Global football & stuff !!!

Payandeh Iran

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Feb 4, 2005
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بهرام شفیع، مجری برنامه تلویزیونی ورزش و مردم و رئیس فدراسیون هاکی ایران در ۶۲ سالگی در تهران درگذشت.
 

Pooya

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Sep 23, 2004
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Didier Drogba: Chelsea and Ivory Coast legend retires from playing.

The Ivory Coast striker, 40, had two spells at Chelsea, scoring 164 goals in 381 games and winning four Premier Leagues and the 2012 Champions League.

He spent the last 18 months of his career with US side Phoenix Rising, the club he co-owns.

"After 20 years, I have decided to put an end to my playing career," he told BBC World Service's Sportshour.

It had been expected Drogba would retire after the United Soccer League Cup final earlier this month, with his last game a 1-0 defeat by Louisville City in the final of the United States' second tier.

"It's the best way to end, helping some young talent to develop," he said.

"To give something back to the game was the best way to finish as I have learned so much in the game."

Drogba did not play top-flight football until the age of 23, when French side Guingamp signed him from Ligue 2 Le Mans in January 2002.

He moved to Marseille 18 months later - and the following year completed a reported £24m move to Chelsea, where he had the best spell of his career.

Drogba won three Premier League titles in his first eight years at Chelsea, including in each of his first two seasons in England, as well as four FA Cups and two League Cups.

He also won the Premier League Golden Boot in 2006-07 and 2009-10.

He left on a high, scoring the winning penalty in the Champions League final shootout against Bayern Munich.

Drogba then spent six months with Shanghai Shenhua and a year and a half with Galatasaray before returning to Chelsea.

He scored seven goals in 2014-15, winning a fourth Premier League title and a third League Cup, leaving the club as their fourth highest scorer of all time.

In 2015, he joined Major League Soccer side Montreal Impact and then became player-owner of Phoenix Rising.

He scored 65 times in 105 caps for the Ivory Coast, playing in three World Cups and being named African Footballer of the Year twice.

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46294137
 

Ali(ISP)

Tottenham till I die
Oct 16, 2002
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Southampton, UK
I don’t know what’s going on in Africa but their football seems messed up.

Cameroon stripped of hosting 2019 Africa Cup of Nations

Cameroon have been stripped of hosting next year's Africa Cup of Nations, says the Confederation of African Football.

African football's governing body (Caf) says it is because of delays in the progress of Cameroon's preparation for the tournament, due to start in June.

Officials made the decision at a meeting on Friday in Accra, Ghana, that lasted more than 10 hours.

Caf president Ahmad Ahmad says it will work to "determine a new organising country by the end of the year".

The tournament is set to be the first held in June and July and will be expanded from 16 to 24 teams.

Ahmad said last year that Cameroon still needed "to convince Caf of its ability" to host the event, with the country playing down fears sanctions would be imposed if preparations were deemed to be behind schedule.

But in August the chairman of Caf's Nations Cup Organising Committee, Amaju Pinnick, said "nobody is going to take it away from Cameroon".

Morocco have been touted as potential hosts, having stepped in to hold this year's tournament after Kenya were deemed not ready.
 

Pooya

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Luka Modric Wins Ballon d’Or, Ending Decade of Ronaldo and Messi Triumphs.
Luka Modric, the diminutive midfield maestro who won the Champions League title with Real Madrid and then helped lead Croatia to the World Cup final, was honored Monday with the Ballon d’Or as world player of the year.

Modric’s victory ended a 10-year run in which Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi traded possession of the award, considered one of world soccer’s top individual honors. Ronaldo was second this year, his record sixth runner-up finish (to go with five wins). Atlético Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann was third, just ahead of his France teammate Kylian Mbappé.

Messi, who won a league and Copa del Rey double with Barcelona but endured a miserable World Cup with Argentina, finished fifth in the voting by soccer journalists, which is overseen by the magazine France Football.

Modric’s victory was widely expected — he already had been honored by FIFA as the world’s top player — but the announcement lost much of its drama when a social media user posted what purported to be a list of vote totals. The list, a blurry photograph of what appeared to be a preprinted page from the forthcoming issue of France Football, began circulating on social media hours before the announcement.

When the award’s official countdown on Twitter tracked perfectly with the leaked vote totals, fans and journalists began discussing — or, alternately, praising and criticizing — Modric’s victory even before the lights went up on the awards ceremony in Paris.

Modric, 33, is the first Croatian to win the Ballon d’Or; his countryman Davor Suker is the only other Croatian player ever to finish in the top three, in 1998.

Power clubs once again dominated: every member of the final shortlist of 30 players is employed by a team in the top division in England, Spain, Italy or France. Real Madrid has eight players among the final 30, for example, while Liverpool placed four and Barcelona, Paris St.-Germain and Atlético Madrid three each.

Modric is the seventh player from Real Madrid to lift the trophy, breaking a tie with Barcelona players. (Counting multiple winners, each club now has won 11 times over all, another record.) That may serve as a bit of consolation in Madrid after a summer in which the club sold Ronaldo to Italy’s Juventus.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/sports/luka-modric-ballon-dor.html
 
Likes: Payandeh Iran

Pooya

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Ballon d'Or: DJ Martin Solveig sorry for Ada Hegerberg 'twerk' question
DJ Martin Solveig apologised to Women's Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg for asking her after she collected her award if she knew "how to twerk".

The Frenchman, 42, said Lyon and Norway forward Hegerberg - who answered "no" - had told him after the ceremony she "understood it was a joke".

Hegerberg told BBC Sport she "didn't consider it sexual harassment".

The 23-year-old was named the inaugural winner of the award, which recognises the world's best player, in Paris.

Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder Luka Modric won the men's award,becoming the first player other than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo to claim the trophy in more than a decade.

What happened?
Solveig was playing music throughout the ceremony, and also danced with Hegerberg to Frank Sinatra.

During the presentation of her award, he asked her: "Do you know how to twerk?" She responded: "No."

'Twerking' is a sexually provocative dance move popularised by singer Miley Cyrus.

What was the reaction?
Solveig was widely criticised on social media, including by two-time Wimbledon tennis champion Andy Murray, who said on Instagram: "Another example of the ridiculous sexism that still exists in sport.

"To everyone who thinks people are overreacting and it was just a joke... it wasn't. I've been involved in sport my whole life and the level of sexism is unreal."

How did Solveig respond?
"Apologies to anyone who may have been offended," he wrote on Twitter."This was a joke, probably a bad one, and I want to apologise."

In a video message, he added: "I am a little bit amazed as to what I am reading on the internet. I, of course, didn't want to offend anyone.

"This comes from a distortion of my English level and my English culture level, which is obviously not enough because I didn't mean to offend anyone and didn't know this could be seen as such an offence.

"Especially if you consider the sequence in total, when we ended up dancing to Frank Sinatra.

"This was a joke, probably a bad one, and I want to apologise for the one I may have offended, sorry about that."

Solveig later posted a picture on Twitter of him and Hegerberg shaking hands.

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What did Hegerberg say?
Speaking to BBC Sport, she said: "He came to me afterwards and was really sad that it went that way. I didn't really think about it at the time.

"I was just happy to do the dance and win the Ballon d'Or to be honest. I will have a glass of champagne when I get back."

Her Lyon team-mate Lucy Bronze, an England defender and Ballon d'Or nominee, told BBC Sport it was "just a joke".

"The DJ asked each person that won what their dance was but she can twerk, she was lying," she added. "It was more of a joke of making her dance."

Source: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46435168