Wenger's rage at Van Persie red as Barcelona eliminate Arsenal

Posted by Choochoo Sports Book on March 8, 2011 at 2:45pm

Robin van Persie described Arsenal's Champions League exit as "a joke" last night after the striker's second-half sending-off tipped the balance in favour of Barcelona.

Van Persie picked up his second yellow card of the night after appearing not to hear referee Massimo Busacca's whistle and shooting wide after the flag had been raised for offside. "How could I hear with 95,000 screaming?" the Dutch striker said.

"We feel betrayed, everyone fought so hard. When it was 1-1, it was all to play for. In my opinion, the referee killed the game. It had a big influence on the result. When there are four, five or six seconds after the whistle and you make a chip or something then I can understand a card but there was one second from his whistle to my shot "The referee was bad all evening whistling against us. I did try to explain that there were 95,000 people jumping up and so how could I hear his whistle? And he just said: 'Second yellow.' It's unbelievable."

Van Persie started the game after Arsène Wenger decided the Dutchman had recovered sufficiently from his recent knee injury to play. The manager also gambled on the fitness of Cesc Fabregas, and the club captain looked off the pace and had a poor game. Last night, Fabregas posted on Twitter that he was sorry for his below-par performance. "I take full blame for the result tonight. One of the worst moments of my life. I apologise," he wrote.

Wenger was left fuming in the tunnel with match officials after the game. "If you have ever played football in a game at that level with people shouting then you don't make that decision," he said of the referee's decision to send off Van Persie. "He [Busacca] must absolutely never have played football to make a decision like that. There is no explanation and I told him what I think about his decision face to face. I think there is not a lot more to say about it."

Wenger's confrontation with the referee has gone into Busacca's report and the Arsenal manager could now face disciplinary action. After conducting his post-match interviews, the Frenchman sought out the referee again to remonstrate further with him.

Wenger echoed Van Persie's sentiments that the decision robbed Arsenal of a chance to win the tie. "We were beaten by a terrific side, certainly the best in Europe," he said. "But I am still convinced that in the second half they weakened a lot. At 1-1, if it had stayed 11 against 11, we would have won this tie."

Arsenal failed to muster a single attempt on goal but Wenger blamed Van Persie's sending-off for the failure to test Victor Valdes.

He said: "Once you are down to 10 men it's very difficult. We suffered in the first half but it would have been a game of two halves tonight. My team's fighting spirit deserved a chance to stay 11 against 11 and then if we go out, we would have accepted it. But the way we did, it's very difficult to accept."

Andres Iniesta was the architect of Barcelona's first goal, brilliantly dispatched by Lionel Messi. After Sergio Busquets had put through his own goal from a Samir Nasri corner Arsenal looked back in the game but they were undone by Xavi Hernandez who put Barcelona 2-1 up from another pass from Iniesta.

Arsenal did their best to hang on but when Pedro was brought down by Laurent Koscielny, Manuel Almunia – who had done well after replacing Wojciech Szczesny in the first half – was powerless to stop the world's best player from the penalty spot....

Arsenal's misery was compounded by injuries to Fabregas and Szczesny, who has a dislocated finger and could miss the rest of the season.

Girl:I want the Boy in Red, Why women are attracted to a MAN dressed in red

Posted by 9jabook.com webmadam on August 4, 2010 at 9:30pm

Forget candlelit dinners, bouquets of flowers and endless compliments.

The way to a woman’s heart lies in wearing a red shirt, it seems.

A chap becomes instantly more desirable to the opposite sex if he has on a scarlet shirt or crimson tie, research shows..

Even a pair of pillar-box red socks could do the trick. The finding could help explain the appeal of Tiger Woods, who sports the colour on the final day of a golf tournament.

And a red suit may have helped Muse singer Matt Bellamy

Photo:One of the photos used in the study, (with the faces in focus) which worked out that the men in red are seen as more attractive by women

catch the eye of actress Kate Hudson.

The researchers showed women from around the world, including some Britons, pictures of a ‘moderately attractive’ man.

The photos had been doctored to show him wearing shirts of different colours or standing against several backgrounds.

Others were framed in various colours. A dash of red led to the man being viewed as more attractive and desirable. He was also seen as having a higher social status, the Journal of Experimental Psychology reported.

Researcher Andrew Elliot, of Rochester University in the U.S., said that red is associated with power, passion and fertility in the animal kingdom – and people are no different.

‘This suggests that women’s thoughts and feelings toward men are, at least in part, primitive,’ he said.

Photo2:The researchers also asked for women to rate men whose picture was framed in red and in white. The red-framed picture rated consistently higher in terms of attractiveness

‘The question “What do women want?” with regard to sexual attraction and desire has puzzled men and scholars for many years.

‘Our research suggests that the answer may be more provocative, than anticipated.’

Wearing red may also make a man feel more self-assured.

Dr Elliot added: ‘The red shirt that Tiger Woods adorns on the final day of golf tournaments likely provides him with a confidence-boosting reminder of his alpha status in the golf world as it simultaneously reminds his competitors they are probably facing another long day.’

Red is also associated with dominance on the football pitch, with previous research finding that teams wearing red strips win more matches.

Its association with dominance and aggression may enhance players’ game. Or perhaps red shirts are simply easier to see, improving their accuracy of passing.

Oil Spill in Naija Vs BP Oil Spills what is all the Fuss about that

Posted by 9jabook.com on June 18, 2010 at 3:30am

Weekend Trivia:KAITA(Noun/Verb): A man who single handedly hinder the hope of his country for reason best known to him. "Kaita" can be use in place of words like Jeopardy, Hinder, Sabotage, Disrupt, Antagonist, fool etc.
Example

Noun: IBB is a kaita, so is Ota boy. Verb: Don't kaita what we have been building for 11 yrs in one day." I like that girl, please don't be a Kaita" Or In a Foolish Person's Thought: We are winning 1 - 0, let me kaita this game, so that I can get a red card and my opponent can win.

BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.

Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.

Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.

The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest — soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses — but mostly resentful resignation.

Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther — “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat — and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head.

That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Though their region contributes nearly 80 percent of the government’s revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.

“President Obama is worried about that one,” Claytus Kanyie, a local official, said of the gulf spill, standing among dead mangroves in the soft oily muck outside Bodo. “Nobody is worried about this one. The aquatic life of our people is dying off. There used be shrimp. There are no longer any shrimp.”

In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves.

With new estimates that as many as 2.5 million gallons of oil could be spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day, the Niger Delta has suddenly become a cautionary tale for the United States.

As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, or nearly 11 million gallons a year, a team of experts for the Nigerian government and international and local environmental groups concluded in a 2006 report. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 dumped an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil into the waters off Alaska.

So the people here cast a jaundiced, if sympathetic, eye at the spill in the gulf. “We’re sorry for them, but it’s what’s been happening to us for 50 years,” said Emman Mbong, an official in Eket.

The spills here are all the more devastating because this ecologically sensitive wetlands region, the source of 10 percent of American oil imports, has most of Africa’s mangroves and, like the Louisiana coast, has fed the interior for generations with its abundance of fish, shellfish, wildlife and crops.

Local environmentalists have been denouncing the spoliation for years, with little effect. “It’s a dead environment,” said Patrick Naagbanton of the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Port Harcourt, the leading city of the oil region.

Though much here has been destroyed, much remains, with large expanses of vibrant green. Environmentalists say that with intensive restoration, the Niger Delta could again be what it once was.

Nigeria produced more than two million barrels of oil a day last year, and in over 50 years thousands of miles of pipes have been laid through the swamps. Shell, the major player, has operations on thousands of square miles of territory, according to Amnesty International. Aging columns of oil-well valves, known as Christmas trees, pop up improbably in clearings among the palm trees. Oil sometimes shoots out of them, even if the wells are defunct.

“The oil was just shooting up in the air, and it goes up in the sky,” said Amstel M. Gbarakpor, youth president in Kegbara Dere, recalling the spill in April at Gio Creek. “It took them three weeks to secure this well.”

How much of the spillage is due to oil thieves or to sabotage linked to the militant movement active in the Niger Delta, and how much stems from poorly maintained and aging pipes, is a matter of fierce dispute among communities, environmentalists and the oil companies.

Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell in Lagos, said, “We don’t discuss individual spills,” but argued that the “vast majority” were caused by sabotage or theft, with only 2 percent due to equipment failure or human error.

“We do not believe that we behave irresponsibly, but we do operate in a unique environment where security and lawlessness are major problems,” Ms. Wittgen said.

Oil companies also contend that they clean up much of what is lost. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil in Lagos, Nigel A. Cookey-Gam, said that the company’s recent offshore spill leaked only about 8,400 gallons and that “this was effectively cleaned up.”

But many experts and local officials say the companies attribute too much to sabotage, to lessen their culpability. Richard Steiner, a consultant on oil spills, concluded in a 2008 report that historically “the pipeline failure rate in Nigeria is many times that found elsewhere in the world,” and he noted that even Shell acknowledged “almost every year” a spill due to a corroded pipeline.

On the beach at Ibeno, the few fishermen were glum. Far out to sea oil had spilled for weeks from the Exxon Mobil pipe. “We can’t see where to fish; oil is in the sea,” Patrick Okoni said.

“We don’t have an international media to cover us, so nobody cares about it,” said Mr. Mbong, in nearby Eket. “Whatever cry we cry is not heard outside of here.”

Obafemi Martins 3Trillion Naira Jamboree Extravaganza Lifestyle

Posted by Choochoo Sports Book on November 21, 2009 at 6:00am

It has been revealed how Super Eagles striker, Obafemi Martins, extranvagantly squandered about N3.1 trillions while a player of Newcastle.Martins

advertisementHis former management company, NVA Management Limited who has dragged the player to court over breach of contarct, told the jury how the player’s account almost went red because of his lifestyle.Obafemi Martins was paid £75,000, but allegedly squandered the earnings on an extravagant lifestyleA former Premiership footballer routinely blew his £75,000 a week wages in a matter of days and was constantly overdrawn, a court was told yesterday.Obafemi, ex-Newcastle striker 25, was paid the handsome salary after he joined the club for a £10million fee in August 2006.But despite his extraordinary earnings, his former management team yesterday claimed they repeatedly bailed him out after his bank account continually slipped into the red.The High Court heard that the Nigerian international player would withdraw £40,000 in cash from his bank account at the end of the week.But that would only last him two days, the court heard, as he topped up with a further £25,000 on the Monday morning.He was always overdrawn and repeatedly relied upon NVA Management Limited to ‘manage his life’, the High Court was told.Martins, who owned several fast cars including a top of the range Porsche 4X4, spent the money funding an extravagant lifestyle of luxurious penthouse homes and fine dining.

He is now being sued by his former management company which claims that he still owes them 300,000 for sorting out his finances.He told the court that Martins would withdraw £40,000 for the weekend, followed by another £25,000 on the Monday.‘Despite earning these vast sums of money he was constantly overdrawn,’ added Mr Tennink.He said the firm, which looks after the affairs of several footballers, film and music stars, said that Martins had agreed to pay them for simply managing his life.It was under their stewardship that Martins agreed a £2million image rights deal ‘simply for being Mr Martins’.It’s claimed Martins was constantly overdrawn despite earning £75,000-a-weekHe also had lucrative sponsorship deals with various companies including Pepsi and Nike but had not been paid.When the company stepped in to run his affairs they sorted the unpaid contracts, bringing in thousands of pounds.They also organised visas when he travelled to Italy, where he once played for Inter Milan, and sorted out his passport, his mortgage and property valuations.They even arranged critical illness cover and were constantly running up and down the motorway from their London offices to Newcastle in a bid to do all that he required.‘But surely these were things a secretary could do?’ asked Judge Richard Seymour QC, referring to the size of fees charged.‘It was a Jeeves-type of role that they performed.’Mr Tennink protested that managing every aspect of his life was just part of what they did, and asked the judge to bear in mind the sort of figures these players earned.He said Martins had come to them in July 2007 and had agreed a fee of around £300,000 plus 20 per cent of any sponsorship monies they managed to acquire on his behalf.“He asked for these services to be carried out,” Mr Tennink told the court.Before they managed his affairs, Martins had not been paid a penny for his image rights for the use of his name on Newcastle shirts and mugs and had received nothing from his sponsorship deals.He could not even find the contracts he had originally signed, Mr Tennink added.Martins paid the company £67,500 in January last year and another £25,000 in April last year.But the question for the court to decide, said Mr Tennink, was whether there was a ‘binding obligation’ for him to pay the outstanding bill of over £300,000.After Newcastle were relegated from the Premiership last summer Martins was sold for £9million to German Bundesliga Champions Wolfsburg.Martins, who once owned a penthouse apartment overlooking Newcastle’s exclusive Quayside, is fighting the claim.The hearing is scheduled to last for three days.

Forget candlelit dinners, bouquets of flowers and endless compliments.

The way to a woman’s heart lies in wearing a red shirt, it seems.

A chap becomes instantly more desirable to the opposite sex if he has on a scarlet shirt or crimson tie, research shows..

Even a pair of pillar-box red socks could do the trick. The finding could help explain the appeal of Tiger Woods, who sports the colour on the final day of a golf tournament.

And a red suit may have helped Muse singer Matt Bellamy

Photo:One of the photos used in the study, (with the faces in focus) which worked out that the men in red are seen as more attractive by women

The researchers showed women from around the world, including some Britons, pictures of a ‘moderately attractive’ man.

The photos had been doctored to show him wearing shirts of different colours or standing against several backgrounds.

Others were framed in various colours. A dash of red led to the man being viewed as more attractive and desirable. He was also seen as having a higher social status, the Journal of Experimental Psychology reported.

Researcher Andrew Elliot, of Rochester University in the U.S., said that red is associated with power, passion and fertility in the animal kingdom – and people are no different.

‘This suggests that women’s thoughts and feelings toward men are, at least in part, primitive,’ he said.

‘The question “What do women want?” with regard to sexual attraction and desire has puzzled men and scholars for many years.

‘Our research suggests that the answer may be more provocative, than anticipated.’

Wearing red may also make a man feel more self-assured.

Dr Elliot added: ‘The red shirt that Tiger Woods adorns on the final day of golf tournaments likely provides him with a confidence-boosting reminder of his alpha status in the golf world as it simultaneously reminds his competitors they are probably facing another long day.’

Red is also associated with dominance on the football pitch, with previous research finding that teams wearing red strips win more matches.

Its association with dominance and aggression may enhance players’ game. Or perhaps red shirts are simply easier to see, improving their accuracy of passing.

Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.