Vesper

he is better than anyone we have now btw he was born in Sweden, but is Danish Filip Jørgensen ø is Danish ö is Swedish

Not saying he will end up there, but they do have some fairly big name 30 and under players Rúben Neves Sergej Milinković-Savić Aleksandar Mitrovic Malcom Gabri Veiga Franck Kessié Fabinho Aymeric Laporte Yannick Carrasco Talisca Otávio Roger Ibañez Renan Lodi Seko Fofana Merih Demiral Bento Luiz Felipe Moussa Dembélé Habib Diallo Houssem Aouar Julián Quiñones Jota Musa Barrow Demarai Gray

that may well fuck us with dumping Lukaku

https://le10sport.com/football/mercato/exclu-mercato-le-psg-ne-discute-pas-pour-victor-osimhen-705976

More evidence why I am right when it comes to Doue for our LWer

me too

and a big one goes off the table for good (he will turn 32 the summer this new contract expires)................. Inter Milan https://thedailybriefing.io/i/146830102/inter-milan Inter president Beppe Marotta confirms: “Lautaro Martinez has signed new deal at the club, it’s all sealed. It will be official in the next weeks.” Martinez is signing until June 2029 - a five-year contract for €9m net per season salary plus add-ons.

Chelsea https://thedailybriefing.io/i/146830102/Chelsea Andreas Pereira to Chelsea? Reports in Brazil suggest this could be on, with Fabrizio Romano responding to the story in his latest exclusive column. Andrey Santos will return to Strasbourg on loan after going on US tour with Chelsea - deal done. Borussia Dortmund and more clubs were keen on signing him but Andrey spoke to Liam Rosenior about the style of play implemented at Chelsea and Strasbourg. The young Brazilian midfielder remains a big part of Chelsea’s future plans. Romelu Lukaku keeps waiting for Napoli; he wants to work under Antonio Conte again. Romelu will reduce his salary from €11m/net per season to €6m until June 2027 to sign for Napoli. The deal depends on Napoli-Chelsea negotiations and on Victor Osimhen’s exit, with PSG pushing.

what does that even mean? you are going to tell me that Bulka (who was poor most games I have seen him play) and Trafford, two giant, ponderous keepers are better with the ball at theor feet than Diogo Costa? come on

NO

red is not his colour, lolol

yes, I would have guessed the Saudis or MLS im the US would have snapped him up

Crystal Palace seek £70m for Tottenham target Marc Guehi with Real Madrid also showing interest Crystal Palace could see Marc Guehi depart the club this summer as several clubs, which includes Tottenham, have an eye on the England international. The centre-back started for the Three Lions at Euro 2024 this summer and was one of the only players within Gareth Southgate’s squad that came away from the tournament with credit in the bank. The Crystal Palace star put in some brilliant performances for England and it is even more impressive considering he missed a lot of the 2023/24 campaign through injury. Guehi has attracted the interest of several clubs over the past year and according to Sky Sports, they include Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, Newcastle, and Tottenham. The Englishman has a contract at Selhurst Park until 2026 and therefore, Crystal Palace will seek £70m to part ways with their star defender during the current transfer window – similar to Everton’s valuation of Jarrad Branthwaite. The London club will not want to lose another one of their best players ahead of the new season having already lost Michael Olise to Bayern Munich, which could make obtaining Guehi very difficult for interested parties. Do Tottenham need Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi? Guehi has been with Crystal Palace since moving from Chelsea in 2021 and has developed into one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League. It is not hard to see why clubs such as Tottenham are interested in the England international but do Spurs really need the player? Ange Postecoglou plays with only two central defenders and the Aussie coach already has Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero as his starters. Spurs even have a solid backup in Radu Dragusin. £70m is a lot to pay for Guehi if he is going to be rotated and the England star will not want that role. It is hard to see the defender making a move to North London this summer but many other clubs are showing an interest in the 24-year-old, as it remains to be seen if Crystal Palace are open to letting him go.

that de Gea tweet got 3.6 million views in 2.5 hours

Arsenal, Bologna and Riccardo Calafiori - why is it not done? https://thedailybriefing.io/i/146789202/arsenal-bologna-and-riccardo-calafiori-why-is-it-not-done For some time we've known that Arsenal are after Riccardo Calafiori, and while things looked like they were moving quickly at one stage, it's not over the line yet. Calafiori has an agreement with Arsenal, but the clubs have not yet reached an agreement. Basically, Bologna want want a fixed fee of €50m with bonuses on top of that. Arsenal want to do the deal for less money. They are currently suggesting a deal with a fixed fee of €45m with bonuses on top of that. One of the key things to consider is that Basel have a percentage of the deal coming their way, so Bologna have to give some of the money from the sale to Basel. Arsenal are trying to discount the percentage that would go to Basel, but the negotiations are not advancing at the moment, they're completely at a standstill right now. The player is on standby waiting for them to solve the issue. Let's see what comes of it.

yes, the wages are millions, but not crazy high at all (for top footballers) £113.5K PW base, with a possible additional max of £36.5K PW based off performance and results

For all the hate he gets, he is going to end up with a hell of a career likely will end up with over 400 total goals produced 20 plus trophies likely will have over 100 caps for one of the all-time great football powerhouse national teams atm has 12 goals at major European and World Cup finals and IF Spain win the World Ciup in 2026, he will have basically won every single big trophy (European and International) possible at club and Sr country level (the Olympics are not Sr team level) (some these multiple times): CL, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA World Club Championship, Europa League, Nations League, European Championship, and if they do it, the World Cup plus a a lot of league titles and domestic cups in multiple leagues also multiple European championships at jr youth level

bingo

Football’s silence over Argentina’s racist chanting is deafening and damning https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5643556/2024/07/17/argentina-chanting-football-silence/ The telling bit in the video of Enzo Fernandez and other Argentinian players singing a racist song about France following their victory in the Copa America final is the voice you can hear just at the end. “Corta (el) vivo,” someone says — “stop the live stream.” They know. They know what they’re saying. They know that what they’re saying is profoundly offensive, and they know what will happen if the outside world hears it. This isn’t one of those things that can be equivocated. It’s not something that can be denied. The words are clear, and we know the words because it’s a song that has been around for a couple of years. The words to the chant were: “They play for France, but their parents are from Angola. Their mother is from Cameroon, while their father is from Nigeria. But their passport says French.” The song in question came from a group of Argentina fans before the 2022 World Cup final, which was flagged at the time by French anti-racist protestors as an “expression of a far-right ideology”. GO DEEPER French Federation filing complaint over 'unacceptable racist' chants by Argentina players Frankly it’s bad enough that Argentina, presumably insulated from a PR perspective by their victory at the World Cup, didn’t seek to distance themselves more from the song, but the fact the players seem to have incorporated it into their celebrations is so much worse. If nothing else, it speaks to an unpleasant collective mentality and pervading culture that a group of players, at a moment of triumph, would choose this song as part of their celebrations. It’s also worth noting, without wishing to detract from the blatant racism, the transphobia that is at play here too. The full lyrics of the song make reference to French players being “cometravas, like Mbappe.” “Cometravas” is a slang term that essentially translates as “someone who has sex with transgender people”. Football in general has made positive steps to make the game more welcoming for LGBTQ+ people. Players who actively choose not to participate in anti-homophobia campaigns are thankfully few and far between, and those that do are often punished — like Monaco midfielder Mohamed Camara who, after covering up an anti-homophobia message on his shirt last season, was suspended for four games. Things like this song, however, do not help and in fact actively harm the effort to make football a more inclusive place. But if the song itself and the gleeful willingness of the players involved to sing it was not depressing enough, the aftermath has been almost as bad. Fernandez himself issued an apology of sorts, claiming that he got “caught up in the euphoria of our Copa America celebrations” and the song did not “reflect my character or beliefs”. He also said, rather laughably, that “I stand against discrimination in all forms”. Let’s just say that when he is inevitably forced to participate in some sort of anti-racism campaign in the weeks or months to come, his words will ring hollow. Chelsea themselves reacted in fairly responsible fashion, putting out a statement that set out their own position and values, saying they will use this as “an opportunity to educate” and that they have started an internal disciplinary procedure. It will be interesting to see what comes of that process, given that if Fernandez was a fan and was caught singing that song in the stands at Stamford Bridge, he would be looking at the ugly end of a fairly lengthy stadium ban. Beyond that though, things have been very quiet. Wesley Fofana, the French Chelsea defender, called it “uninhibited racism”. David Datro Fofana, the club’s Ivory Coast striker, put a statement on Instagram saying that “racism in all its forms should be condemned in the strongest possible terms” and that the fight against racism “needs to be taken seriously by everyone involved in the sport”. It’s the last bit that feels the most pertinent. Because aside from those two responses, plus a picture posted by Nicolas Jackson of Fernandez hugging a black child, the meaning of which is open to interpretation, there’s not been much else. Only black players have acknowledged the incident publicly so far. No white players have condemned the song. Perhaps some of Fofana’s white team-mates have offered private support, but as things stand there has been nothing beyond that. As will be depressingly familiar, it is the black players that have been left to do the emotional work, to carry the mental baggage of having to deal with a racist incident. It enforces the idea that racism is a problem only for black people, when it’s a blight that shames us all. It isolates the black players, suggesting that it’s not something that anyone else has to worry about. Imagine the power that would come from a white player standing up, unprompted, and condemning the song. It would provide a valuable symbol, but it would be more than just a surface-level thing. It would have genuine import. The clubs of the other players in the video have, at the time of writing, decided not to comment. It is, in fairness, a little tricky to definitively identify exactly who is singing in the video, but everyone seems to be trying their best to ignore the issue entirely. Perhaps we could give them the benefit of the doubt and say that, in time, they will speak to their Argentinian players and remind them of their responsibilities — not as footballers or representatives of a club, but as human beings. But at the moment it would seem that they are just hoping the whole thing goes away. Even if it is tough to identify the individuals doing the singing, anyone who sat in silence while such a racist song was being sung probably could do with at least a talking-to. Surely the least we can expect from the clubs is for them to acknowledge the incident, that they will investigate and if it is found that any of their players were involved, they would face the appropriate punishment. Chelsea are the only club to have said anything so far, not that we should necessarily be handing out extra credit for that: after all, they couldn’t possibly have avoided it. Elsewhere though, crickets. For all the glossy campaigns and well-intentioned initiatives and solemnly shot ‘No to racism’ UEFA videos, when so much of the game is silent at moments like this, the idea that football is serious about combating racism is very hard to take seriously.

Chelsea recall Lesley Ugochukwu from France Olympic squad https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5647244/2024/07/19/lesley-ugochukwu-Chelsea-france-olympics/ The French Football Federation (FFF) says Chelsea have recalled Lesley Ugochukwu from his participation with the France Olympic squad. Ugochukwu was named in Thierry Henry’s preliminary selection for the under-23 tournament in his home country in June but missed out on a place in the condensed 18-man squad earlier this month. However, Olympic football rules allow teams to take up to four replacements that can come in for any injured players in the initial selection at any time during the tournament, and then return to replacement status if the player returns to fitness. U.S. women’s head coach Emma Hayes said last week she sees it as a 22-player squad. As the Olympics is not a tournament within a FIFA window, club sides are allowed to block their players from participating. Ugochukwu joined Chelsea from Rennes for around £23.5million ($30.3m) last summer. The 19-year-old featured regularly as a rotation option in the first half of the season but suffered a hamstring injury that saw him miss most of the second half of the campaign, ending with 15 appearances across competitions. The Athletic reported earlier this month that Chelsea were reviewing loan options for Ugochukwu, with the club’s priority that the midfielder spends the season at another Premier League team. Chelsea have been back in training since July 4 and are due to head to the U.S. for a pre-season tour on Monday, where they will face Wrexham, Celtic, Club America, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Inter Milan. Henry’s France side, meanwhile, have been drawn in Group A alongside the U.S., Guinea and New Zealand. The Athletic has contacted Chelsea for comment. GO DEEPER Why clubs are denying players a place at Olympic Games - and why it is allowed

Patrick Vieira leaves BlueCo-owned Strasbourg by mutual consent https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5645228/2024/07/18/patrick-vieira-strasbourg-Chelsea-blueco/ BlueCo, the multi-club ownership group best known for its ownership of Chelsea, has today made a managerial change at its French club Strasbourg, parting company with head coach Patrick Vieira by mutual consent. Vieira, a legendary player in the English Premier League with Arsenal and 107-cap midfielder for the France national team, signed a three-year contract to coach Strasbourg in his homeland last July. However, the French top-flight club have now undertaken a review of the team’s performance during his first campaign and decided to hire a new head coach, which is also the fate that befell Chelsea coach Mauricio Pochettino after one year in the job in west London. Strasbourg are now seeking a new coach to adopt their preferred possession-based and positional play approach to football, rather than a more conservative approach favoured by Vieira at times during his single season in charge. Strasbourg ended the 2023-24 campaign in 13th place in the 18-team Ligue 1, ten points clear of the relegation zone but eleven points short of European qualification places. Among the fifteen teams who were not relegated, Strasbourg had the second-worst goal difference in the division and only four teams across the league failed to score more than Strasbourg’s 38 goals. BlueCo, a consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Toddy Boehly, paid €76.3million (£65.2m; $81.7m) for a 99.97 per cent stake in the French club in June 2023. BlueCo described it as a “strategic investment” to “further our presence in European football alongside our ownership of Chelsea” and “create huge opportunities to share knowledge and expertise”. The club recently hired Pascal De Maesschalck as their new technical director, with the Belgian a former colleague of Chelsea’s co-sporting director Laurence Stewart, having worked as AS Monaco’s director of youth development when Stewart was technical director of the principality club. De Maessschalk, who arrived last month, was a key part of the season review that has culminated in Vieira leaving the club, along with the club’s board. GO DEEPER Chelsea may have spent £1bn - but how much of that have they seen on the pitch? Strasbourg president Marc Keller has been at the helm since 2012, helping the team recover from severe financial problems and demotion to the fifth tier of the French football pyramid to establishing themselves in Ligue 1 since promotion in 2017. This coming season will be their eighth successive campaign in the top flight. Based in eastern France near the borders with Germany and Switzerland, they won the French League Cup in 2019 and finished sixth in 2021-22. Last summer, Strasbourg spent around €60m on players aged 21 or below, in a move for young talent that resembles the approach at Chelsea, although the existing leadership at the French side were also aligned with the aim of lowering the age of the squad. Abakar Sylla joined from Club Bruges for a club-record €20m (plus €2m in potential add-ons). Emanuel Emegha arrived from Sturm Graz for €12m. Saidou Sow was bought from Saint-Etienne for around €4m, while Dilane Bakwa and Junior Mwanga were acquired from Bordeaux for a combined €20m. Those five players are either 20 or 21 years old. They also took Brazilian pair Andrey Santos and Angelo, aged 20 and 19, on loan from parent club Chelsea. There were also substantial sales during the season, including forward Habib Diallo to Saudi Arabian club Al Shabab and goalkeeper Matz Sels to Nottingham Forest. Teething problems made for a challenging campaign. Between Christmas and the end of the season, Strasbourg won only four of 17 games and during this time, banners emerged protesting against the club’s multi-club ownership model. GO DEEPER Chelsea, Strasbourg, BlueCo and a multi-club model yet to convince a sceptical fanbase Vieira would likely argue he required more time and additional recruitment to develop his team in his image but Strasbourg have aspirations of European qualification during this coming season and felt a change was necessary. Strasbourg are planning to invest significantly once more and have already spent over €5m on winger Oscar Perea, an 18-year-old from Colombian side Atletico Nacional. Strasbourg are able to benefit in their multi-club ownership model from sharing data and recruitment knowledge and information with Chelsea, while the English club can also use the French side as a landing spot to develop its younger talent. Yet BlueCo sources insist they are eager for Strasbourg to stand competitively on their own two feet, breaking into the clutch of clubs behind Paris Saint-Germain who compete regularly for European positions in the French league, which means rivalling teams such as Lens, Brest, Lyon, Monaco, Nice and Lille for those key qualification spots that can unlock the revenue potential from UEFA competitions and also provide greater challenges for any players who may be developed either for Chelsea or broader resale value. BlueCo sources say that they are also contributing significant sums to the renovation of the club’s Stade de la Meinau stadium. The ground is owned by the Strasbourg municipality and is undergoing a renovation to bring the capacity of the stadium from 26,282 to circa 32,000. The BlueCo decision to cut ties with Vieira and double down on the investment comes at a significant moment in French football, when Ligue 1 has been struggling to sell its domestic television rights deal and Strasbourg’s divisional rivals are afflicted by financial difficulties. The LFP has been trying to sort its TV deal — for the rights to show Ligue 1 matches from 2024 to 2029 — since October, when an ambitious auction looking to bring in €1billion (£840m; $1.1bn at the current rates) per year was scrapped because there were no takers. At that time, LFP president Vincent Labrune wished to spark a bidding war involving current broadcast partners Amazon Prime and Canal+, as well as Qatar-based beIN Sports, British sports streamer DAZN and potentially U.S. media giant Apple. Yet no offer came and so Labrune was forced to go back to the drawing board. GO DEEPER 'We must hope for a miracle': How a failed TV deal has put Ligue 1 in crisis mode The delays ran into this summer, leaving clubs fearing firesales, administrations or bankruptcies. But this week AFP reported that a deal with beIN Sports and DAZN was close, worth around €500 million annually for domestic broadcast rights, while international rights would bring in a further €160m. The deal, however, is still to be finalised as some quibbling continues over the length of the agreement. Ligue 1’s TV income is dwarfed by the Premier League — which agreed a £6.7billion domestic TV rights deal with Sky and TNT Sports in December to show matches for the next four seasons, working out at £1.68bn ($2.17bn/€2bn a year) — but is also behind the German Bundesliga’s domestic broadcast income (€1.1bn a year), Spain’s La Liga (€990m a year) and Serie A in Italy (€900m a year). The shortfall in TV income, if this deal materialises, is around 35 per cent down relative to expectations originally set out by LFP and 20 per cent, is likely to tighten belts and cause financial headaches across French football. Fenway Sports Group, the owners of Liverpool, withdrew over the past week from their previously advanced discussions to acquire the French second-division side Bordeaux, who are in significant financial turmoil. BlueCo and Strasbourg, however, sense an opportunity to double down on their investment and break consistently into European positions. Whoever is chosen to replace Vieira, therefore, will need to meet expectations.

Chelsea and the Enzo Fernandez fallout: Anger, apologies and investigations https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5644814/2024/07/18/Chelsea-enzo-fernandez-song-fallout/ Enzo Fernandez is expected to join up with his Chelsea team-mates on the pre-season tour of the U.S. later this month — and only then will the club find out just how well the apology over his behaviour has been received. New head coach Enzo Maresca has been working at the training ground for only a couple of weeks and is already having to cope with the first significant test of his man-management skills. Welcome to Chelsea, indeed. As one source close to a senior player, speaking anonymously to The Athletic to protect relationships, explained, before Fernandez’s live stream, the start of Maresca’s regime could not have gone much better. Members of the squad who were not involved in the international tournaments began reporting for duty on July 4 and the feedback from the Italian’s sessions had been very positive. The mood has been good. That is until Fernandez live-streamed a video of him and some of his Argentina teammates singing what the French Football Federation (FFF) has labelled a ‘racist and discriminatory song’ following Argentina’s Copa America final win over Colombia on Sunday night. The FFF says it plans to lodge a legal complaint with FIFA and understandably so. The lyrics are offensive, mocking the background of French players and with an element of transphobia for good measure too. GO DEEPER Football’s silence over Argentina’s racist chanting is deafening and damning The clip went viral for all the wrong reasons and anger was not just expressed by the FFF. Fernandez’s actions were viewed by his Chelsea colleagues and the reaction was bad. “Many people were really angry,” one person close to a senior player says. “They were asking, ‘Why would he do that?’ “There has always been a strong togetherness in the squad and the club just needed the right coach to make it work. But this incident has changed that. It will be interesting to see what happens when Fernandez goes back to the club.” Another individual familiar with the team environment described the situation as being even more dire, that the camp had initially been “fractured”. An indication of the upset caused came on Tuesday when Chelsea’s French players unfollowed Fernandez en masse on Instagram. One player, defender Wesley Fofana, then posted a clip of Fernandez’s video on X with the caption ‘Football in 2024: uninhibited racism’. Fofana’s account was then subject to a flood of racist abuse. Chelsea promised to investigate the incident on Tuesday afternoon, part of which included establishing the video was genuine. Fernandez is on holiday post-Copa America so was not with the club (and therefore could not immediately be spoken to in person) but by late Tuesday night UK time, he issued a statement of contrition. “I want to apologise for a video posted on my Instagram channel during the national team celebrations,” he wrote. “The song includes highly offensive language and there is absolutely no excuse for these words. I stand against discrimination in all forms and apologise for getting caught up in the euphoria of our Copa America celebrations. That video, that moment, those words, do not reflect my beliefs or my character. I am truly sorry.” On Wednesday morning UK time, Chelsea released a statement of their own. “Chelsea Football Club finds all forms of discriminatory behaviour completely unacceptable. We are proud to be a diverse, inclusive club where people from all cultures, communities and identities feel welcome. “We acknowledge and appreciate our player’s public apology and will use this as an opportunity to educate. The club has instigated an internal disciplinary procedure.” Fernandez has since reached out to all his team-mates to express his remorse for what he has done. Chelsea’s Senegal international Nicolas Jackson also posted on his Instagram account a picture displaying two images of Fernandez. One was a picture of him sitting with the midfielder, the other was a short clip of the 23-year-old engaging with a junior black supporter in the past. He titled it ‘Enzo Fernandez and this young fan’. The post has since been deleted. Perhaps an indication that things have not moved on quite as simply as Chelsea may have hoped was provided by striker David Datro Fofana following Wesley Fofana in expressing his dismay at the events on Wednesday afternoon. “The football that I like is multi-ethnic,” he wrote on his Instagram account. “Racism in all its forms should be condemned in the strongest possible term. These acts have no place in football or even anywhere else. This fight really needs to be taken seriously by everyone involved in this sport.” So what happens now? Fernandez’s vacation could help take the heat out of the situation for the time being but the issue will surely come to the fore again if, as expected, he flies to the U.S. to join up with the Chelsea squad, who depart for the pre-season tour on Monday, the following week. One person familiar with the team environment told The Athletic that they feel some kind of mediation will still have to take place. Fernandez, who cost £106million ($135m) when he joined from Benfica 18 months ago and is contracted until 2032, is clearly regarded as one of Chelsea’s key players. But his actions have also created an issue for Maresca, who has yet to talk to the media since taking charge. Inevitably the Italian will have questions to answer about it for the foreseeable future and the player’s bond with his colleagues, let alone his form, will now be under more scrutiny than ever.

fucking cunts not the profile they want as in one of the best shot blockers and aerial keepers on the planet noooooooooo cant have that instead they want some clown who will commit howlers for fun we have been fucked at keeper for years, ever since Cuntois fucked off other than one year wonder and then back to the clown car Mendy so sick of this SHIT

sex pest In October 2021, a 22-year old woman filed a legal complaint against Wahi for violence that resulted in her being incapable to work. She claimed that he had punched her in the nose during an evening out at the L'Entrepôt nightclub in Lattes, Hérault, on the night of 12–13 September a month earlier.[21] In November 2021, investigative reporter Romain Molina revealed an allegation that Wahi had been expelled from Caen's youth academy for pressuring secondary school students to masturbate in front of him in the bathrooms.

fuck that shit our scouts can fuck the fuck off if that is true fuck them fuck this rumour fuck everything