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SUNDAY VANGUARD, NOVEMBER 20, 2022 — PAGE 31 World Cup opener: FIFA appoints Italian ref Orsato for Qatar, Ecuador battle talian Daniele Orsato will Ireferee Sunday's opening World Cup match between hosts Qatar and Ecuador in group A, Fifa said on Friday. The 46-year-old referee will be making his World Cup debut and will be joined by compatriots Ciro Carbone and Alessandro Giallatini as his assistants, with Massimiliano Irrati on VAR. Romanian Itsvan Kovacs will be the fourth referee. He comes from the town of Schio which is close by to Vicenza in Northern Eastern Italy. Before becoming a referee, he was a coach. Named referee of the year by the IFFHS in 2020. Amnesty International bashes Infantino over comments on migrant workers A mnesty International have hit back at Gianni Infantino for 'dismissing the enormous price paid by migrant workers' after the FIFA President gave a bizarre speech defending Qatar on the eve of the World Cup. Infantino claimed he 'felt like a migrant worker' before suggesting that if Europe 'really cared' about migrant workers they could do as Qatar did and offer a 'legal' passage into the countries. It came after protests around the football world against the World Cup in Qatar, with Bundesliga clubs displaying banners in protest and Amnesty International demonstrating in Lisbon. In response to Infantino's comments, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice has released a statement that reads: 'In brushing aside legitimate human rights criticisms, Gianni Infantino is dismissing the enormous price paid by mi- Qatar 2022: Parimatch presents unique offers for punters P arimatch, one of the leading sports betting companies in Nigeria, is turning up the heat in providing exciting offers to punters who will want to stake on the best odds during the tournament. One of the biggest offers by Parimatch during the World Cup season is the N10,00,000 Terminator Jackpot. This offer will have bettors participate in several competitions to claim a share of the money. Bids and jackpots presented to punters for all the stages of the tournament in Qatar include the Totalizator, Ultimate Terminator, Multi Number Prediction, Multi-Number Plus, Total Plus and more accessed on the website-www.parimatch.ng. By Solomon Nwoke igerian Breweries Plc Nonce again deepened its long-standing partnership with the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) recently with the announcement of Goldberg Premium Lager Beer and Life Continental Lager Beer, as "The Official Beer of the Super Eagles." The announcement comes as the brewing giant reaffirms its commitment to refreshing football fans and providing world-class football experiences football. "Goldberg and Life lager beers are set to transform the football experience in Nigeria," said Portfolio Manager, Mainstream Lagers, Nigerian •Orsato Refereed the 2019-20 Uefa Champions League between Paris Saint Germain and •Cockburn grant workers to make his flagship tournament possible – as well as FIFA's responsibility for it. Bayern Munich in Lisbon. The Italian official has shown an average of four yellow cards per game in the Champions League. Began as a player was persuaded at the age of 18 by a friend to become a referee. He received his Fifa inter- France handed Benzema, Varane injury boosts F rance duo Karim Benzema and Raphael Varane have both returned to full training ahead of Les Bleus' World Cup 2022 Group D opener with Australia, according to a report. The reigning world champions have been bedevilled by injuries in the build-up to the tournament and were handed concerns over Benzema and Varane prior to making the journey to Qatar. Ballon d'Or winner Benzema has struggled to stay fit throughout the 2022-23 season, having spent time out with a knee injury prior to dealing with Nigerian Breweries PLC announces Goldberg, Life as official beer of national teams Breweries, Ita Bassey. “This announcement today will extend beyond the game. It allows us to strengthen our bond with consumers and football fans through our shared values. These two brands share values with the game of football and its fans; values such as teamwork, hard work, perseverance, and progress. “With these two brands, we have the unique opportunity to engage and excite Nigerians using various football assets. It also demonstrates our continued commitment to football in Nigeria at all levels, especially grass root and community football, as well as our support for the communities in which we operate," Ita national refereeing badge in 2010. His refereeing mentor is Luigi Agnolin who refereed the 1988 European Champions Club final between PSV Eindhoven and Benfica. Married to Laura and has two sons Gabriel and William. Infantino backs Qatar, says fans can survive without beer E mbattled FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended the Qatar World Cup a day before the tournament begins, accusing critics of the nation’s human rights record of hypocrisy. Speaking after months of concern over the country’s treatment of migrant workers, anger at its LGBTQ laws and doubts over the legitimacy of the decision to hold the tournament there, Infantino said it was wrong for Europe to lecture the Qataris. “For what we Europeans have been doing for the past 3,000 years, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years, before starting to give moral lessons to people,” he said Saturday. Infantino said there have been improvements in the way migrant workers are treated, partly due to the engagement that’s happened as a result of the World Cup. On the eve of one of the most criticized World Cups ever, Infantino said his experience as the son of Italian migrants in Switzerland allowed him to understand what it meant to be bullied as a foreigner in a foreign country. He began an almost-hourlong speech by saying: “To- muscular fatigue. The 34-year-old missed Real Madrid's final two La Liga games before the World Cup break and was understood to have still been a doubt for the clash with Australia on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Varane has not played since coming off with a hamstring injury against Chelsea on October 22, missing Manchester United's most recent six matches in all tournaments. However, in a major double boost to Didier Deschamps's ranks, L'Equipe reports that both players have been able to participate in full training on Saturday evening. The report adds that there are still no guarantees over both players' chances of starting against Australia, with Deschamps not prepared to take any unnecessary risks early doors. Benzema and Varane boast a remarkable 184 international caps be- Bassey said. Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Relations, Hon. Mobolaji Ogunlende commended Nigerian Breweries for their continuous commitment to the beautiful game of football especially locally and at the grassroots level. “It is commendable that Nigerian Breweries is dedicated not just at the international scene but also show great commitment and support to repositioning football at the local level. “It is no surprise that this time, they are entering the space with two iconic brands," he said. •Infantino day I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker.” “As a child at school I was bullied because I had red hair and freckles. Plus I was Italian, so imagine,” Infantino said. After a last-minute change on Friday to the rules on alcohol sales at the event, there are fears that other regulations governing the tournament may also be altered. Infantino tried to reassure the LGBTQ community they’d be safe, despite Qatar’s laws prohibiting homosexuality. “Gay people are welcome in Qatar,” he said. tween them, with the former racking up 87 appearances for the national team while the latter has 97 caps to his name. CBN Abuja branch lifts 2022 CBN Gov's trophy •As Emefiele congratulates winners By Chioma Onuegbu, Uyo HE Central Bank of Ni Tgeria, CBN, Abuja branch, yesterday beat their Minna counterpart by 2-1 to lift the 41st edition of the CBN Governor's Cup Football competition trophy. The CBN Calabar branch were not so lucky as they went down 2-1 to Kano branch which emerged third in the competition decided at the Godswill Akpabio International stadium, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The victory saw the Abuja branch lifting the trophy for record sixth time since the competition started in 1981, having won the football competition in 1998, 1999, 2001,2008 and 2009 respectively. Speaking at the finals of the annual competition in Uyo, the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, said that the 41st edition which involved all the branches and Head office, kicked off in eight centres namely Akure, Ilorin, Abakaliki, Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Enugu and Makurdi. Emefiele who was represented at the occasion by the Director Branch Operations Department CBN, Mrs. Elizabeth Fasoranti, noted that the preliminaries of the 2022 competition were played between August 22 and September 2, 2022 in the eight centres. His words: " The competition is aimed at encouraging social relationships between staff and, maintaining a healthy workforce through sporting activities. The Pain Continues P reparations for the 22nd FIFA World Cup started on the last day the last edition was held in Russia four years ago for serious countries. That is why 32 of them are gathered in the Middle East country of Qatar for the most glamorous football event on planet earth which kicks off today. And our dear country Nigeria is not among the serious countries who will showcase their soccer prowess to the whole world for the next four weeks. I make bold to say this because after we threw away a game we were capable of winning against a Lionel Messi fortified Argentina mainly for the tactical and technical ineptitude of the Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr, a serious country would have thanked the Franco-German 'tactician' for his services and severed the relationship. For whatever reason best known to the Board of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, headed then by Amaju Melvin Pinnick, they procrastinated and later extended his contract to cover another two years hoping he could help the team become African Champions, for the fourth time in the 2019 AFCON in Egypt. Apologies to former Golden Eaglets coach, Fanny Amun, Rohr and his team 'wobbled and fumbled' to the semi final where, again like it happened in Russia a year earlier, the team lost to eventual winners Algeria, more on tactical and technical superiority. I hate to recount the signs the Super Eagles showed under Rohr that they were heading for disaster and the coach needed to be shown the way out but the NFF kept him on, maybe expecting some miracles to happen. When the log finally fell off their eyes, the NFF acted but it was too late. The team played most of their games jerking like a chicken whose head has been cut and struggling with life. Rather than hide his head in shame for the heartache he caused Nigerians with his style of play, which was less than convincing, Rohr has continued to blab that if he wasn't sacked, he would have won the 2021 AFCON and qualified the Super Eagles for the World Cup. The loss of the ticket to Ghana is beginning to sink. Football crazy fans will not have the opportunity to watch and support their team in Qatar. The players, mostly the fringe ones among them, will not have the opportunity to showcase their talent and increase their market value for a possible change of club with better offers when the new transfer widow opens in January. Corporate organisations which leverage on the Super Eagles participation to brand or re-brand and get quality mileage for their goods and services are also affected with Nigeria's no-show in Qatar. For Media houses, they would have been inundated with adverts in support of the Eagles from companies and in some cases, the three tiers of government rooting for the national team, urging them to do the country proud. Even sports journalists using the coverage of the World Cup to boost their profile are licking their 'wounds'. Heard of a colleague who was getting ready to go to Qatar but his trip, hitherto approved by his bosses, got a question mark from the management which asked him, "who are you going to Qatar to cover?" Of course Nigeria is not represented and so the rush by readers to get copies on the newsstand to get authentic gists from the team's camp won't be there. With the Super Eagles not going, teams from Europe and the Americas which qualified and were grouped with African teams naturally wanted to have a feel of how Africans play and so invited the Super Eagles for friendly matches. I remember a sarcastic headline my colleague, Tony Ubani cast when Costa Rica sort a friendly with the team, now handled by another journeyman coach, Jose Peseiro. "Costa to use Super Eagles as training materials", he wrote. Ubani, like every other sports journalist, is not happy that our national flag will not be hoisted in Qatar, so I can understand when he says the Super Eagles are being used as training materials. Ironically the new NFF under Ibrahim Gusau threw mostly home-based players into the squad they now refer to as Eagles B team to face Costa Rica. Before the blast of the whistle, pundits and fans alike were already speculating the number of goals the Costa Ricans will humiliate the team with, as most of them could be playing at such a big stage for the first time. The North American team struggled to outplay the local boys who were galant in their 2-0 loss. Infact one of them, Dominion Ohaka was singled out for praise the way he mesmerized the much more experienced Costa Ricans. The second friendly against the Super Eagles took place last Thursday in Lisbon against another World Cup bound team, Portugal, incidentally the country of their new coach, Jose Peseiro. Even though Napoli hitman, Victor Osimhen came up with a phoney injury excuse which some Italian journalists scoffed at, Peseiro was able to gather most of the team's regulars as their European leagues are now on World Cup break and the venue just a train ride from their bases. With news that Cristiano Ronaldo, still smarting from his faceoff with Manchester United coach, Erik ten Hag, wasn't part of the game, Nigerians had looked forward to the Super Eagles putting up a good display, at least to assuage their anger over the team's absence from the Qatar party. For the first time too, my wife, not particularly a sports fan and the least being football, despite knowing reporting it is my means of livelihood, surprised me when she sat with me in front of the television to watch the game. What made her company so exciting for me was when she brought out a bottle of French wine for the rare 'occasion'. You can imagine that on a day I expected the Super Eagles to put up an alluring display with which I could convince my wife to start watching football matches, the players, like our people say in our popular local parlance, "fall my hand". With Portugal leading 2-0 my wife became uninterested in the game and left. The wine I was sipping became too bitter in my mouth. I managed to continue watching and my hope was enlivened when the Super Eagles were awarded a penalty that could have given them a consolatory goal but Emmanuel Dennis fluffed it. My spirit was finally broken when the third and fourth goals were conceded in quick succession by Francis Uzoho who had shone brightly against Manchester United in his team, Omonia Nicosia's second leg Europa league game at the Old Trafford a few weeks earlier. So the pain that Nigeria is not getting it right continues. Be it appointment of a good coach or the coach assembling quality players to prosecute matches to bring succour to Nigerians in times of frustrations from poor governance. That is the pain as we try to savour a World Cup without Nigeria.
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