Tip for the Top Job?

Weekly Sport is owned and published in the UK and Eire by Independent News Ltd.  The title was launched by a team of  journalists keen to create a tabloid suitable for all the family.     As such, the Weekly Sport aims to provide genuine sports news coverage throughout the Olympic year and to offer our readers intelligent editorial commentary on current news.   It is hoped that this will continue to expand as a long term positive media project, and help to restore the lost integrity of the red top and its central part in our popular British culture.       FRANKIE SAYS; "THIS JUAN DOES MATA!  ... TO BOTH FERNANDO TORRES AND CHELSEA’S HOPES OF REGAINING THE PREMIER LEAGUE..."  ... and   TIPPED FOR THE TOP - ANCELOTTI TO BE NEXT ENGLAND BOSS? Your latest Weekly Sport news commentaries direct from Frank Worrall FINALLY, after a mish-mash of signings and a transfer policy with little obvious calculation or foresight, Chelsea buy a player who can seriously improve their team. Yes, Juan Mata is just the man they need and, even at £29million, could prove the essential catalyst to spark the brilliant but currently underachieving Fernando Torres into life.   Mata showed his potential when he came on as a sub at Stamford Bridge for the Blues last weekend, scoring a late goal to mark his debut,  Of course, the former Valencia star was already on the radar as one to watch after his performances for the Spanish national team and Spain’s triumphant U21 side in the Euros just gone.   But it is the potential he brings to boost Torres that is the key to his signing for Chelsea. Both former manager Carlo Ancelotti and current incumbent Andre Villas-Boas have tried and failed to find a suitable foil for Fernando – Anelka, Drogba and Kalou have all been unsuccessful.      The answer was there all the time – and full credit to Villas-Boas for seeing it and seizing it. When at Liverpool, Torres functioned best when paired with Steven Gerrard directly behind him. Now he has the chance to replicate his most deadly form with a similar pairing – with Mata just behind him. And, of course, it will help that he is a fellow countryman, and someone who knows, and is clever enough a player to use that knowledge, just how Torres operates best.    Lumping Torres up front with another big man like Drogba was never going to work. It needed someone smaller and with more guile – a Spanish Gerard if you like, yes, a Juan Mata. As the Daily Mirror pointed out today, when Mata scored on Saturday he became  the 26th Spaniard to do so in the Premier League since it formed, and those players have managed 232 goals between them. And guess who tops the pile with 66? Fernando Torres, of course…so the new partnership with Mata bodes extremely well for both Spaniards and Villas-Boas’s hopes of seeing out more than a season at the Bridge.   Other recent buys by the Blues leave me puzzled, though. Why spend £18million on Belgian wonderkid Romelu Lukaku when you have Torres there? At 18, Lukaku may one day be the new Drogba – but is he going to forge any better a partnership with Torres than Drogba did? And why is he needed if Mata is going to be the man who works with Torres? Unless the plan is to dispose of Torres within a season or two?      Too many questions and no answers…it just doesn’t make any real sense.      As neither does the signing of Barca reject Oriol Romeu, a defensive midfielder. OK, he is young and has potential, but would Barca have let him go if he was that good? And, assuming he is going to be that good, what’s the point of allowing the Spanish giants to have a buy-back clause inserted in the deal?      Barca get the best of both worlds – their player educated in London because he is not good enough for their first team, but the safety net of a buy-back just in case he does manage to make the grade!       I feel Villas-Boas could also have cleared out some dead wood from the Bridge – like Kalou and Ferreira – and strengthened the squad with superior replacements. My gut feeling is that Chelsea will struggle to finish in the top two of the Premier League this term – Man United and Man City look shoo-ins – and that they will also find it tough going in the Champions League with United, City and the Spanish duo of Barca and Real Madrid looming large.    But if Mata forms as deadly a partnership with Torres as Gerrard did at Liverpool, you never know. The Blues could still come through…      And there could be a shock at the end of the season – again linked with Chelsea – when the new England boss is announced. Current boss Fabio Capello will definitely leave his post after the Euro 2012 finals in June and the favourite to take the reigns from him is Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp.      But I am told by a source at the FA that former Chelsea gaffer Carlo Ancelotti is also in the running! Ancelotti is currently on a year out of football – more specifically English football – because of a clause in his £6.5million pay-off deal agreed by Chelsea.      But I am also told that Ancelotti is desperate to get back into English football and has already thrown his hat into the ring to succeed Capello. The thought of another Italian running the English national team might not be to everyone’s taste – especially after Capello flopped so badly in last year’s World Cup finals.   Yet Ancelotti has admirers within the FA and within English football as a whole. Unlike Capello, he speaks perfect English and he is much more of a modern, ‘in-tune’ guy rather than a regimented sergeant-major type. Plus his sacking at Chelsea was incomprehensible given that he won the double the year before – and his track record as boss at Chelsea and previously AC Milan (where he twice won them the Champions League) is miles better than that of Redknapp, Roy Hodgson or any of the other wannabe England managers.     Ancelotti to take over from Capello? Remember where you read it first... follow the Weekly Sport on Twitter join the  Weekly Sport on Facebook forward the Weekly Sport to a friend  Copyright © Independent News Ltd.  2011 Independent News Ltd., 'Weekly Sport' and 'WeeklySport.co.uk' are legal and registered trading names of Independent News Ltd. All rights reserved. As a Weekly Sport reader you qualify for our free sporting news commentaries, updates and special offers. If you should wish to unsubscribe at any time simply press the tab. Our mailing address is: Independent News Ltd. Studio C, 41 Edith Grove London, England SW10 0LB Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list  update subscription preferences

Weekly Sport - news bulletin!

Weekly Sport is owned and published in the UK and Eire by Independent News Ltd.  The project was launched by a team of former tabloid journalists who met via church groups - theMediaNet, HTB Brompton and various UK betterment programmes - all keen to create a traditional style red top that was ethical, interesting and inclusive.     As such, the Weekly Sport aims to provide genuine sports news coverage throughout the Olympic year and to offer our readers intelligent editorial comment on current news.   It is hoped that this will continue to expand as a long term positive media project, and help to restore the lost integrity of the red top and its central part in our popular British culture.   AN EYE FOR AN EYE: HOW IDIOTIC JOSE MOURINHO KILLED OFF HIS BIGGEST DREAM…TO MANAGE MAN UNITED  An exclusive report by Frank Worrall   JOSE MOURINHO has, naturally, yet again been monopolising the sporting headlines across Europe. Unfortunately, yet again, they have been for all the wrong reasons – and may prove fatal for his career. Following on from the now inevitable run-ins with referees, fellow managers, players and authority, the Portuguese recently dropped a terrible clanger when he decided to have a go at gouging the eye of Barcelona assisant coach Tito Vilanova.      The angry gesture followed the defeat of Mourinho’s Real Madrid side to La Liga champions Barcelona during the Spanish Super Cup. Mourinho was clearly feeling the stress of not being able to get the better of Pep Guardiola’s team of geniuses and lost his rag (and his head).       It was a cowardly move; one hardly befitting the coach of one of the world’s three super clubs (the others being Barca and Manchester United). It was a disgusting move, it was a move that did Mourinho only harm and blackened the name of Real Madrid and all that famous club stands for. It was a move that shamed both manager and football club. And what an atrocious example to set for children who follow the so-called beautiful game throughout the world.    It also emphasised the belief that Mourinho, so often the master manager in England and Italy, was now struggling for the first time in his star-spangled career. The man for whom success seemed a given at Chelsea and Inter Milan was now becoming frustrated at his obvious inability to translate the same golden touch in Spain.      Mourinho, the man who had always been in the right place at the right time, from his wonderful beginnings at Porto to Stamford Bridge to the San Siro, had dropped an almighty clanger by heading to Spain at the wrong moment. He hadn’t thought it through enough: he had assumed, as you would if you had a monster ego like Mourinho, that he would simply clean up in Spain like he had done elsewhere.   In that sense, he was a fool betrayed by his own foolish ego.   He hadn’t grasped the basic fact that however much money he spent at Madrid, or how many different ways he tried to manipulate refs, players, managers or the footballing authorities, he would not be able to halt the juggernaut known as FC Barcelona. The juggernaut that was racing towards him at 100mph and would run him over, leaving him desolate, depressed, disillusioned and, ultimately, beaten.     The fact is this: Barcelona are simply too good for Real Madrid, indeed they are simply too good for any club side at the moment. So Mourinho is banging his head against a brick wall, and now he knows it, and that is why he is resorting to tactics that threaten to derail his career for good.       The simple fact of the matter now is this: the night Jose tried to gouge the eye of Vilanova, he not only lost respect in Spain, but he also crushed his own ultimate dream. Of following Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United. Before the incident, there was probably still an 80 per cent chance that Jose would have eventually walked into the Old Trafford manager’s office. But after it? No chance, not even one per cent.       There is no way that the world-famous football club would even entertain the idea of employing a man who tried to gouge out another man’s eye: it is simply too disreputable. Can you imagine Sir Bobby Charlton looking him in the eye (if you will excuse the turn of phrase) and saying ‘You’re very welcome here Jose’? Of course not, and Sir Bobby’s view counts for a hell of a lot at the Theatre of Dreams.    Has Mourinho realised the self-harm his gouging action has caused? I am sure he has, and it is the thought of having now wrecked his hopes of the United job that has added to his misery and disenchantment. Not only has he failed to dislodge Barca from their throne, but he has killed off his own No 1 ambition of ascending the throne at United.      What a fall from grace for one of the most colourful – and undoubtedly talented – managers and characters in the game. Mourinho’s options would now seem severely limited after Madrid. It is difficult to see another top English team wanting him – or him wanting them. They will all be frightened of his smeared reputation and the potential damage he could cause to their club’s reputation. Would any club be willing to gamble with him? Maybe he will return back to Inter Milan, or opt for international management with Portugal.       But how I bet he now wishes he could turn back the clock and erase the act that has so emphatically brought down the curtain on his dream. It is a sad ending, but it is also hard to feel sad for Jose Mourinho. He has had the good times and now he is set for the footballing equivalent of skid row: all because he was the idiotic architect of his own downfall.  An eye for an eye, indeed… follow the Weekly Sport on Twitter join the  Weekly Sport on Facebook forward the Weekly Sport to a friend  Copyright © Independent News Ltd. 2011 *|LIST:COMPANY|*, 'Weekly Sport' and 'WeeklySport.co.uk' are legal and registered trading names of Independent News Ltd. All rights are reserved. *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|*  unsubscribe from this list  update subscription preferences

Weekly Sport is a real tabloid winner!

News International and the death of ethics in journalism

Fresh allegations that private investigators paid by the News of the World hacked into the phones of families of victims of the 7/7 bombings as well as relatives of the girls killed in the Soham murders have plunged British journalism deeper into crisis.

The phone hacking scandal escalated on Monday when The Guardian reported the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked and some of her messages deleted by an investigator hired by the News of the World while she was still missing.

Now, the Metropolitan Police have contacted the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who were murdered by Ian Huntley in Soham in 2002, the same year as Milly Dowler, to say their phones might also have been accessed by the tabloid newspaper.

The House of Commons was due to discuss the developments in an emergency debate today (Wednesday) as a campaign for a public inquiry is launched in the House of Lords.

“What has happened is News International has built up a surveillance system that is more potent than anything the police have available. I’m very distressed by what’s happened, it’s appalling. It’s even worse that it has taken since 2002 to come to light,” says Duncan Williams, chairman of Independent News Ltd, the regional newspaper and magazine publishing company which operates a positive news editorial policy.

“Something has gone wrong and people are actually appalled by the latest allegations. It’s an outrageous abuse of the privilege of working in the media.”

In an exclusive interview with Seeker News’ online video channel, Mr Williams highlighted the serious implications for British journalism.

“The media today is going through huge changes, but this kind of activity is actually detrimental to freedom of speech. There’s nothing wrong in investigative journalists unearthing valid stories, without that we’d be an even more censored society, but it’s how that story is treated and relayed to the reader, the citizen or the viewer. Too often the story is scurilous or gossip and it’s hard to claim interest.”

Police have reportedly widened their investigation to include every high profile murder of a child since 2001.

David Cameron’s former director of communications Andy Coulson resigned earlier this year amid allegations that phone hacking was rife at the News of the World during his time as editor. His predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, who was editor during the Soham murders and Milly Dowler cases has said it was “inconceivable” she knew Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked and has refused to step down.

“Ford has already pulled its advertising from the News of the World and other companies like Halifax, Orange, nPower and T-Mobile are reviewing their position, this is having a major commercial effect on News International,” says Seeker MD Steve Cook.

“Newspapers need quality journalism, but they also need the support of advertisers and if they’re losing major clients then maybe it’s about time our newspapers had a close look at how they operate. When the Washington Post journalists Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal they were acting in the public interest, ultimately protecting American democracy from a President who was lying.

“What possible comparable public interest is there in hacking the phones of murder victims and their families?”


Reprinted from the Business Page of SEEKER NEWS, 2011 (c) copyright.
----

View the full length interview online. Photography by Steve Cook.

Cross plot : mapping out your career dreams as a Christian in media

Once again a conference held at the Hayes Centre in Derby by the Church and Media Network on the 13th - 14th of June has proved to be a resounding success.

"It can sometimes be a lonely place, working in a media environment and holding faith to one's core beliefs," said one young delegate. "The conference offers support and reminds me I can map out a good career for myself and am not alone."

Far from it; the annual Church and Media Conference is become a real oasis for all Christians working in media, it continues to offer a place to meet, exchange ideas, listen, plot and plan future dreams.

Speakers this year included big hitters such as BBC controller, Danny Cohen, who proudly announced; "'Songs of Praise' is celebrating its 50th year and I'm very conscious of that anniversary. I think it is the longest-running
religious programme in the world."

Other past speakers have included Duncan Williams, the regional magazine and newspaper publisher, rumoured to be behind a recently attempted 'ethical consortium buyout' of the Sport Media Group.

Williams described the Church and Media Conference as; "One of the most inspiring events I have attended. Life changing!"

So, is Britain actually regaining it's Christian voice; is this being reflected in powerful changes of attitude within the media industry?

"I think we still have a very long way to go," admitted a regular attendee. "But this Conference is certainly doing more than a little to help map a pathway."


For more info : http://www.mediafutures.info

THE WEEKLY SPORT

www.weeklysport.co.uk