IF ROBBIE Keane’s journey from the English Premier League to Major League Soccer in the United States will be something of a trip in to the footballing unknown for the Irish captain, it’s nothing compared to the adventure Samuel Eto’o will embark on if his transfer from Inter Milan to Anzhi Makhachkala goes through.
The deal stalled earlier this week with Inter said to be holding out for a €35 million fee for the 30-year-old Cameroonian, Anzhi reported to have offered €10m less.
Considering the club, based in the troubled southern Russian province of Dagestan, is owned by billionaire oil tycoon Suleiman Kerimov ( Forbes put his worth at €5.5 billion earlier this year), you’d imagine they won’t fall out over a trifling €10 million.
“Eto’o is said to be excited by the prospect of joining the developing Russian League and the revolution at Anzhi” read a story on the wires earlier this week.
Well, you would be too: reports say he has agreed a three-year deal worth €23m per season (per season!), which would make him the world’s highest paid footballer, putting Cristiano Ronaldo (€14m) and Lionel Messi (€12m) in the ha’penny place.
Also on a pittance compared to Eto’o’s proposed deal is Brazilian Roberto Carlos (now 38) who joined Anzhi back in February. He won’t go hungry, though: he signed a two-year deal worth €10 million.
“I am going to Russia extremely intrigued,” he said, “when I decided to continue my career in this country, money was not a crucial factor.” (Stop chuckling at the back).
Carlos has since been the target of racist abuse during Anzhi games, a common enough occurrence in Russian football, walking off the pitch in protest in June when a banana was thrown at him by opposing supporters. Still, when his contract expires in 2013 Carlos says he is “likely to become president of the club”.
“With the capabilities and ambitions of Suleiman Kerimov anything can be achieved,” he said.
And, it has to be said, bought.
Baa . . . d news for bike-riding models
NATURALLY ENOUGH, New Zealanders are eager to make good use of the rugby World Cup in an attempt to promote the country and attract more visitors to its shores, but not all the bright ideas being proposed are getting a warm reception.
Granted, there were some who quite liked the idea of models in bikinis driving motorbikes through downtown Auckland as a climax to festivals around the country in the build-up to the World Cup final. They were, though, a little less enamoured by the proposal on hearing the motorbike-riding models would actually be driving 1,000 sheep through said streets.
“We’ll be portrayed as Te Kuiti on steroids,” complained Herald columnist Brian Rudman in reference to the ‘sheep shearing capital of the world’ on the North Island. “The place where the Gucci shop got mobbed by a flock of live Ugg boots.”
Auckland prides itself in being a cosmopolitan spot, populated by “city slickers”, “a sophisticated centre of culture and fine dining and designer labels” wrote Rudman. “(Festival director) Briony Ellis says it will give visitors the chance to experience the Kiwi lifestyle. Yeah, right. When did she last share her lunchtime decaf latte with a bunch of smelly sheep?”
Bad news for anyone planning on travelling to Auckland to witness the spectacle: the idea has been binned, partly as a result of protests from the Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The good news is that the Gucci shoppers will, at least, be safe from rampaging live Ugg boots.
Empires crumble, Kingdoms fall, India lose
INDIA’S unrelenting cricketing struggles in England this summer have not, predictably enough, gone down too well back home, their innings-and-242-run defeat (their third worst ever) in the third Test, which saw England overtake them as the world’s top-ranked side, prompting newspaper headlines along the lines of “From kings to commoners” and “India’s shame”. Few matched the levels of despair in this Times of India editorial, though: “Kingdoms fall. Empires crumble. Regimes collapse. It is the unwritten law of history. But who would have thought that India’s reign would come to an end like this – so swiftly, so feebly, so abjectly?
“In just three Tests, spread over three dismal weeks and across three historic cities, they have not just tumbled from the pedestal; they have fallen from grace, from reverence even, only to land firmly on their swollen faces. As the last rites were performed on Saturday, the most worshipped team’s triumphs and achievements faded into insignificance. As the innings-and-242-run win was completed, the great run-machine’s reputation and legacy lay in tatters.”
TV looks to Rory to be next 'rainmaker'
SUCH ARE the rewards in his line of work Rory McIlroy might not have garnered a huge amount of sympathy when he talked recently about the downside of his success and how life has changed so dramatically since winning his first Major.
Still, having to hire security guards to patrol the area around his Co Down home “every night since I won the US Open”, because of uninvited visitors attempting to sneak a peak at the golfer and his house, is one of the more intrusive by-products of that success that the 22-year-old could do without.
“It isn’t very nice, but it’s something I am just going to have to deal with,” he said. “It’s tough but it is just the world we live in, unfortunately. If you’re in the position we’re in, you’re so public.”
The experience, he said, partly contributed to his decision to base himself in America next year where, he hopes, whatever scrutiny he has to endure will be more about his golf than his life outside the game.
And, based on the television viewing figures for last week’s USPGA Championship, the sport in America could do with a contented and in-form McIlroy lighting up its screens.
While PGA Tour rookie Keegan Bradley’s play-off victory over Jason Dufner might have made a great sporting story, the contest between two relative unknowns did little to attract the kind of ratings that the sport so desperately needs.
Nielsen’s figures showed that CBS averaged a 4.3 household rating for its coverage on the final day, down 14 per cent from the previous year’s 5.0 (when Martin Kaymer beat Bubba Watson in a play-off) and a complete collapse from its 7.5 rating in 2009 when, inevitably, Tiger Woods was the star attraction – he led going in to the final round, losing by three strokes in the end to YE Yang.
Woods, of course, failed to make the cut at the US PGA Championship, and won’t play again until November (his next scheduled tournament is the Australian Open).
“This can’t be good news for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who is heading into negotiations for a new TV contract,” wrote Golf Week’s Martin Kaufmann.
“Businesses never like uncertainty, and right now, there’s an abundance of it surrounding the Tour’s rainmaker.”
But judging by Kaufmann’s criticism of American television coverage of the USPGA Championship, there’s no let-up in that media push to declare McIlroy, more so than any of the game’s other rising stars, heir to the ‘rainmaker’. Coverage, said Kaufmann, of McIlroy’s injury on the Thursday “received the full Tiger Woods treatment”.
“He was injured 87 minutes into TNT’s first-round telecast,” he wrote.
“For the next hour, TNT essentially stopped covering the rest of the tournament. It was the television equivalent of not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Cameras lingered on McIlroy – standing around, walking, getting treatment – almost to the exclusion of everyone else on the course . . . it amounted to a temporary suspension of live tournament coverage.”
Contrast that attention with, for example, Luke Donald’s press conference before the tournament, the world number one “facing more empty seats than actual people”. And, needless to say, Woods’ return to action was the theme of the bulk of the questions he was asked.
He, though, won’t be making any rain for a while. There might have been 11 different winners of the last 11 Majors, nine of them first-time Major champions, but, for now at least, McIlroy is the one the ratings-watchers are pinning their hopes on.
No pressure.
'Friendship' tour proves to be not so friendly
BEFORE setting off for China on their 10-day ‘friendship’ tour, Georgetown University’s basketball team was briefed by the State Department and told what to expect during their visits to Beijing and Shanghai.
“We look to these types of exchanges to promote good sportsmanship and strengthen our people-to-people contact with China,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.
How has the tour being going? Excellently – well, if you overlook Thursday’s encounter with the Bayi Military Rockets, an army team that plays in the China Basketball Association, at Beijing’s Olympic Stadium.
With 10 minutes to go, and the scores level, all hell broke loose with fighting breaking out all over the court (right), “triggering a bench-clearing melee”, according to Reuters. It was, reported Chinese newspaper Yangzi Evening News, “very physical from the beginning and the situation deteriorated”. CNN claimed that one of the Bayi players pushed a Georgetown opponent to the ground and punched him repeatedly.
After spectators began hurling plastic bottles on the court, the Georgetown players walked off, at which point, understandably enough, the match was called off. The teams are scheduled to meet again in Shanghai tomorrow night. The State Department will, you suspect, be holding its breath.
