Football Weekly Extra: Bridge waves World Cup goodbye
Sean Ingle, Paul Doyle and Raphael Honigstein join James Richardson to talk about the midweek’s action.
As Wayne Bridge calls time on his England career, the pod ponder his reasons and consider how missing Ashley Cole and Wayne Bridge will affect England in South Africa. Could the excellent form of Leighton Baines ease Fabio Capello’s pain?
There’s Champions League chat, with the pod discussing Inter beating Chelsea and Stuttgart holding Barcelona. With three Spanish sides all failing to win, Dr Sid Lowe is on the phone with the press reaction and news of Jermaine Pennant too.
Elsewhere, there’s a preview of the weekend’s fixtures including Chelsea v Man City and the Carling Cup final; Jamie Jackson on the phone with the latest in the Portsmouth saga; Sean Ingle analyses Clarke Carlisle’s arithmetic performance on Countdown; and there’s also the winner of the worst dressed manager competition. Oh, and a bit of Courtney Love too.
Have a listen and post your feedback on the blog below – but please be pleasant as we’ve had a few complaints about comments below the line. For more, we’re also on iTunes, Facebook, and Twitter, and if you enjoy this type of thing, get your daily dose of fooball with our tea-time email, The Fiver.
Will tabloid gossip about players affect England’s 2018 World Cup bid?
Is the constant drip-drip of rumour surrounding players like John Terry and Ashley Cole scuppering England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup?
Cole ready to go to war with Chelsea
• ‘Victimised’ full-back will fight disciplinary action
• Ashley Cole may consider leaving Stamford Bridge
Ashley Cole intends to fight any disciplinary action taken against him by Chelsea over allegations about his off-field behaviour. The left-back believes he is being victimised by the club, which has summoned him to a meeting this week with the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, and may consider leaving Stamford Bridge.
Cole could face sanctions up to and including the possibility of being transfer-listed, although a hefty fine is a more likely punishment following allegations about extramarital relationships. He is said to feel he is being unfairly singled out after no action was taken against Chelsea’s captain, John Terry, for an alleged affair with the former partner of Wayne Bridge which cost the central defender the England armband.
There are indications that Cole is so incensed at the prospect of being punished that he could look to leave Chelsea in the summer. He is expected to make his feelings known to Gourlay when they meet, most likely on Thursday or Friday rather than before tomorrow’s Champions League game at Internazionale, which Cole will miss because of injury.
Terry has received public support from the manager, Carlo Ancelotti, and was given time off to travel to Dubai to try to patch up his marriage, missing an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Cardiff City. Chelsea feel there is a difference, though, with Cole’s alleged indiscretions, which are said to have occurred while away on official club business.
Ann Corbitt, the latest woman with whom Cole has been linked, is said to have been transported back to the team hotel on a pre-season tour of the United States in the official bus. Another woman told how an aide in an official tracksuit had escorted her to Cole’s hotel bedroom.
Chelsea’s decision to call Cole to account comes after Gourlay warned the squad last week – at the prompting of the owner, Roman Abramovich – that any further controversies which tarnish the club’s reputation would not be tolerated and would bring severe disciplinary action. Cole’s alleged indiscretions were subsequently reported in Sunday’s newspapers.
If Cole goes as far as to seek a move from Stamford Bridge, there is likely to be interest from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Inter among others. He joined Chelsea in 2006 after falling out with the hierarchy at Arsenal, where he felt undervalued.
Chelsea pull plug on player power | Owen Gibson
Tabloid stories about John Terry and Ashley Cole have encouraged Roman Abramovich to act
The Stamford Bridge hierarchy have become used in recent weeks to fearing late‑night calls detailing lurid off-field allegations involving their biggest names, followed the next morning by the thud of the tabloids on the doormat. The latest round of headlines concerning the alleged nocturnal antics of Ashley Cole while on a club tour of the United States have reinforced the belief of the owner, Roman Abramovich, and his manager, Carlo Ancelotti, that they must call time on the culture of player power that has helped propel the club through the most successful and yet most turbulent period in its history.
Even as the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, who last year replaced Peter Kenyon at Stamford Bridge, was last Wednesday reading the riot act to players at the behest of Abramovich, tabloid editors were preparing a fresh series of revelations. The difficulty for the club is that the sentiments underpinning last week’s meeting, said to have left the players in no doubt about their responsibilities to the club, represent a challenge to the culture that has pervaded ever since José Mourinho walked through the door and elevated John Terry and Frank Lampard to senior positions in the dressing room.
A fast turnover of managers since then, combined with internal and external pressures and the need for instant success have left certain senior players in the ascendant. To a greater or lesser extent, the departures of Mourinho, Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari were all linked to the power of the players within the Chelsea dressing room. Terry, Lampard, Didier Drogba and other senior players appeared to have a direct line to the owner. Shortly before Scolari’s sacking, a delegation of senior players visited Abramovich to complain about his training methods.
It is telling that neither Manchester United or Arsenal, where a single managerial figure reigns supreme, have experienced problems to the same extent. Manchester City, a club being built using the Abramovich model, will be watching with interest.
It is one of several ironies surrounding Champions League clash against Internazionale at San Siro, a week after the internal meeting that could help define their season, that the man who will be standing in the Inter dugout both set that policy in train and, ultimately, suffered at its hands. A dressing-room ethos that has helped bring unprecedented success to Fulham Road in recent years, when underwritten by Abramovich’s billions, also began to sow the seeds of the current malaise.
Previously the club has been successful at using lawyers to head off stories that could have proved embarrassing. Now it appears that tactic has come back to bite them, with the advice offered in entirely good faith by the communications director, Steve Atkins, to Ann Corbitt, the latest woman with whom Cole has been linked, and intended to help her ward off the press, instead being reproduced in full in Sunday tabloids. Cole had assured Atkins that the story was not true.
During the forensic examination of Terry’s recent travails, the extent to which the player had become all-powerful within the Chelsea set-up was a much-discussed factor. Yet while the focus was on England rather than Chelsea, and the story did not appear to affect Terry’s performances on the pitch, the club was happy to maintain the line that it was a private matter.
The difference with Cole’s alleged indiscretions is that they have occurred while away on official club business. Corbitt is said to have been transported back to the team hotel on a pre-season tour of the US in the official bus. Another woman told how an aide in an official tracksuit had escorted her to Cole’s hotel bedroom.
While recognising that the club cannot pronounce on the morality of individual players, senior figures believe that the line between the personal and professional has been blurred and that immediate action is required. Staff who may over time have become loyal to long-serving players rather than their employer have also been sternly reminded that they are expected to report any breaches of its disciplinary code. Cole now faces an internal disciplinary process that contains sanctions up to and including the possibility of being transfer-listed. Not to mention further speculation about his marriage.
Ancelotti is believed to have been more involved in last week’s decision than has been reflected to date. While the manager previously maintained, under repeated questioning at the height of the Terry affair, that he is only concerned with what happens on the pitch, he too feels that the latest revelations have crossed a line.
There is a belief inside the club that all of those players present at last week’s briefing understood the gravity of the situation and recognise the need for a wholesale change in the culture. The owner has vowed to restore the balance of power to the manager’s office, beginning this week with Cole’s disciplinary procedure. Those on the outside may be more sceptical about whether it will be that simple, with some believing that Gourlay, acting on orders from Abramovich, has backed himself into a corner.
The danger now is that it has become open season on the private lives of Chelsea players, with the tabloids opening their chequebooks. And now that the club has set a precedent by taking retrospective action, it risks having to spend much of the rest of the season dealing with the fallout.
Ashley Cole could face heavy fine as Chelsea get tough on discipline
• Reports say full-back could face fine of up to £200,000
• Allegations surround club’s pre-season trip to US
Ashley Cole could face disciplinary action from Chelsea after newspaper allegations concerning his behaviour while on a pre-season tour of the United States last summer.
Reports suggest that the 29-year-old full-back could be handed a significant fine following allegations that he smuggled an American local government worker into his hotel room while the Chelsea squad were in Seattle last summer. He is also said to have lied to club officials as he attempted to cover his tracks.
Carlo Ancelotti, and Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay, warned last week that players could face ’severe disciplinary consequences’ should the type of lurid headlines that have plagued Cole and John Terry in recent weeks continue, and it is suggested that the latest revelations could lead to Cole being fined up to £200,000.
The stories in the weekend’s newspapers come after allegations last week that Cole took a secretary from Liverpool into team hotel prior to matches away to Hull City and West Brom last season.
Cole is currently out injured with a broken ankle.
Tips for Tiger Woods: When sports stars say sorry …
Tiger Woods is by no means the first sports star to have to face the cameras and deliver a mea culpa
Michael Phelps
The 14-times Olympic gold medallist made a public apology on American television in 2004 after being sentenced to 18 months probation for drink-driving, saying: “I made a mistake. Getting in a car with anything to drink is wrong, dangerous and unacceptable. I’m 19 but was taught no matter how old you are, you should always take responsibility for your actions, which I will do.” Five years later, post Beijing, images appeared in newspapers of the swimmer using marijuana and Phelps was again facing up to “regrettable behaviour” and “bad judgment”.
Kobe Bryant
The American NBA superstar made an emotional apology for engaging in sexual acts with 19-year-old Katelyn Faber in 2003. In tears, as his wife Vanessa sat by his side, he said: “I sit here in front of you guys furious at myself … disgusted at myself for making a mistake. I love my wife with all my heart. She’s my backbone, and a blessing. I’m so sorry that I put you through this … I sit here in front of you guys embarrassed and ashamed for committing adultery.” He was charged with sexual assault but charges were dropped; Faber filed a civil suit, which was settled – and Bryant delivered another apology.
Michael Vick
In the aftermath of being sentenced to jail for his involvement in an illegal dog fighting ring in 2007, the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback said: “I offer my deepest apologies to everybody out in there in the world who was affected by this whole situation. And if I’m more disappointed with myself than anything it’s because of all the young people, young kids that I’ve let down, who look at Michael Vick as a role model … And I will redeem myself. I have to.”
Hansie Cronje
In 2000, the former South Africa cricket captain broke down in tears, saying he was “bitterly sorry for what I have done and the pain I have caused” after the match-fixing scandal which saw him banned from cricket for life. He added: “There is no excuse and I have let the [United Cricket Board], the team, the fans and the game down.” He was killed in a plane crash in 2002.
Zinedine Zidane
One of the greatest footballers in history, the France midfielder retired in controversial fashion, helping his side to the 2006 World Cup final before being sent off in extra time for head-butting Italy’s Marco Materazzi. Zidane claimed Materazzi had insulted his mother, saying of the headbutt: “It was inexcusable, I apologise. But I can’t regret what I did, because it would mean that he was right to say all that.”
Paula Radcliffe
Going into the 2004 Olympic Games, Radcliffe was favourite for the women’s marathon, but dropped out at the 23-mile mark, citing exhaustion in the Athens heat. A tearful Radcliffe said: “I feel I’ve let everyone down. I felt there was nothing in my legs. I just feel numb – this is something I worked so hard for.”
Thierry Henry
Having ensured France qualified for the 2010 World Cup when his handball fed William Gallas to score the decisive goal against Ireland last November, Henry apologised on Twitter: “I’m not the referee, but if I hurt someone I’m sorry. I would have preferred that it happened differently but this is not down to me – it is the referee.”
Joey Barton
The fiery midfielder has issued apology after apology throughout his career. Despite saying: “If I was to do something similar, I’d be the biggest fool ever,” after stubbing out a lit cigar in the eye of Manchester City youth player Jamie Tandy in 2004, Barton’s subsequent misdemeanours included a training-ground attack on team-mate Ousmane Dabo in 2007. Barton’s apology? “I can’t stand here and try to defend myself because I’m indefensible and I’m the first to acknowledge that. I’m not asking for anyone to feel sorry for me by any means.” Just as well.
Rio Ferdinand
After receiving an eight-month ban for missing a drug test in 2003, the Manchester United defender said: “I would like to apologise for my oversight in missing my drugs test. I have previously made it clear that I condemn the use of drugs in any circumstances but especially in sport and I intend to continue helping to spread this message during and after any period of suspension that I have to serve.” He was hoping an appeal would let him play for England at the 2004 European Championship – but to no avail.
Ashley Cole
In 2009, the Chelsea left-back was forced into a grovelling apology to London police for verbally abusing them outside the Collection nightclub in South Kensington. After the England international was arrested, he stressed: “I do want to make clear that I swore in frustration at the paparazzi’s behaviour. I would never disrespect police officers in anyway. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the police officers on duty last night for my language. I felt I was being harassed by paparazzi and while complaining to the police about this at the scene they did warn me to calm down, a warning that I regrettably did not heed.”
Serena Williams
Williams was forced to defend her image last year having verbally abused a line judge as she lost her semi-final against Kim Clijsters at the US Open. The New York tabloids reported her to have said “I swear to God I’ll fucking take the ball and shove it down your fucking throat.” Afterwards, she was initially unrepentant: “An apology from me? How many people yell at linespeople? I see it happening all the time.”
However, during a subsequent press conference following her doubles victory with sister Venus, Serena relented: “I just really wanted to apologise sincerely, because I’m a very prideful person and I’m a very intense person and a very emotional person … I wanted to offer my sincere apologies to anyone that I may have offended.”
Chelsea warn players they must behave
• Abramovich intervenes following Terry and Cole scandals
• Ancelotti backs decision to give squad final warning
The Chelsea chief executive, Ron Gourlay, has spoken to the squad about the reported misbehaviour of first-team players. Gourlay, speaking on behalf of the club’s owner Roman Abramovich, organised the meeting with coach Carlo Ancelotti in response to weeks of lurid headlines involving club captain John Terry and his England team-mate Ashley Cole.
Gourlay reminded the players of their responsibility to protect the image of the club and warned of “severe disciplinary consequences” for any player who steps out of line.
The meeting took place at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground and lasted around 10 minutes. Gourlay’s speech was followed by a talk from Ancelotti, who reminded the squad and the staff of the need to protect the image of the Stamford Bridge club.
“We had a meeting this week with the players,” Ancelotti said. “It was a good meeting. Ron Gourlay was there as well. We spoke to the players and explained to them the behaviour that is required of the players in this club. Now they know very well what they have to do and what behaviour is expected of them when they’re in the Chelsea shirt.
“We are interested, me and the club, in protecting the image of this club. Not only the players and the manager, all the staff – the people who work in this club – have to protect that image. That is one of the most important things, the image of the club. We want to carry that forward. And I think the players and all the staff know very well what they have to do.
The confrontation is a clear indication that Abramovich has had enough of his club being in the spotlight for non-football reasons. It is unlikely Chelsea would sack any player found guilty of tarnishing the club’s image but it is understood that disciplinary action would be harsh and immediate.
Compare JFK’s love letters to modern sex texts | Alexander Chancellor
Kennedy was a lecher but, unlike today’s celebrity sleazebags, at least he was a charming one
John F Kennedy was, of course, a lecher of the first rank, just as obsessed with sex as Tiger Woods or Ashley Cole or any of the other celebrity sleazebags of today. But by comparison with these, Kennedy seems modest, solicitous, dignified, almost romantic in his womanising. The most reckless of his affairs was with the Mafia gangster’s moll Judith Campbell Exner, who had been introduced to him by Frank Sinatra; but even to her he was chivalrous. In her autobiography, she wrote that at their first meeting he listened to her “as if every nerve and muscle in his whole body was poised at attention. Jack Kennedy was the world’s greatest listener.” Even when they met again later, he seemed to have “an almost insatiable interest in what and who I was”.
He showed similar humility in the newly published letters he wrote to a Swedish woman 15 years his junior whom he had met on holiday in the south of France in 1953. Then aged 36, and the junior senator for Massachusetts, Kennedy was so smitten by the beautiful Gunilla von Post that he tracked her down after his return home and started corresponding with her in Sweden. Von Post, now 78, has put 11 of Kennedy’s handwritten letters up for auction in the United States. In one, he said he was haunted by her “beautiful, controlled face”; in another he wrote that “my plans are your plans”, though he was also at one point bold enough to suggest that he “get a boat and sail around the Mediterranean for two weeks with you as crew”.
By contrast, Woods and Cole bombarded their girlfriends with “sex texts”, making it abundantly clear that the only thing they cared about was sexual gratification. Woods’s text messages to Jaimee Grubbs, one of his many mistresses, were to arrange furtive assignations or request naked pictures of her. Cole’s, according to two women with whom he was allegedly cheating on his wife, were lewder, often including close-ups of his body parts and begging for similar pictures in exchange.
Neither Woods nor Cole felt it necessary even to pretend an interest in a woman other than for her sex appeal. Kennedy, though he started his courtship of Von Post only a month before getting married to Jacqueline Bouvier and disgracefully carried on with it afterwards, was at least better than either of these celebrity sportsmen. Even as leader of the free world, he dared not show their monstrous arrogance.
But mobile phones must be partly to blame for the chilling nature of contemporary mating rituals. It is as difficult to be oafish in a handwritten letter as it is to be romantic in a text message. Letters are for keeping and re-reading. Text messages are for getting to the point in the speediest and most direct way possible. Some people who have assumed that text messages are discarded as fast as they are written are now finding to their cost that this is not necessarily so.
Names with the royal seal of approval
Given the wobbly nature of the royal family’s standing in public opinion, it is surprising that people should so slavishly follow its taste in Christian names. According to the website ancestry.co.uk, which studies these things, the 20 most popular names given to British babies are determined to a great extent by those chosen by royalty; and this has been consistently true since 1837, when records began.
You might think that, for example, nobody would want to call a child after Prince Andrew, Sarah Ferguson or their children, Beatrice and Eugenie. But you would be wrong. The use of their names has increased markedly in recent years.
You might imagine that the name Zara would have become even less fashionable following the eccentric decision of the Princess Royal and her former husband, Mark Phillips, to give it to their daughter. But ancestry.co.uk tells us that the popularity of Zara has increased 20 times during the lifetime of that intrepid horsewoman.
Of course, one can’t be certain why parents choose one name rather than another. The fact that Elizabeth is the most popular girl’s name could reflect admiration for Elizabeth Hurley rather than for Her Majesty the Queen. Yet it does seem plausible that parents, wanting a respectable, dignified name for their child, should, for want of any other option, fall back on a name favoured by the royal family rather than by celebrities.
An offer the pope should refuse
It seems to me rather presumptuous of the BBC to suggest that the pope, who is used to pontificating to billions of Catholics worldwide from the throne of St Peter, should fill a Thought for the Day slot on the Today programme on Radio 4. There is something irredeemably dingy about Thought for the Day.
I will be interested to see how the pope responds to BBC director-general Mark Thompson’s entreaties, but if I were him I would reckon it was a little beneath my dignity to follow in the footsteps of Rabbi Lionel Blue and Tom Butler, the Anglican bishop of Southwark. It is fine for them to offer cosy spiritual reflections on everyday life, but to ask the pope to do the same is to pull him down from his pedestal.
But if he nevertheless decides to do as asked, I hope he will reiterate his admirable and unequivocal condemnation of paedophilia and its cover-up among the clergy in Ireland and elsewhere in the world.
Excuses, excuses … David Wright is not the first to explain away a misdemeanour
The Labour whip says his ’scum-sucking’ tweet has been tinkered with. How did others respond to controversial technological revelations?
David Wright MP
David Wright, a Labour whip and MP for Telford, faced a vicious Tory backlash when he appeared to tweet “you can put lipstick on a scum-sucking pig but it is still a scum-sucking pig”, referring to a Conservative advertising campaign.
After taking the tweet down and apologising, he told the Daily Telegraph: “Somebody has tinkered with my tweet. I never said ’scum sucking’.”
His Twitter feed now reads: “What a commotion today. Looks like my tweets have been tinkered with. I will keep you posted.” We wait with baited breath.
Ashley Cole
When glamour model Sonia Wild came forward with erotic photos and texts from footballer Ashley Cole, the England defender’s excuse was a complicated one.
He said that he had taken the photos, in which he posed in nothing but a pair of white pants, privately and for his own amusement. He had, he claimed, forgotten to delete them before giving the phone away to his friend Jay Wynters, who then passed the phone on to another friend who had sent Wild the photos as a joke.
He told reporters: “I can’t believe I gave a phone away that still had stuff in its memory.” If even he can’t believe it, spare a thought for the rest of us.
Stewart Jackson MP
During the height of the expenses scandal Conservative MP Stewart Jackson was revealed to have claimed £304 for maintenance work on his house’s swimming pool. He offered this defence: “The pool came with the house and I needed to know how to run it. Once I was shown that one time, there were no more claims. I take care of the pool myself. I believe this represents ‘value for money’ for the taxpayer.” He later repaid the £304.
Rachael Bell
In 2007, 17-year-old Rachael Bell held one of the most disastrous house parties ever; hundreds of strangers turned up, police sealed off the street and her family’s Durham home suffered £20,000 of damage.
Neighbours were so furious they were seen chasing partygoers with golf clubs, while her mother later told Sky News: “I want people prosecuted for what has been done.”
Bell’s excuse? Internet hackers. She told newspapers and police that friends had hacked into her MySpace account and inserted incriminating (and confusing) messages such as: “Let’s trash the average family-sized house disco party.”
This claim was later undermined when, in the wake of the scandal, a message ascribed to her appeared on MySpace reading: “haaa … well i hope u liked the party … was fuckin wild like!!!! hmmm another lol???xx”
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The makers of the ever-controversial Grand Theft Auto series, Rockstar Games, found themselves in hot water when it was revealed that they had programmed a sexually explicit mini-game into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Though the mini-game, known as Hot Coffee, wasn’t normally accessible to players, tiny modifications to the game’s coding allowed users to access it.
Rockstar originally accused the hackers of reverse-engineering and then significantly altering the game in order to insert the controversial Hot Coffee segment, but were later forced to admit that they had created the explicit material entirely on their own.
Kerry Katona
Former Atomic Kitten star Kerry Katona seemed to explain dropping out of a self-imposed fitness camp last month with the tweet: “I had to leave cos I found out that me and Mark are having another baby! Yep!! We are dead shocked but OVER THE MOON!”
When her agents issued a denial the very next day it seemed clear this had been a hoax, but this didn’t stop Katona playing along and posing for photographers with her hands on her back as if heavily pregnant.
Ashley Cole to have surgery on injured ankle today
• Chelsea left-back booked in for surgery
• Club predict a three-month absence
The Chelsea manager, Carlo Ancelotti, has confirmed that Ashley Cole will undergo surgery on his broken ankle today.
Cole will be out of action for approximately three months after fracturing his left ankle in Wednesday’s Premier League match against Everton. The England left-back limped off the pitch in the second half after picking up the injury in a challenge with Everton’s American winger Landon Donovan.
It means Cole faces a fight to regain his fitness in time for this summer’s World Cup, with England opening their campaign in South Africa on June 12 with a match against Donovan’s United States side.