YAKKED OFF

SO The Yak has gone AWOL after the African nations.
It’s not unusual for players to do a flit after that tournament but I still credited Yakubu with a bit more integrity than this.

The fact that Yobo managed to get back for Wednesday says it all. It’s obviously not down to a hitch with flights from Ghana.
It’s like Ayegbeni has scanned the scores on ESPN in his hotel room and smirked at two scoreless draws, realising how important he is for us.
He might have even seen highlights of the Spurs game, when AJ missed a chance Yakubu himself would probably have buried.
And he might have guessed that as tough as his manager can be, he can’t really afford to axe the portly Nigerian for too long.
That said, I hope the £80,000 fine at least gives him pause for thought (a couple of seconds at least) and that he is benched for Reading tomorrow (another few seconds of mental anguish).
Vaughan looked sharp and busy when he came on against Blackburn and deserves more game time.
It’s just a shame that Yakubu has lived up to the fading stereotype of unreliability which the club’s recent African players had started to put to bed.
Elsewhere Richard Scudamore wants the Premier League to sanction a round of global games. The Daily Mirror suggests an example could be Everton versus Pompey at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
The RS could play Boro in the Yokohama stadium in Japan and United could play villa in L.A.
Scudamore and Co will plead pragmatism and financial forward thinking (the carrot being a £5m pay day for clubs).
Our own CEO Keith Wyness couldn’t wait to wade in with his thumbs-up for the plan on the club’s official website.
I think it’s a stinker for the fans and a fair-play headache, (but that’s OK because Scudamore said, “The symmetry of the league will be broken, I accept, but not the integrity. Nobody ever said the league was supposed to be entirely fair”....eh?)
Ultimately we can whine all we like but the club’s will eventually say yes, and if FIFA don’t stand in the way, it will happen.
I'd read all about the globalisation of football but didn’t realise the reality until this time last year.
I was in Pattaya, Thailand, after a trip to Australia, having a beer before watching the Liverpool v Man U game on Sky.
Within minutes the large open air bar was heaving with more than a hundred eager Thais in Liverpool and United shirts, baseball caps and scarves.
Looking along the street, every bar was similarly packed with Thai Kopites and Mancs, all in kits.
The global brand and product which the Premier League has become is only growing in popularity. There’s nothing we can do about that.

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