Football News: Review Of The Day 18th November 2018

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Review of the Day

African Footballer Of The Year Nominees Revealed

In what does seem a foregone conclusion, the BBC have named the shortlist for African Footballer of the Year and opened voting on their website. The shortlist of five does seem likely to be a case of shortlist of four chasing the runners up place and Mo Salah, unless the voting is hijacked. The five nominees are:
Medhi Benatia - Juventus and Morocco - The 31 year old centre back has been a standout at the heart of Juve's rock solid defence and played his part in getting his nation to their first World Cup since 1998.
Kalidou Koulibaly - Napoli and Senegal - Another Serie A centre back, this is his first nomination for the award after a stellar season with his club. His pace and power was key to Napoli's challenge for the league title last season.
Sadio Mane - Liverpool and Senegal - His 4th nomination, but he has yet to win the award, Liverpool's Mane was somewhat overshadowed at club level by teammate, and fellow nominee, Mohamed Salah. Though he did come into his own towards the end of last season.
Thomas Partey - Atletico Madrid and Ghana - This is the midfielder's first nomination and, while he has performed well at club level, he is in and out of the team to a degree, so this nomination is more for his international performances. For his nation he has become the main driving force and has captained his country twice.
Mohamed Salah - Liverpool and Egypt - Last year's winner has won a host of accolades over the last 12 months including the PFA Players' Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year. Despite not being at his scintillating best yet, Salah still has 8 goals so far this season.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Ref To Appeal Ban

The referee banned for 3 weeks for using rock, paper, scissors to decide the kick off, instead of a coin toss, has appealed against his ridiculously harsh ban. David McNamara forgot to bring out his coin with him at the start of the match and so improvised in a televised WSL match in October. Despite a coin not being part of a referee's required kit, a coin toss at the start of the game is required by the laws of the game and McNamara accepted a charge of "not acting in the best interests of the game" (because having a bit of fun in a game is obviously not in its best interest). A large number of referees in England showed support for McNamara by all using rock, paper, scissors in place of a coin toss on Saturday.

French Forward Finally Finds Club

30 year old French striker Anthony Modeste left Tianjin Quanjian just a month after they paid 1. FC Koln over £26m for his services in July. Modeste had been on loan at the Chinese Super League club before they bought him, but left on a free in August. He has now returned to Koln on a free transfer. Back in 2012, Modeste had a short loan spell with Blackburn Rovers, but failed to find the net in 9 Prem matches.

Toon Fans Mount Ashley Protest

Newcastle United fans protested outside the Oxford Street branch in London of Mike Ashley's jumble sale store Sports Direct, as they look to force the *edited* person *edited* to sell the football club. Ashley supposedly put the Magpies on the market a year ago but has ensured he priced it out of the price range of any interested party, as he looks to continue to use it as free advertising for his companies.

Cityzens Consider Stadium Expansion

Despite being unable to fill the Emptyhad at its current capacity, Manchester City are planning on expanding the North Stand by 8,000 seats, to raise capacity to 63,000. The company tasked with the construction, ISG, recently hosted a fans forum (presumably they found a still standing telephone box to hold it in....) to discuss the future development of the ground.

PSG Close Discrimination Investigation

Despite confirming that the club used "forms with illegal contents" during their recruitment process of young players, Paris Saint-Germain have closed their investigation into player recruitment practices, claiming that there was no discrimination involved. This is despite PSG reportedly signing just one black player for their academy since 2013 and the club deciding to introduce new measures in a "bid to improve practices". If there is no discrimination, why do they need to improve practices?

Written by Tris Burke November 18 2018 05:30:58