Tag Archives: spoof

Mario Balotelli ordered to see shrink to quit smoking

Posted on by

See a shrink, Mario! City boss Mancini wants Balotelli to quit smoking habit

|

UPDATED:

06:48 GMT, 5 September 2012

Mario Balotelli’s five-a-day smoking habit is concerning Manchester City enough for manager Roberto Mancini to have reputedly asked his Italian striker to undergo hypnosis or counselling.

City believe his habit has not helped Balotelli’s eye problem for which he is undergoing minor surgery during the international break.

Mancini, who made an unsuccessful plea for Balotelli to quit smoking last season, thought the player had at least cut down his cigarette reliance.

Smoking: Mario Balotelli was spotted last week

Smoking: Mario Balotelli was spotted last week

So he was not pleased to see pictures of Balotelli smoking in the early hours last week after leaving a Manchester nightclub when he was due to be resting ahead of his eye operation in Italy. This followed photographs in July of the striker smoking a shisha pipe on holiday.

Sporting background

More from Charles Sale…

Charles Sale: Kenyon stands to cash in on any Chelsea Falcao deal
03/09/12

Charles Sale: Hammers relaxed about agent link despite swelling ranks
31/08/12

Charles Sale: Keep your shirt on, Tevez is told
29/08/12

Charles Sale: The team-mates who still love Pietersen
18/08/12

Charles Sale: BBC claim tower block broadcast base was safe despite razor blade assault
16/08/12

Charles Sale: ECB ask Twitter to shut second spoof
15/08/12

Charles Sale: Government call on Olympic masters Coe and Mills
14/08/12

Charles Sale: Wait drags on for Terry's FA hearing
13/08/12

VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Robert Richardson, captain of the ParalympicsGB sitting volleyball team who play world champions Iran in the quarter-finals on Wednesday, had a foot amputated as a 15-year-old while at Malvern College. Robert is the youngest son of former Coventry chairman Bryan Richardson, whose brothers Peter and Dick both played cricket for England.

Strauss signs new deal

Retired England cricket captain Andrew Strauss signed a renewed bat endorsement deal with financial services group MetLife in May which runs to 2015. But Strauss, 35, will continue as a brand ambassador despite ending his playing career. Meanwhile, the most likely media opening for Strauss will be with BBC radio’s Test Match Special.

BOA accounts

The British Olympic Association have posted a recruitment advertisement for the vacant chairman’s position on their website as part of a transparent selection process. Headhunters Odgers are hardly required with Lord Coe expected to be the stand-out candidate.

But anyone taking over will want to know the full extent of the BOA’s financial shortfall which won’t be fully revealed until next summer following an extravagant Olympic spend coupled with the failed sale of scarves and medallions. The delayed BOA accounts to be published in October cover 2011.

Ellie to be parade star

The Our Greatest Team parade, taking place in London on Monday, will feature 21 floats of GB’s Olympians and Paralympians mixed together but divided into sports and appearing in alphabetical order.

Parade queen: Ellie Simmonds will feature

Parade queen: Ellie Simmonds will feature

Golden girl Paralympian Ellie Simmonds will be the star attraction from either Games on board the swimming truck as well as a top three candidate for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, such is her popularity.

Clean Games'

The Olympics and Paralympics have been similar in the lack of positive drugs tests. Just a handful of athletes were caught during the Olympics and the International Paralympic Committee report not a single positive so far from the 1,250 tests being carried out. IPC won’t reveal the current numbers so as not to alert competitors.

Cameron doesn't care

Prime Minister David Cameron’s obvious disinterest in sport can be shown by his appointment on Tuesday of Maria Miller to succeed Jeremy Hunt as Culture Secretary. Miller has no background or known interest in sport apart from being at the Paralympic athletics with her children the night before her promotion.

Reshuffle: David Cameron showed he does not really care about sport

Reshuffle: David Cameron showed he does not really care about sport

And it’s a crying shame that LOCOG’s brilliant CEO Paul Deighton has been lost to the sports world with his elevation to the Lords as an unpaid Treasury minister responsible for economic delivery.

Old boy's exit

Yorkshire, a county cricket club where infighting is part of the natural order, are summarily dispensing with public address announcer Tony Loffill, who hasn’t missed a match during 15 years at Headingley. Loffill was told there had been ‘one or two complaints’ over his understated style from Yorkshire’s hard-to-please membership. The club’s operations director David Ryder said they wanted to ‘ramp up’ match announcements.

Watching the pennies in Hull

The cost-cutting at Championship club Hull City by Egyptian owners Assem and Ehab Allam includes withdrawing match passes for a number of staff including the Rev Allen Bagshawe, club chaplain for over 30 years. No divine intervention for Steve Bruce’s team this season then.

Carlos Tevez told to keep shirt on by Premier League: Charles Sale

Posted on by

Keep your shirt on, Tevez is told

|

UPDATED:

22:08 GMT, 29 August 2012

The Premier League have written to
Carlos Tevez and Manchester City warning them that the Argentina striker
will be fined if he continues to pull up his shirt to display different
messages on his vest, which the player has done after scoring in three
successive games this season.

Tevez
has been careful not to be booked while promoting three impoverished
areas — Fuerte Apache, Lugano 1y 2 and Villa La Nata — around his family
home in Buenos Aires by keeping the City jersey under his chin.

Passionate: Tevez reveals his latest undergarment after scoring against Liverpool

Passionate: Tevez reveals his latest undergarment after scoring against Liverpool

But the Premier League, who were
suspicious that there might be a Cyprus holiday resort which is also
called Villa La Nata, do not want Tevez to continue with this type of
goalscoring celebration.

However,
it is understood the Argentine is happy to carry on and pay a fine if
necessary because the place names mean so much to him.

City will not want to rock the boat while things are going so well with Tevez.

More from Charles Sale…

Charles Sale: The team-mates who still love Pietersen
18/08/12

Charles Sale: BBC claim tower block broadcast base was safe despite razor blade assault
16/08/12

Charles Sale: ECB ask Twitter to shut second spoof
15/08/12

Charles Sale: Government call on Olympic masters Coe and Mills
14/08/12

Charles Sale: Wait drags on for Terry's FA hearing
13/08/12

Charles Sale: Coe's long run to be Mr Athletics
12/08/12

Charles Sale: NBC chief hits out at patriotic Beeb
10/08/12

Charles Sale: Let's back Britain… but not too loudly
09/08/12

VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Share mystery

Arsenal
might be finding it difficult to keep hold of their best players but 40
shares in the club have each been traded over the past week for a
remarkable record-breaking 17,000, valuing the Gunners at 2billion. The buyer remains unknown.

American owner Stan Kroenke would have had to
declare the purchase, while Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s
advisers deny he has added to his 29.9 per cent holding, believing a
speculator has bought and sold 20 shares.

Meanwhile, the Premier League —
on Arsenal’s instigation — have tightened their ownership rules so that
a 30 per cent holding does not automatically entitle an investor to
have access to the club’s books.

Lapasset's big ambition
Olympic dream: Lapasset

Olympic dream: Lapasset

Bernard Lapasset, president of the International Rugby Board, makes no secret of his great ambition to join the International Olympic Committee, especially with Rugby Sevens becoming an Olympic sport.

So the appointment of Brett Gosper, however well qualified, as chief executive of the IRB has not gone unnoticed when his father is Kevan Gosper, Australia’s most senior member of the IOC.

BT go French

BT Vision, who need to build a sports channel quickly around their Premier League portfolio next season, have bought French club rugby’s Top 14 competition — even though they cannot screen it for a year.

BT have also started talks with potential football presenters, including Gary Lineker. But it is understood Lineker is more likely to renew his BBC contract, which expires in July 2013, even though he will have to take a considerable pay cut.

Broadcasting darling Clare Balding is also the more likely choice to lead BBC’s 2016 Olympic coverage.

Channel 4’s false start

Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics will be under the closest scrutiny following LOCOG’s decision to award them the contract in preference to the BBC.

So it was not the best of starts that their Tuesday night programme, supposedly featuring the lighting of the cauldron at Stoke Mandeville, went off air 12 minutes before the event took place.

Ironically, the lighting was shown live on BBC News 24.

A C4 spokesman blamed an ‘unfortunate’ over-run in a ceremony that could have been arranged around the channel’s programming.

In contrast to the British Olympic Association’s lavish money-no-object approach to London 2012, with an army of staff, the British Paralympic Association could not afford to rent an office in the main press centre in the Olympic Park or man it.

Rugby legacy for Olympic Stadium

The recommended venues to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup being put forward to a board meeting next week will include the Olympic Stadium, with the proviso that it fits into still-to-be decided legacy plans.

But it is another sign of the option to have mixed usage of the venue, with concerts and one-off sports events, when a deal with hot tenancy favourites West Ham United is still to be agreed.

A Test-only England deal is on offer to Pietersen, but will he play ball?

Posted on by

A Test-only England deal is on offer to Pietersen, but will he play ball

|

UPDATED:

21:05 GMT, 7 August 2012

Kevin Pietersen is set to be offered a Test-only contract as the ECB seek to persuade him to prolong his international career beyond the end of the current series against South Africa.

Pietersen warned on Monday that next week’s third Test at Lord’s could be his last game for England following an ongoing contractual dispute with his employers and what he called dressing-room politics.

But the ECB are keen not to lose their biggest crowd-puller ahead of a crucial four-Test series in India and back-to-back Ashes series in 2013 — despite being effectively accused by Pietersen of leaking details of recent meetings about his future between his representatives and board officials.

Final act Kevin Pietersen has said that the Lord's Test could be his last

Final act Kevin Pietersen has said that the Lord's Test could be his last

Pietersen quit one-day international and Twenty20 cricket in June, and with the current contracts up for renewal in September, could be offered a deal similar to that signed by his captain and Test specialist Andrew Strauss.

However, it remains to be seen whether Pietersen, who is keen to cash in on a full season in next year’s Indian Premier League, will play ball.

He cut a lonely figure during the drawn second Test at Headingley, and is said to be unimpressed by the reaction of team-mates to a spoof Twitter account parodying his personality.

But suggestions that he will be dropped for the Lord’s Test look implausible. England must win to maintain their No 1 ranking, and the ECB do not want to be seen to be over-reacting to Pietersen’s broadside.

Going out with a bang: Pietersen, ever the showman, would love to get one over South Africa should the Lord's test be his last

Bowing out in style: Pietersen, ever the showman, would love to get one over South Africa should the Lord's test be his last

There were more problems for England when Ravi Bopara pulled out of the Lions game against Australia A at OId Trafford at the last minute following his withdrawal from the Headingley Test for personal reasons.

‘I thought I was ready to return to action but after some consideration I just feel it’s too early so won’t be playing quite yet,’ he said.

James Taylor, who replaced Bopara in Leeds, is confident of making the troubled Test No 6 position his own after a promising debut innings on Saturday.

‘I believe I can do a job there,’ said Taylor, who scored a patient 34 in a stand of 147 with Pietersen.

Euro 2012: Mario Balotelli warned by Italy coach

Posted on by

Behave yourself! Controversial striker Balotelli warned by Italy coach Prandelli

|

UPDATED:

09:05 GMT, 22 May 2012

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli has warned Mario Balotelli to be on his best behaviour at Euro 2012.

The Manchester City forward has been included in the squad despite a controversial season off the field.

And Prandelli wants the the 21-year-old to make headlines for the right reasons this summer.

In the mix: Mario Balotelli (centre) is in Italy's squad for Euro 2012

In the mix: Mario Balotelli (centre) is in Italy's squad for Euro 2012

‘In my opinion, he has to see it as an extraordinary occasion for him as it is for the national side,’ he said.

‘It is a time for him to be written about for what he does on the pitch and not what he has done off it.’

Mario Balotelli of Italy

Mario Balotelli of Italy

Behave: Balotelli has been told to toe the line in Poland and Ukraine this summer

Prandelli also admitted that Italy, who face Spain, Ireland and Croatia in Group C, won’t be crowned European champions.

He is instead focussed on restoring pride after a disastrous World Cup two years ago when Italy became the first defending champions to be knocked out in the group stages.

Looking sharp: Balotelli took part in a spoof advert for Nike

Looking sharp: Balotelli took part in a spoof advert for Nike

‘We are not going to win Euro, but I like to say that the Italians know how to surprise,’ said the 54-year-old, who replaced Marcello Lippi after the 2010 World Cup debacle.

‘I would like to show that the team has at least worked well and which is arriving at this Euro knowing it is experiencing a unique moment with a smile on its lips.’