Six stories that shook World of Football in 2010
2010 can be considered a controversial and even a dramatic year for world football when one thinks about the African Nations Cup tragedy, the “Terry-Bridge saga” and the whole “Rooney wants out” affair. Lets’ have a look at all those events that made 2010
exciting yet, controversial for football fans.
Attack on the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Angola-c2838
The new year started very slowly but things were very calm. However on 8 January, all that changed when some tragic news took all the fun out of the African Nations Cup.
Early details of the event were pretty blurry, but the incident became top news on every channel as it spread around the world like fire. The Togolese team preferred to travel by bus rather than plane, and while driving through the dangerous province of
Cabinda near the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Congo-c2875 border, the team bus came under attack by a group of rebels. It was a nerve-racking event, as the rebels laid siege around the bus’ perimeter and kept firing shots at it for 30 minutes.
The players and officials were forced to take cover under the seats of the bus and later on Togo striker Thomas Dossevi described the firing as “machine-gunned like dogs”. Sadly, the Angolan bus driver was killed in the initial firing and two members of
the team officials were also killed; a team press officer and a coaching team member. The firing left nine people injured, which included team coach Hubert Velud and two players, Kodjovi Obilale and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Serge-Akakpo-c32932. Kodjovi Obilale was the goalkeeper of the Togolese
team, and still hasn’t recovered from the injuries he sustained in the attack.
The aftermath of the tragic incident was shocking, confusing, sad and even agonising. Togo and Manchester City striker http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Emmanuel-Adebayor-c12526 was in tears after the event, and he later announced his retirement from international football. If this was not enough,
the Togo team withdrew from the tournament after the organisers questioned the team's decision to travel by bus rather than plane through such dangerous territory.
To make matters worse, the governing body of African football (CAF) disqualified Togo and banned them for the next two African tournaments. The incident set off alarm bells across the world, as in a few months’ time 32 teams would be travelling to South
Africa to play the FIFA World Cup 2010. Questions were raised by many Europeans teams regarding the security infrastructure in http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/South-Africa-c757.
Thankfully though, nothing of this magnitude was seen again in Angola during the tournament and later on the World Cup in South Africa turned out to be a major success.
Portsmouth at the brink
After much success in the Premier League, Portsmouth were docked nine points by the English Football Association (FA), after being in debt for the most part of 2009 without giving the guarantee of repayment in due time.
Her Majesty’s Customs then ordered the club to be docked nine points, which almost sealed the clubs relegation chances. The year 2009 had already seen the club change three owners, as new owner Balram Chainrai took over and tried to sort out the whole mess.
Those were testing times indeed for the struggling club that had won the FA Cup in the 2008-09 season. However kudos to the players and manager Avram Grant, who led Portsmouth to the FA Cup final against http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 and lost on penalties. With relegation a likely
possibility, it was an emotional scene as Kevin Prince Boateng, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Nadir-Belhadj-c27230 and Hasan Yebda were in tears.
In the summer the club was declared insolvent and it was feared that http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/England-c749 will lose one of the oldest clubs around, but after weeks of hard work, the new administrators headed by Mr. Adrinikou saved the club. The debt of 135 million was paid to the clients,
and now the club has slowly started to recover from the whole scenario.
Hopefully, ‘Pompey’ will be able to bounce back in a few years time.
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