Fans attack Ikpeba for unfair remark on Mikel

Former African player of the year and Prince of Monaco Victor Ikpeba was in the receiving end of a Twitter war after his unpopular tweet on John Obi Mikel stirred a barrage of insults and abuses.

Ikpeba who is a soccer pundit with SuperSport tweeted, “If Mikel can score you can make it in 2016.” However, with over 180 retweets and 29 likes for the tweet, fans did not take it lightly with the Olympic gold med

alist as they fired back.

@Wunmi Fenwa replied the former Super Eagles striker, “This is rather unfair.”

“Pls how many goals do you have in UCL,” tweeted @enifamous.

@Mrvictorikpeba did you ever score in the UCL... YOUR career was quite wack,” tweeted @AY_Shemzy

@MrvictorIkpeba I agree with Funke why the hell would you say some shit like that,” tweeted @mr_aystyles.

Some fans praised the Chelsea midfielder for his effort and believed his away goal will count as a bonus in the return leg in London. “Away goals count double, Mikel goals count treble..,” tweeted @gate1marco.

Even former INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega was not left out in the praise for Mikel, tweeting “I’m happy for our own Nigerian platey Mikel Obi’s goal tonight.”

Ikpeba played 13 Champions League matches for two teams and scored five goals.  The Prince of Monaco played four matches in the 1993/93 season for AS Monaco, scoring a goal. In the 1997/98 season, Ikpeba featured in nine matches with an improved goals ratio of four for the principality club. In the 1999/00 season, Ikpeba started for Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, with just four games under his belt and all from the bench.

Since Mikel joined Chelsea in 2006, he played 57 UEFA Champions League match and is three short of equaling Kanu Nwankwo’s 60 appearances, highest by any Nigerian.

For whatever reason that made Ikpeba take a jibe at Mikel on Twitter, he should have known better that Chelsea fans do not joke with their legends. Perhaps an Ikpeba apology will follow soon to calm the nerves of his attackers.

Real Madrid top football rich list for 10th straight year

Spain's Real Madrid have emerged as the world's richest football club for the 10th straight year in the annual Football Money League published by accountants Deloitte, with a revenue of $639 million.

English team Manchester United moved up from fourth to second on the list, which is based on 2013-14 season revenues despite enduring its worst-ever league campaign. German champions Bayern Munich came in third, followed by Spain's FC Barcelona and French side Paris Saint-Germain.

English clubs Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool were placed sixth to ninth, all of them showing healthy rises in revenues.

The Deloitte football money league list:
1. Real Madrid: $639m ($602.7m)
2. Man Utd: $602.3m ($492.3m)
3. Bayern Munich: $566.8m ($500.1m)
4. Barcelona: $563.5m ($560.5m)
5. Paris Saint Germain: $551.5m ($463.2m)
6. Manchester City: $481.9m ($367.2m)
7. Chelsea: $451.1m ($352.4m)
8. Arsenal: $417.9m ($330.2m)
9. Liverpool: $355.8m ($279.5m)
10. Juventus: $325m ($316.4m)

Father of John Mikel Obi goes missing in Jos

Nigerian International and Chelsea of England midfielder John Mikel Obi's father has gone missing in Jos. The 50-something yr old man who runs an interstate transport company did not return home from work on Friday evening August 12th and has not been heard from or seen since.

Nobody knows where Mr Obi is or what happened to him and his phone has since been switched off. If it's a kidnap, the kidnappers haven't contacted anyone for demands.

Mikel is under a lot of stress, but he showed a lot of character and mental strength to play in Chelsea's first premiership game against Stoke on Sunday.

If it is abduction, it will be the second time a major Nigerian footballer has been affected after national team captain Joseph Yobo’s younger brother Norum was held hostage for 12 days in 2008.

Three Nigerians shortlisted for CAF awards

Three Nigerians made the shortlist for the 2010 edition of the Glo Confederation of African Football (CAF) Footballer of the Year award.
Dickson Etuhu, Osaze Peter Odemwingie and Kalu Uche were the only Nigerians picked in the nominees for this year’s award.
The provisional list of Caf for the 2010 award is full of surprises, as Nigerians will be shocked to find Etuhu in the list and John Obi Mikel excluded despite the player being touted as having improved his game in recent games for Chelsea.

Explaining the rationale for the shortlist respected Caf instructor, Adegboye Onigbinde, said that every award has it criteria for nominating players.

He opined out that it should be remembered that the likes of Etuhu, Odemwingie and Kalu Uche appeared in several international matches for Nigeria in which Mikel did not.

Onigbinde used the 2010 Fifa World Cup as an example.

“You cannot win awards when you don’t play at the very big stage. Yes no doubt playing for your club is good but every award has its own criteria for picking nominees and the Caf award is no exception.

“So the players nominated for the award must have picked based on certain co-efficient like playing in the Fifa World Cup this year and also other international matches for their countries.

The absence of Mikel might be due to such lack of picking enough co-efficient to be nominated,” the former Nigerian head coach said.

However, Mikel’s Ghanaian teammate, Michael Essien, is also missing from the provisional list of 30 and his case is believed to due to the injury that kept him away from competitive football for a long period, which led to his missing the Mundial in South Africa.

Apart from Etuhu, Odemwingie and Uche in the Caf nominees, it is learnt that Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana produced five players each.

The trio of Cameroon, Egypt and Morocco has three players each like Nigeria while Algeria produced two.

Benin Republic, DR Congo, Mali, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia all have one player apiece in the Caf award’s provisional list.

Perennial nominees such as Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o of Inter Milan and Cameroon are part of those named in the shortlist.

Other top names in the hat are Asamoah Gyan and Andre Ayew of Ghana, the Toure brothers – Kolo and Yaya and their Ivorien teammate, Salomon Kalou.

The 30-man list is expected to be trimmed to 10 by Caf’s three committees of media, technical and football