January
Shanghai Shenhua ready to allow Odion Ighalo remain with Manchester United on one condition
Shanghai Shenhua are reportedly considering Odion Ighalo to stay at Manchester United beyond May, provided he sign a new contract with them. Ighalo’s currently six-month loan is set to expire in the next few days and the Premier League side are keen to keep the for another six months following his impressive performances. The Chinese side initially was only interested in discussing 20 million pounds of permanent transfer for the player, a price tag that United considered too excessive. However, the latest reports claimed Shanghai Shenhua is now ready to allow the player remain in England for the next six months but must sign a new deal that will tie him to the club for the next four years. Ighalo’s current deal in China is up in December 2022. The offer on the table is reportedly worth £40...
Odion Ighalo close to extending Manchester United loan deal – agent
Odion Ighalo’s representative Ladi Salami has revealed that his client could remain at Manchester United beyond next week. Ighalo joined Manchester United from Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua on a six-month loan in January. The temporary deal is set to expire at the end of this month with the former Watford player expected to return to China on Monday for the start of the new season. Salami however states that United are in talks with Shanghai Shenhua over an extension. “The Super Eagles feels very good in Manchester with whom he is very close to a salary agreement. Negotiations with the Chinese are ongoing and are going well,” Salami told Foot Mercato. Ighalo has scored four goals in eight league appearances for the Old Trafford outfit. Get more stories like this on Twitter You...
Manchester United manager gives update on Odion Ighalo’s future
Manchester United coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has said no agreement has been reached between United and Shanghai Shenhua over Odion Ighalo’s loan extension. He gave the update in an article published on the official website of Manchester United on Tuesday. Solskjaer’s reaction is coming amidst the suspense that surrounds the extension of Ighalo’s loan, which expires on Sunday, May 31. The coach said he hopes that Ighalo would be allowed to complete the season with United and also win a cup for his childhood club. He told MUTV, “The loan deal went until the end of May now, so obviously he’s supposed to be going back. “We’re in dialogue. They’ve been great towards us, his club, and allowed him to play for his dream club. “It’s been a dream for him and hopefully he can finish off what he start...
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer counts on Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford for EPL restart
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Tuesday he is confident of having Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford fit should the Premier League season restart next month. Pogba has missed the majority of the campaign with an ongoing ankle injury, while Rashford seemed set to miss the rest of the season when he suffered a double stress fracture in his back in January. United returned to training in small groups last week and preparations are expected to be ramped up further for a return to action when Premier League clubs vote on resuming contact training on Wednesday. “Hopefully now we’ve proved we can do this safely and we can move to the next step. It’s been really enjoyable being on the training ground again,” said Solskjaer. “They (Pogba and Rashford) are looking good, they’ve jo...
Nigeria’s Paralympic gold medalist gets four-year doping ban
Nigeria’s para powerlifter and Paralympic gold medalist, Esther Oyema, has been sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee for violating anti-doping rules. The IPC announced a ban of four years for the athlete in a statement it issued to the press. It said that Oyema “Returned an adverse analytical finding for a prohibited substance in a urine sample provided on January 28, 2019 after competing at the Lagos International Para Powerlifting Competition in Nigeria last year”. “Consequently, the 38-year-old para powerlifter, who won gold at London 2012 Olympics in the women’s 48kg category, will be disqualified from all IPC’s competitions from May 3, 2019 to May 2, 2023.” The athletic body also stripped her of the gold medal which she won in the women’s 55kg competition in Lagos. “As...
NDE trains Kano women on face mask production
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Kano State says the training of women on face mask production is part of the agency’s continuous efforts to tackle unemployment. The Kano State Coordinator of NDE, Alhaji Iliyasu Ahmed, made this known on Monday at a training organised for the beneficiaries at the NDE Skills Centre in Kano. Ahmed said that the training was organised in collaboration with Future Assured Initiative of First Lady, Hajiya Aisha Buhari. He said that the women who were tailoring trainees of NDE would produce 20,000 safety face masks for the people of the state. Ahmed said that the training was part of the Directorate’s mandate to drastically reduce unemployment and poverty among youths and women. He said that the agency was on the verge of recruiting 44,000 art...
China admits to destroying early coronavirus samples, says action was taken due to safety concerns
China has acknowledged it destroyed early samples of COVID-19, confirming a claim put forward by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo late last month. On Friday, Liu Dengfeng, a supervisor with China’s National Health Commission, admitted that ‘the Chinese government issued an order on January 3 to dispose of coronavirus samples’ at unauthorized laboratories, according to Newsweek. But Liu denied that the samples were destroyed as part of a cover-up, insisting that they were disposed of so as to ‘prevent risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.’ He stated that the labs were ‘unauthorized’ to handle such samples, and they had to be terminated in order to comply with Chinese public health laws. Liu did not specify how many labs des...
German Bundesliga restarts with ‘ghost’ derby
Borussia Dortmund host Schalke 04 in Germany’s fiercest derby on Saturday but no more than 300 people will be in and around the 80,000 capacity arena due to COVID-19 restrictions as the Bundesliga gets back to business after a two-month break. The Bundesliga is the first major sports league to resume since world sport was brought to a standstill by the pandemic, and players will have to abide by a strict set of health guidelines aimed at minimizing the risk of infection. Fans will not be able to attend the matches as part of the safety regulations, leaving it up to the players to provide the spark for what are being called “ghost” games. “It will most certainly be the most unusual derby in history,” Dortmund’s head of pro players Sebastian Kehl said this week. “This game lives off fans, th...
Arsenal make transfer decision on Dani Ceballos
Arsenal are understood to have no plans of extending the stay of midfielder Dani Ceballos beyond the current campaign, a report from El Confidencial claims. The Spain international joined the north London club on a season-long loan from Real Madrid last summer and he made a lively beginning to the season with two assists on his home league debut against Burnley. However, he could not sustain the same level of performance thereafter and picked up a hamstring injury in November which kept him out of action until the turn of the year. In that period, the Gunners opted to dismiss Unai Emery from the head coach position and his successor Mikel Arteta was initially reluctant to play him in January. Ceballos managed to change the manager’s opinion of him during the warm-weather training camp in D...
19 dead as Iran warship hit by ‘friendly fire’ in tense Gulf
An Iranian warship was hit by a friendly fire missile during naval exercises, killing 19 sailors, state media and the army said Monday, amid tensions with the US in Gulf waters. The incident involving the Konarak vessel occurred on Sunday afternoon near Bandar-e Jask, off the southern coast of the Islamic republic, state television said on its website. “The vessel was hit after moving a practice target to its destination and not creating enough distance between itself and the target,” said the channel. The armed forces said in a statement that 19 crewmen were killed and 15 injured. It said the Konarak had been involved in an “accident” during the exercises, without elaborating. The vessel had been towed ashore for “technical investigations”, it added, calling on people to “avoid speculatio...
China’s Wuhan reports first coronavirus infection in over a month
China on Sunday reported the first case of coronavirus in over a month in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak first started in December last year. China’s National Health Commission also reported the first double-digit increase in countrywide cases in nearly 10 days, saying 14 new infections had been confirmed. Two of the cases were imported into the country from overseas, the commission said. The coronavirus first emerged in China’s Wuhan, a major industrial and transport city in central China, in December. It has since infected nearly four million people worldwide — claiming more than 270,000 lives — and crippled the global economy. The total number infected in China is 82,901, with an official death toll of 4,633. No new deaths have been reported for nearly a month. China’s ruling Commun...
EFCC: Lockdown won’t abort cases against ex-first lady, former governors, others
The lockdown arising from coronavirus appears to have slowed down the fight against corrupt practices in the country for close to six weeks. Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, says there is no cause for alarm as it will ensure that none of its ongoing investigations and cases in court will be aborted. The Commission is certain that as the federal and state governments begin to reopen the economy, it will ramp up legal actions to bring the suspects of financial crimes to account for their actions. “These suspects will unfailingly have their days in court,” EFCC Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, declared. Documents reviewed by newsmen indicate that the Commission has its hands full of cases awaiting resolution in court, while some cases being investigated are ripe en...
