In a month of fickleness, let’s hear it for Gael Clichy who is close to signing a new four-year deal with Arsenal. And Cesc Fabregas for that matter who at a Nike screening said he was “young and happy at Arsenal” and set to sign a better deal.
He also picked out Spanish international team-mate David Villa, the Valencia striker, as the player he would prefer to see in the Gunners side. “Villa would be very good for Arsenal, ” he said. Wenger is on record as saying he doesn’t want Villa.
The Guardian rumours column says: “Arsenal cannot make up their minds about Samuel Eto’o but might just buy him anyway to spite Tottenham. Principal targets, though, remain Le Mans’ Gervais Yao Kouassi, known as Gervinho, and Richard Dunne, known as Dunny.”
The Telegraph reports Arsene Wenger has made it a priority to tie up Cesc Fabregas, Emmanuel Adebayor, Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna on improved deals.
Flamini‘s interview in the Sun today reveals he was offered higher wages at another English club, but turned them down, emphasising the importance of increased deals.
Michel Platini is at it again. Seems every initiative he raises is against Arsenal’s interests.
Platini is now considering making a proposal to compel young players to sign their first professional contract at the club where they have trained and limit the transfer of players under 18.
The Premier League believe any restrictions would fall foul of European labour laws but UEFA say they have been encouraged by the European White Paper on sport published last week calling for stricter rules and “the principle that players should sign their first professional contract with the club which has trained them”.
UEFA communications director William Gaillard, said: “the biggest clubs have the best players and the best coaches — that has always been the case – but if they also have the best youth it’s the end of football as we know it.So let’s leave at least the young players for a couple of years with their original clubs so they can complete their education because there are a lot of cases all over Europe of terrible failures of very promising players that have been transferred very early, when still children, and haven’t developed well and their career has been ended.They are being brought over at a very young age and basically dumped in the streets if they don’t make it.” Hardly true in Arsenal’s case.
Incidentally, to the few people who emailed last month that it is ridiculous to involve MEPs in football, the European Parliament has called on governments and sports associations to bloc FIFA plans aimed at promoting the use of home-grown players by football clubs. That is the proposed rule whereby six out of 11 players in a team must be nationals of the team’s home country and no more than five can be foreigners.
In a report approved by the assembly, MEPs said FIFA’s so-called 6+5 rule would discriminate players on the basis of their nationality, but preferred measures designed to favour the use of a minimum number of locally-trained players.
“MEPs call on (European Union) member states and sports associations not to introduce new rules that will create discrimination on the basis of nationality, such as the rule of 6+5,” they said.
The European Parliament vote on a new EU policy for sport voted down the idea and urged Fifa instead to back Uefa’s planned “home-grown” rule – no nationality requirement but at least 8 out of the team locally-trained.
Meanwhile the way Arsenal work is illustrated by a story from the Herald Express – Harry Aplin, 12, from Bovey Tracey has spent a week training with the Arsenal under-13s following an invitation from The Emirates club, and will be going back for another week during the summer holidays, again at their invitation.
And finally charity: The Treehouse Auction Charity event earned around £280,000 with a lot of the first team squad in attendance. M&C Saatchi’s David Kershaw spent £16,000 on a portrait of Arsene Wenger [to be drawn by Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood]. It was a Hornby affair, with Treehouse set up by Nick Hornby and the event run by brother Johnny Hornby and his wife Claire, and Johnny bought a £4000 lunch with his brother.
Also Bob Wilson and his wife Megs are to host a charity polo day at the Beaufort Polo Club near Tetbury on Saturday, May 31, in aid of the Willow Foundation.
There’s a Champagne reception and a three-course gourmet lunch , before guests watch the polo. Lunch tickets cost £90 per person or £850 for a table of 10.