Manchester City head into one of the biggest weeks in their recent history, knowing their reputation, their Champions League place and, possibly, the make-up of their squad are on the line.
On Monday, their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) against their two-year ban from European club competition begins.
On 14 February, Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) banned City and fined the club 30m euros (£25m) after ruling it had committed “serious breaches” of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations between 2012 and 2016.
The CFCB also said City had failed to cooperate with the investigation.
City immediately signaled their intention to appeal to CAS. They believe the CFCB was not independent and ended up being distrustful of it, partly due to the amount of secretive information the club felt was leaked to the media.
They are adamant that what they consider an independent judiciary will clear them.
The appeal will be heard by three CAS lawyers, held in private on video conference and last for three days. A verdict is not expected until later this summer.
Unless the club are successful, they will not be able to participate in Europe’s flagship competition next season and will be prevented from playing in the annual Uefa Super Cup if they won this season’s delayed Champions League.
For European football’s governing body Uefa, the outcome also holds huge significance.
La Liga president Javier Tebas, who in the past has accused City and Paris St-Germain of financial doping, is adamant FFP rules must be upheld across the game despite the financial fall-out from Covid-19.
Sources have it that if the current verdict is not upheld, Uefa’s FFP model will be wrecked.
UEFA open the door to Ligue 1 U-turn and season could now finish with play-offs before August 2 despite PSG already being crowned champions when season was ended in April
France’s Ligue 1 season could resume in August despite being ended in April
Paris Saint-Germain were crowned champions on a points-per-game basis
But UEFA have opened the door for a possible restart with a play-off system
Amiens and Toulouse vowed to take their case to the courts after relegation
France’s Ligue 1 season could resume despite being prematurely ended in April with play-offs used to crown the champions and decide relegation, UEFA have said.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced the cancellation of all sporting events at the end of April and the table was decided on a points-per-game basis with Paris Saint-Germain winning the title.
But following the successful return of the German Bundesliga, the Premier League, LaLiga and Serie A have all confirmed their competitions will resume, indicating France may have been hasty to call a halt to their campaign.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has now opened the door for a possible restart to the season after several clubs threatened legal action.
Ceferin wrote in an official UEFA communication on Friday: ‘We would first of all like to clarify that it is the competence of national associations to decide on the format of their domestic competitions, in particular by taking into account the circumstances and restrictive measures specific to the country.
‘As mentioned by UEFA a few weeks ago, the French authorities’ decision to cancel the season was taken relatively early.
‘Nevertheless, and provided that the national associations are able to coordinate with the competent national authorities a potential restart of domestic competition, August 2, 2020, would be an appropriate date to end the domestic competitions.’
Seventh placed Lyon missed out on European football for the first time since 1996 while Marseille and Rennes both qualified for the Champions League.
Club president Jean Michel Aulas outlined his intention to sue the French state in order to get the season restarted.
Marseille were second, 12 points behind PSG while Rennes finished third and qualified for Europe’s elite tournament for the first time in their history.
Lyon joined relegated Amiens and Toulouse who have vowed to fight their case in the courts.
The German top flight resumed on May 18 and Spain’s LaLiga will be the next league to restart their season with the Sevilla derby kicking things off on June 12.
The Premier League begins again on June 17 with Serie A resuming three days later.
France followed in the footsteps of Holland and Belgium by taking an early decision to cancel their season. Dutch Eredivisie bosses decided there would be no promotion or relegation with Ajax and AZ Alkmaar being denied the title.
However, in Belgian Pro League, leaders Club Brugge were crowned champions while Charleroi, Antwerp, Standard Liege qualified for the Champions League as Waasland-Beveren were relegated.
PSG defeated Borussia Dortmund in the last 16 while Lyon have a 1-0 lead over Juventus with the second leg still to be played.
Despite being awarded the title, PSG forward Angel Di Maria admitted he was surprised Ligue 1 did not take the same approach as Germany, Spain England and Italy in waiting to see if they could resume matches.
He told L’Equipe: ‘Like many, I think we rushed to make such a decision. From what we can see, France is today one of the countries where the health situation is the most favourable, and yet everything has been totally stopped for good.’
They suspect Tokyo’s bidding committee bribed the Diacks in 2013 to secure votes, which the committee has denied.
Sebastian Coe, Diack’s successor, has undertaken to rebuild trust in athletics and has introduced changes to the sport’s governance.
Lamine Diack, the disgraced former head of athletics’ governing body, goes on trial in Paris on Monday (June 8) on charges of corruption and money laundering linked to a Russian doping scandal.
Prosecutors allege he solicited €3.45 million (S$5.43 million) from athletes suspected of doping to cover up the allegations and allow them to continue competing, including in the 2012 London Olympics
Diack, who turned 87 on Sunday, has denied wrongdoing. His lawyers have said the accusations are baseless.
Diack, from Senegal, led the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now renamed World Athletics, from 1999-2015 and was among the most influential men in the world sport. He lives under house arrest in Paris and faces a jail sentence of up to 10 years if convicted.
The trial had been due to start in January but was postponed after new documents containing testimony from his son and co-defendant, Papa Massata Diack, were submitted to the court.
Senegal has refused to extradite Papa Massata, who worked as a marketing consultant for the IAAF. The younger Diack also faces charges of money laundering, corruption and breach of trust, according to the indictment, and will be tried in absentia.
The other defendants are Habib Cisse, Diack’s former lawyer at the IAAF; Gabriel Dolle, who oversaw doping tests at the IAAF; and Russians Valentin Balakhnitchev and Alexei Melnikov, who were Russia’s athletics’ federation chief and head athletics coach respectively at the time of the alleged cover-up.
Investigators at the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) describe a web of corruption in world athletics under Diack’s leadership.
In a separate case, French prosecutors are investigating alleged bribes related to the Olympics and World Athletics Championships.
Ford Kenya Party leader Moses Wetangula’s ouster from the party has been officially confirmed – By Gerald Gekara.
A gazette notice published by the Registrar of Political Parties, Anne Nderitu, indicated that Wetangula has been replaced by Athanas Wafula Wamunyinyi.
“ In exercise of the powers conferred by section 20(1)(c) of the Parties Act,2011, the Registar of Political Parties gives notice of the Ford Kenya Party intends to change its party officials,” the statement mentioned.
The notice also confirmed the replacement of the National Organizing Secretary Chris Mandu Mandu with Josephine Maungu.
However, the Ann Nderitu has given a seven day grace period for the angered leader to appeal the decision.
“Any person with written submissions concerning the intended change by the political party, shall within seven days from the date herein, deposit them with the Registrar of Political Parties” Ann Nderitu said.
Wamunyinyi led a presser to announce the removal of the party leader, endorsed by party members, who accused Wetangula of bad leadership. Wetangula dismissed the meeting, claiming that the party leaders convened the meeting illegaly.
Accompanied by Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi, Wetangula called out the rival faction, led by COTU secretary General Francis Atwoli and Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya, for disrupting ‘Luhya unity’.
Embattled Chief Justice David Maraga once again called out his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta, urging him to appoint 41 judges, whose names were presented to him – By Gerald Gekara
CJ Maraga pointed an accusing finger at the President, for ignoring court orders and summons, a trend he says, would jeopardize implementation of the law.
“The President’s disregard of court orders doesn’t board well for our constitutional democracy & is potentially a recipe for anarchy; the Executive routinely disregards court orders.”
Maraga further stepped on the Uhuru’s toes condemning them of disregarding court orders to stop demolitions in Kariobangi and Ruai, among other places, during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
“The executive disregards court orders. Despite existing orders, the president displaced thousands of people, during the Covid-19 containment period” Added Maraga.
Maraga said that the government failed to provide evidence on the alleged misconduct of 41 nominees, who were earlier rejected on basis of ‘controversial evidence’.
” I Have challenged the executive to table the information on lack of integrity it has against some of the nominees. Some of the people nominated serve as judges, and if it were true, these individuals should not be serving as judges.” Maraga claimed.
He also accused Uhuru executive for neglected to settle 1 Billion shillings in court degrees issued against the government.
Relations between the two arms of government have continued to strain, with the Chief Justice seeming to lead more press conferences than actual court duties. Maraga recently trashed the presidential directive that implied that the Judiciary Service Commission was under the executive, hoping it was ‘an error in typing’.
Many well meaning education benefactorsand commentators in South Africa have expressed that in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic online self-guided learning could solve some of the current teaching problems and address the educational backlog. What learners need, the reasoning goes, is to get free internet access to educational support materials on offer online.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, self-guided online learning is doomed to fail. Research shows an exceptionally high drop-out rate – even in developed countries. Learners simply have no incentive to keep at their studies without peer pressure, a teacher at hand or a structured learning environment.
In South Africa in particular, with socio-economic disparities and related problems, the drop-out rate would be even higher. More so in key subjects like mathematics and physical science where prior knowledge, conceptual understanding and self-motivation to succeed are critical.
The only answer, in the country’s unequal teaching environment, is a customised version of blended learning. Blended learning integrates computer-assisted online activities with traditional face-to-face teaching (chalk-and-talk).
When used by a trained teacher, this approach can add valuable new dimensions to the learning process. It can allow learners to work at their own pace and teachers to fill content gaps.
Blended learning in South Africa
In many developed countries, blended learning is a well-established practice. It has enabled these countries to adapt to the demands of the current pandemic. Digital remote learning and teaching is backed up by dependable infrastructure and skilled, motivated teachers.
By contrast, the differences between South African schools have been thrown into sharp relief. The binary system of a privileged minority of schools and the rest remains, despite the political changes more than 25 years ago.
More than 80% of public schools are under-resourced. They are ill-equipped to respond to the teaching and learning challenges of the 21st century – let alone the latest demands of the pandemic.
The current lockdown has suddenly compelled teachers to adopt predominantly online, blended learning teaching practices. But nearly 90% of all households in South Africa are still without access to the internet at home. Very few schools had adapted to blended learning before lockdown and few schools would be able to adopt it during the lockdown. Therefore the schools that had fewer resources and skills will fall even further behind.
This is especially disappointing since the current cohort of pupils (born after 2000) have long expressed their preference for a blended learning model. Even the recent recognition by the South African government that science, technology, engineering and mathematics are important in the Fourth Industrial Revolution has had little effect on the skills development of teachers, infrastructure or modernisation of resources in schools.
Therefore, in the South African context, mainstream blended learning is not the complete answer. We need to go beyond blended learning.
The bad news is that there’s no way to make the teaching and learning of maths and science easy. But we’ve developed a number of interventions that have lifted the twin burdens of poor training and lack of infrastructure from the shoulders of teachers. Skills development linked to the use of user-friendly and interactive digital resources has allowed teachers to focus on attaining a high quality of teaching with subsequent learning successes.
Over the past decade, the centre has experimented with various combinations of online and offline self-directed teaching methods. It has worked specifically on blended learning for mathematics and physical sciences in secondary schools.
The greatest success has been a blended learning system that uses a combination of online and offline interactive resources with pre-installed apps that are aligned with the South African school curriculum. These can be used as a guide for teaching, home-schooling, after-school study and tutoring. We call it techno-blended learning: a structured approach, using mostly offline apps in an integrated way, with the full participation of a trained or experienced adult mentor or guide.
One of the centre’s more recent interventions is a mini personal computer called the GammaTutor™. This’s an offline device pre-loaded with interactive learning material. These resources have been specifically designed for South African school conditions.
The GammaTutor: a tutor in your pocket.
The GammaTutor™ software package is primarily intended for teachers: when plugged into any data projector, a TV or digital screen, it doubles as a flexible maths and science teaching assistant in the classroom and a learner support resource for after school hours. It fits in the palm of a hand, requires no data and is navigated by the click of a mouse. Its small size makes the device easy to keep safe and to take where it’s needed.
What needs to be done
It’s well known that major educational challenges exist in schools as a result of the country’s multi-language society – particularly in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The GammaTutor™ application offers mathematics concept explanations in eight indigenous languages.
The device covers the full curriculum for high school maths and physical sciences, presented in video, PDF or animated PowerPoint format – along with glossaries, exam revision support, translations from English into indigenous languages and many additional teaching support materials. It can be used for interactive teaching online and remotely.
The response from teachers, learners and stakeholders to this approach of teaching and learning has been overwhelmingly positive. Where these interventions have been applied, in pilot schools in the Eastern Cape province, the results have been gratifying. Marks have improved significantly and successful learners have been able to progress to university.
The new urgency for remote teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for the country to adopt policies to accelerate blending learning practices among teachers and learners. The Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre offers lessons learned through more than a decade of research.
Liverpool have enquired about Wolves’ Spanish winger Adama Traore, 24. (Sunday Mirror)
Real Madrid have made an 80m euro (£71m) bid for Bayer Leverkusen’s Kai Havertz and would allow the 20-year-old Germany midfielder to stay at his current club next season before moving to the Bernabeu. (ESPN via Bild)
Aston Villa and England midfielder Jack Grealish, 24, has pushed ahead of international team-mate and Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho, 20, as Manchester United’s number one summer transfer target. (Sunday Mirror)
Chelsea will listen to offers for several players following the expected arrivals of Morocco winger Hakim Ziyech, 27, from Ajax and Germany striker Timo Werner, 24, from RB Leipzig this summer. (Daily Star Sunday)
Red Bull Leipzig chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff has denied Chelsea have met Werner’s £53m release clause, saying no club has “sent us a transfer contract”. (Sky Sports Germany via Metro)
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has described Havertz and Werner as “great” players but said the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic complicated a possible signing. (Sky Sports)
Barcelona have opened new contract talks with captain and Argentina forward Lionel Messi, 32, and Germany goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, 28. (Mundo Deportivo – in Spanish)
Manchester United could offer Wales winger Daniel James, 22, a new deal – before loaning him out next season. (Sun on Sunday)
Manchester United and Chelsea target Federico Chiesa has been told he can leave Fiorentina. The club’s owner says the 22-year-old Italy winger can leave “for the figure we set”. (Football Italia)
Everton are leading the race to sign 25-year-old Juventus and France midfielder Adrien Rabiot, who was given his debut at former club Paris St-Germain by Toffees boss Carlo Ancelotti in 2012. (Tuttosport via Mail on Sunday)
Chelsea face competition from at least seven clubs in their attempt to sign England left-back Ben Chilwell from Leicester, who are under no pressure to sell the 23-year-old. (Sunday Mirror)
West Ham are the front runners to sign Chelsea and Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi, 26. (Sunday Express)
Arsenal and Wolves are interested in 25-year-old Italy defender Daniele Rugani, who has struggled for first-team football at Juventus under manager Maurizio Sarri.(Tuttosport via Mail on Sunday)
Wolves are lining up a move to sign Paris St-Germain and Senegal’s 30-year-old midfielder Idrissa Gueye. (Sunday Express)
Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman turned down the chance to manage Barcelona in January to keep his word to the Netherlands national team. (AS)
Bournemouth will make a £5m move for Porto B’s Portuguese midfielder Fabio Vieira, 20. (Sun on Sunday)
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has announced Kenya’s largest case load reported in one day, at 167. This brings the country’s total to 2,767 positive cases – By Gerald Gekara.
This is out of 2883 tests carried out today, raising Kenya’s total testing tally to 97,340 samples.
With 40 cases today, Nairobi leads in terms of new cases, with 21 cases recorded in Westlands, Embakasi South & Kibra (6), Embakasi West (5). Kamukunji & Langata (4) and Kasarani had 3. Makadara & Dagoretti North had 2 cases each and Embakasi East, recorded one case.
Mombasa recorded 47 cases in; Mvita, 14, Jomvu, 11, Kisauni, 7, Changamwe 6, Nyali 6 , and Likoni 3.
All the 28 cases in Busia, are truckdrivers, while in Kiambu, 14 cases were reported in Kikuyu, Thika, Kiambu town, Juja and Gatundu.
One person has also died from coronavirus, raising Kenya’s total to 84 deaths. However, 46 people have been reported to have recovered. The number of people turning out negative has so far reached 752.
CS Kagwe took a swipe at bar owners and restaurant managers of opening up, saying their licenses could be revoked.
“We have noted a rise in sell of alcohol and we are directing those doing it must follow the guidelines, we have issued. Alcohol selling facilities should note that the ban has not been lifted and we urge them to adhere to the directives”, CS Mutahi Kagwe.
A Sh40 billion Soin-Koru multipurpose dam is in schedule to be constructed, after the completion of the feasibility studies – By Gerald Gekara.
The project has been lauded as the solution to historic flooding along River Nyando, and aid supply water for irrigation, and hydroelectricity.
Pre-bidding and a visit to the project site is supposed to take place on June 22.
Work on the project will be supervised by Kenyan contractors, while international companies have been invited to bid for construction.
Kisumu County Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o said the project will provide a long-term solution to the flooding and provide clean water to residents.
National Water Harvesting And Storage Authority director Bernard Okebe has been leading meetings in Kisumu to discuss compensation of those to be displaced, among other details about the project.
Mr Okebe expressed confidence that the project will end perennial flooding in the Nyando and Muhoroni areas.
The dam was initially planned in the 1980s. The dam will be stationed 5 km upstream river Nyando from Muhoroni town. The project will have a treatment plant of 35.5m cubic metres.
Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops(KCCB) has pointed an accusing finger to politicians over clashes in Narok and demanded an end to the skirmishes – By Enock Mukoma
The clashes, that have so far claimed 8 lives could have been avoided and the bishops are demanding that politicians take responsibility for the needless loss of life. The Bishops said it is the responsibility of leaders- at County and national level to ensure harmonious existence.
“We condemn this needless loss of innocent lives. It must never have been allowed to happen in the first place”, the Pastoral Letter by the Bishops said.
At the same time, the bishops have urged parents to take over the role if family spiritual leaders during the Covid 19 crisis.
Bishop Wambua said the Catholic church will support Government efforts to flatten the Covid-19 curve and urged Kenyans to uphold directives issued by the Catholic Church.
“The family unit must stand up and minimize the effects of Covid 19. The family is the first point of call in management of state, spiritual and social affairs”, he said. KCCB noted the pandemic has precipitated violence in the family and said the family unit must live the love of God.
The Bishops called for an end to divisive politics, adding that peace must be allowed to prevail.
