...
PSG president: Super League didn’t have the interests of football at heart
Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi says the Super League project was not in football’s best interests, insisting the Champions League must be protected. PSG were not among the 12 founding members of the competition, which pledged to break away from UEFA and compete with or replace the Champions League. The plan collapsed within days of its announcement, as football’s governing bodies and fan protests convinced nine clubs to pull out and Al-Khelaifi believes football is better off without the controversial idea. “Football has been around for years and years. The Super League did not have at heart to defend the interests of football,” he told AFP. “You can envisage changes but not break the tradition that every club can hope to achieve their dreams. “All teams must have the opp...
Gunman kills at least 8 in mass shooting at California rail yard
At least eight people were killed when a transit employee opened fire at his co-workers at a light rail yard in San Jose, California, on Wednesday morning, the county sheriff’s office said, in the latest in a string of mass shootings this spring. The gunman, who like the victims was an employee of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), was also dead, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputy Russell Davis said at a news conference. He did not say how the gunman died or whether police officers fired their weapons at the scene. The name and age of the suspect were also not disclosed. The first emergency calls reporting the shooting at the VTA light rail yard near the city’s main airport came through shortly after 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time (1330 GMT). A bomb squad was searching the yar...
Tyson Fury: I will still fight Anthony Joshua this year
Tyson Fury has insisted that he still intends to fight Anthony Joshua this year despite committing to a trilogy fight against Deontay Wilder in July. Only last weekend, Fury announced that his much-anticipated heavyweight showdown with Joshua would take place in Saudi Arabia in August. Soon afterwards, however, Wilder won an arbitration hearing which ruled that Fury was contractually obliged to fight him for a third time. Fury’s first bout against Wilder came in December 2018 and ended in a controversial draw. In the rematch last year, the self-styled Gypsy King stopped his opponent in round seven to win the WBC heavyweight and Ring magazine titles. A planned trilogy fight was initially postponed by the coronavirus pandemic, before disputes over the rescheduling saw Fury declare that he’d ...
Zinedine Zidane ready to walk away from Real Madrid
Zinedine Zidane will almost certainly leave Real Madrid at the end of this season, regardless of whether the team wins LaLiga. They face Granada tonight and if they pick up a win they will still be just two points behind Atletico Madrid with two games to go. But the 48-year-old coach, who has won two league titles and three Champions League crowns in less than four seasons, has all but made up his mind to walk away after the final game of the campaign at home to Villarreal on May 23. Zidane will be an immediate target for Juventus and for the France national side if they make a change after the Euros this summer. Madrid president Florentino Perez will be under pressure to promote Raul to replace him. He currently has the club’s youth team on the verge of promotion but Perez could also turn...
INEC approves creation of 4,861 additional polling units in Lagos
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Lagos State, has concluded plans to create additional 4,861 polling units in the state. The Commission’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Sam Olumekun, who announced this at the Election Stakeholders’ forum on Monday, held in Ikeja, explained that the move became necessary to tackle the usual voter apathy and boost voter access to polling units in exercising their fundamental rights to vote. The forum was part of sensitization and public enlightenment of Stakeholders by the commission towards engendering active participation in future election exercises. He stated: “Polling Units are central to the electoral process and therefore democracy at large. Voter access to Polling Units is at the very heart of representative democracy...
Edinson Cavani offered £50K pay rise to stay at Manchester United
Manchester United plan to keep Edinson Cavani at Old Trafford for the 2021-22 season by offering the striker a wage increase of £50,000, according to reports. The Uruguayan has cemented himself as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first-choice striker during the second half of the 2020-21 campaign, playing a pivotal goalscoring role both domestically and in Europe – most notably in the Europa League semi-final tie with AS Roma, against whom he scored four goals over two legs. United do not have the option to extend the 12-month deal Cavani signed last summer, and it has been generally assumed the 34-year-old would return to South America this summer. However, Cavani can choose to add another year to his current deal, and according to The Sun, United plan to give the 34-year-old extra incentive to rem...
Nigeria’s president under fire over surging violence
With his country ensnared in mounting jihadist violence, bandit attacks and kidnappings, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is under fire from allies and enemies alike for appearing incapable of tackling the security crisis. April saw an almost daily toll of bloody assaults and abductions in Africa’s most populous nation. In the past week alone, at least 240 people have been killed and more than four dozen kidnapped, according to tallies by local media. The fatalities included 19 Fulani herders gunned down in southeastern Anambra state; five students in the northwest who were shot to death days after gunmen snatched them from their campus; 31 troops, slain in a jihadist ambush in the Lake Chad region; and nine police killed by cattle thieves in northwestern Kebbi state. Senators, local go...
NAPTIP chief seeks renewed regional collaboration against illegal migration, trafficking
The Director General of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim, as called for renewed regional collaboration against illegal migration and human trafficking. This was as he expressed sadness over the incessant mishap involving hundreds of irregular migrants on the Mediterranean Sea enroute Europe describing it as huge loss that could be avoided. She called stakeholders across the World and specifically in African to join hands with the Agency in its renewed efforts to scale up sensitization and awareness campaign as a way of remedying the situation. Mrs Suaiman Ibrahim, according to a statement, Wednesday, by Stella Nezan, Head, Press and Public Relations Unit of NAPTIP, “made the call in Abuja while reacting to the recent human casual...
Resident doctors decry Nigerian government scrapping of officers, interns salary
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has decried the scrapping of the salary of medical house officers and other health interns by the Federal Government. Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, the President of NARD, said this while speaking with newsmen on Saturday in Abuja Okhuaihesuyi said that the NARD was making its own investigation to confirm the veracity of the news, adding that it would be addressed appropriately. Newsmen report that the Federal Government through the National Council of Establishment (NCE) stopped the salaries of medical house officers. Others categories of officers affected include dental house officers, nurse interns, pharmacist interns, medical laboratory science interns, and NYSC doctors. Dr Folashade Yemi-Esaa, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federatio...
George Floyd murder: Minneapolis police to face US federal probe
A US federal investigation has been launched into policing practices in the city of Minneapolis, a day after one of its former officers was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. The justice department will look at whether there has been a pattern “of unconstitutional or unlawful policing”, Attorney General Merrick Garland said. It follows national outrage over the killing of Floyd by Derek Chauvin. The former officer was convicted of all charges against him on Tuesday. Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in May 2020. Floyd, an unarmed African American, was pronounced dead an hour later. His death sparked protests across the US and worldwide, and calls for police reform. Tuesday’s verdict has been widely welcomed in a country where poli...
Southampton confirm Arsenal target to leave club on free transfer
Southampton have confirmed that Arsenal and AC Milan target Ryan Bertrand will leave the club for free this summer. Bertrand has spent the last six years of his career on Southampton’s books, scoring eight goals in 240 appearances, but he will walk through the St Mary’s exit doors at the end of the 2020-21 season after failing to reach an extension agreement with the club. The Saints have announced the 31-year-old’s departure, thanking him for his sterling contribution to their cause while insisting he will always hold a special place in the heart of the club’s supporters. “Southampton Football Club can today confirm that Ryan Bertrand will leave the club when his contract expires at the end of the season,” a statement on the club’s official website read. “Bertrand was a key part of the te...