Helen Flanagan gets VIP treatment at City ground

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Helen Flanagan gets VIP treatment at City ground Helen Flanagan, the Coronation Street actress, is the girlfriend of footballer Scott Sinclair who plays for Swansea. She was turned away by security from a game last season as security did not recognize her. This season however she was a VIP at the City of Manchester stadium something that, judging from press photographs of the day, seemed to delight her.

The Swansea striker met Flanagan when he was on loan to Chelsea and was living in Manchester. The girlfriends of footballers, WAG’s, are expected to know something about the sport and from the comments of Ms Flanagan it seems she will need to learn a little more about the sport.

The team were brutally beaten by Man City, 4-0, in the match but she commented that, “Swansea played totally amazing today. It seems like they are going to be staying in the Premier League.” This comment caused some people to comment on her Twitter page saying things such as, “Were you actually watching the game? The team were thrashed.”

Even though her opinions on the match were somewhat off, she was at least able to watch it without any trouble. Last season she had come to watch a play-off match between Reading and Swansea and she left the stadium at half time.

When she returned, security did not recognise her and she was turned away. Fortunately for her, while security were not fans of Coronation Street several people watching the match vouched for her identity and she was eventually let back in. This was just in time for her to see her boyfriend score a spectacular hat-trick which catapulted Swansea into the Premier League.

Italian Footballers paid much less than international stars in Serie A

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This week has seen the very unusual stop of Italian Serie A with Totti, Del Piero, Ibrahimovich, Milito & Co. striking for industrial relations issues linked to the agreement on the collective contract. The main cause sounds marginal to the public audience. However, professional footballers in Italy could have other reasons for striking, above all those holding an Italian passport.

According to a study from Antonio Giangreco and Johan Maes, researchers at IESEG School of Management, Italian players in the major “Serie A” league are significantly less paid than, alternatively, their European or non-European teammates. In fact, starting from secondary data of the four last football seasons, it was found that by average that Italian players earned about 1.00 million euros per year, which is .68 million euros less than other European players and .42 million euros less than non-European players contracted by an Italian football club.

This gap is particularly relevant for defenders and midfielders. In fact, in the season 2007-08, for example, Italian defenders earned “only” 0.53 million euros against 1.3 million made by the other European players and the 1.01 million euros of the non-European players. The statistics for defenders show a similar trend up to the last season with, however, a general decrease of between 10% and 15% for the non-Italian category. Wages for Italian midfielders present, over the same period, the same tendency with a gap even larger at the advantage of European midfielders: for example, 0.96 million euros for 2009-10, and of 0.5 million euros for 2010-11.

The segmentation of footballers according to their performance in four categories (lowest, second lowest, second best, best performers) confirmed the same conclusion for the first season. In fact, Italian players appear to be the least paid within the same category of performers if compared to other European players and non-European players contracted by an Italian football club. The discriminating effect against Italian players becomes milder to the extent that for the last season examined 2010-11, it is true only for top performers. A “cannoniere” is worth less than an international star.

Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott

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Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott The recent end to the boycott of the BBC by Sir Alex Ferguson has led many people to wonder how it actually begun in the first place. This is a common problem with long running arguments; we sometime forget how it all started.

The conversations between Sir Alex and Mark Thompson, BBC director general, will probably never be known as both parties have agreed to not comment on the talks. The only reason for Ferguson’s original boycott was the BBC airing the documentary ‘Fergie and Son,’ in 2004 – he never actually mentioned what it was in the documentary that affronted him and caused him to boycott the BBC.

The only time he spoke of the BBC since 2004 was in 2007, when he accused the broadcaster of being incredibly arrogant and saying they would never apologise for the content of the documentary. He said the film was very insulting to his son and damaged his honour. He also accused the BBC for making up the contents of the documentary.

The documentary focused on Ferguson’s son, Jason. Alex Millar directed the programme and went back to examine the revelations that the agents Jason had once worked for had got £25,000 for the transfer of Massimo Taibi, a goalkeeper. Other transfers were also examined in the film.

John Magnier and J P McManus, former friends of Ferguson’s had asked nearly one hundred questions about the football clubs financial propriety. These questions were leaked to the Daily Mail and United faced much greater scrutiny. As a response to this, the club decided to conduct a review of all its transfer dealings.

Before the airing of the documentary, the BBC released information about some of the findings that Millar had made. Unexpectedly, and in an attempt to pre-empt the revelations in the film, the club publicly announced that it was reviewing its transfers.

All Scottish sides knocked out of the European club

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All Scottish sides knocked out of the European club It is not a good time for Scottish football. All Scottish sides have been knocked out of the European club competition rounds, and this is the first time this has happened in history. Celtic and Rangers were both eliminated in the play-off’s showing a complete failure of Scottish football, and they joined Hearts, who were relegated earlier in the competition.

In the first leg of the competition Hearts had already taken a beating, losing to Tottenham five nil. Playing at home later they regained a tiny amount of pride by managing a draw, 0-0. Ranger’s managed a 1-1 draw against the Slovenian champions, Maribor. The Scottish team however lost the match on aggregate. Celtic lost in Switzerland by 3-1 and defender, Daniel Majstorovic was sent off in under a minute. All of the teams’ managers are facing a lot of criticism for the losing streaks of their various teams.

Ally McCoist, the new manager of Rangers, has had a dismal start to his time with the club as he has suffered only losses when playing in Europe. McCoist has, understandablym been criticised and has commented, “I feel disappointed mostly, for the fans and the players especially,” when asked whether he felt under more pressure after the losses he said, “No, it’s just disappointment, I don’t feel under more pressure.”

McCoist’s team have lost 24 out of the 25 matches they have played in Europe. Such a figure indicates that this problem is not just down to bad management. While McCoist cannot be held solely accountable he is certainly facing a lot more scrutiny. The manager has gone onto say, “We have been having some serious problems converting the chances for a win into an actual victory. The second half of the match in Maribor was a disappointing performance.”

Mirror football phone app

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Mirror football phone app

Mirror football phone app

The latest Mirror Football app for the iPhone app is now much improved and is completely free for the 2011/2012 season. It can now be personalised and includes a new global fan blog.

MirrorFootball.co.uk has announced that it is launching a new and updated version of its popular football app for the iPhone, and it is packed with new and innovative features to coincide with the new 2011/2012 football season. The best news of all for football fans is that they will be able to get the app for free from all the Apple global apps stores, which will give even more fans access to Mirror football.

This app further builds on the success of the MirrorFootball.co.uk website (which in June 2011 had 3.8m users. Source: ABC) The app now allows users to personalise the homepage with a bookmark for their favourite club in the Premier League. It also gives access to club specific news, live match trackers which give minute by minute results and extensive photo and video-led content, as well as the new global fan blog facility.

The app gives footie fans instant access to a unique 24/7 news service which can be accessed anytime anywhere and there is also a wealth of exclusive pieces offering the opinions from both award winning writers and footballing legends. These include the transfer expert Darren Lewis, Oliver Holt, Robbie Savage, Mark Lawrenson and Martin Lipton.

Users can leave their comments on the articles and also send them onto their friends as well as publishing them on Facebook and Twitter.  The new global fan blogs are great for those fans who follow football in other countries, and they can read analysis of games by bloggers in Spain, Italy, France, South America and MLS.

Key App Features

  • FREE to download
  • 24/7 breaking football news
  • Personalise your homepage to your club
  • Live up-to-the-minute match tracker
  • Latest scores, results, fixtures and tables
  • News & reports for all Premier League clubs
  • Insights from award-winning columnists
  • Real fans view from global bloggers
  • Share stories with friends via Facebook and Twitter
  • Videos of press conferences and interviews
  • Read the top stories offline

Chris Ellis, Managing Director, Digital – Nationals Division, said: “We’re really excited to be launching the updated Mirror Football App for the new season. As well as adding a whole new raft of content to cover foreign leagues, we’ve made the app totally free so that many more iPhone and iPod Touch fans will have real-time access to the latest football news, opinion, results and fun that MirrorFootball.co.uk is known for. We’re also offering users more and more interactivity around video, social media and comments, making this the most compelling football app you can download.”

Consumers can find the app on Apple’s app store by searching for ‘Mirror Football’; customers in the UK can also get it by texting FOOTBALL to 67800 or find the app on the Apple app store at http://bit.ly/mirrorfootballapp, plus a trailer showing the app can be viewed at http://youtu.be/egq42pHZLCA.