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Sports

UK to continue free school meal vouchers throughout the summer holidays following a campaign by Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford.

Not only has Marcus Rashford inspired a generation, now he’s fed them too.

During the past few months, he helped raise over £20m to feed 3 million vulnerable people in the UK. The England player has now spearheaded a campaign calling on the Government to reconsider a decision not to provide free school meal vouchers in England over the summer.

“We are trending no 1 and 2 in England. I need everyone’s help to keep this noise going as I head to training but before I go, to ALL MPs in Parliament, this is not about politics. The same way us players put rivalry aside when we put the England shirt on, please #maketheuturn. When you wake up this morning and run your shower, take a second to think about parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown. When you turn on your kettle to make a cup of tea or coffee think of those parents who have had to default on electricity bill payments just to make ends meet having lost their jobs during the pandemic. And when you head to the fridge to grab the milk, stop and recognise that parents of at least 200,000 children across the country this morning are waking up to empty shelving. Recognise children around the country are this morning innocently questioning ‘why?’ 9 out of 30 children in any given classroom are today asking ‘why?’ ‘Why does our future not matter?’ We are trending no 1 and 2 in England. I need everyone’s help to keep this noise going as I head to training but before I go, to ALL MPs in Parliament, this is not about politics. The same way us players put rivalry aside when we put the England shirt on, please.”

The UK government has now made a U-turn. He has agreed to extend the free school meal voucher scheme through the summer holidays, with £120m to be spent on the extension. The £15 a week vouchers will be made available to around 1.3 million children in England who are currently eligible for the scheme, and will last for six weeks in what has been called a “Covid Summer Food Fund”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said he “understands children and parents face unprecedented situations” during the coronavirus outbreak.

“I don’t even know what to say. Just look at what we can do when we come together, THIS is England in 2020. I don’t claim to have the education of an MP, but I do have a social education. I’m clued up on the difference a U-turn decision would make on 1.3m vulnerable children registered for free school meals, because ten years ago I was one of them.”

 

 

 

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 La Liga, Sports

La Liga to press criminal charges against Mallorca-Barcelona pitch invader.

La Liga has revealed their decision to press criminal charges against the pitch invader who ran on to the pitch during Real Mallorca’s behind-closed-doors match against Barcelona on Saturday to try to get a photo with Lionel Messi.

The fan, who donned an Argentina kit with Messi’s name and number 10 on the back scaled a two-meter fence to access the stadium, he was later ejected by security personnel and police. Mallorca are currently investigating how he got into the stadium.

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A statement from La Liga on Sunday said the man accessed the pitch “without any authorization and disobeying the protocols established by health legislation, as well as disobeying the orders of security staff”. La Liga also wishes to show its absolute condemnation for this type of conduct that puts the health of others at risk and risks damaging the integrity of the competition,” the statement added.

 

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“I had planned this ever since I knew the match was happening, I wanted a photo with Messi and to meet him because he’s my idol,” he told Spanish radio station, Cadena Cope.

 

 

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 English Premier League, Sports

Virgil van Dijk to become highest-paid LFC player.

Liverpool is set to offer a new contract to Dutch player, Virgil van Dijk which would keep him at the club for the rest of his career. He could be set to sign up for another seven years at Anfield. According to Football Insider, his current deal of around £125k a week will be upped to more than £200k, along with bonuses for goals, appearances, and clean sheets. making him the highest-paid Liverpool player in history.

Mohammed Salah currently earns £200,000 a week and will see his team-mate now earn more than him. PSG were willing to pay the 28-year-old a whopping salary of £280,000-per-week, which is roughly £100,000-per-week more than what he earns at Liverpool but reportedly turned down an offer from Paris Saint-Germain in order to stay at Merseyside until 2025.

Virgil Van Dijk since joining Liverpool:

• Champions League Winner
• Super Cup Winner
• Club World Cup Winner
• PFA POTY
• Premier League Player of the Season
• UEFA Defender of the Season
• UEFA Men’s POTY
• Ballon D’or 2nd place

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 Sports

Dele Alli handed one-match ban for social media post.

Dele Alli has been handed a one-game ban and £50,000 fine by the Football Association for his controversial social media post earlier this year in which he appeared to mock an Asian man over the coronavirus. He will miss next Friday’s clash with Manchester United.

He made fun of an Asian man in an airport with the caption: ‘Corona whatttttt, please listen with volume.’ He deleted the video within minutes of posting it and apologized twice.

An FA statement read: “Dele Alli has been suspended for one match with immediate effect, fined £50,000 and must undertake a face-to-face education course following a breach of FA Rule E3. The Tottenham Hotspur FC player denied that a social media post breached FA Rule E3(1), as it was insulting and/or improper and/or brought the game into disrepute, and constituted an “Aggravated Breach”, which is defined in FA Rule E3(2), as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to race and/or colour and/or ethnic origin and/or nationality. However, it was subsequently found proven by an independent Regulatory Commission.”

Alli said: ‘In response to the FA decision, I would like to apologise again for any offence caused by my actions on 6th February. It was an extremely poorly judged joke about a virus that has now affected us more than we could ever have imagined. I’m grateful that the FA has confirmed that my actions were not racist because I despise racism of any kind. We all need to be mindful of the words and actions we use and how they can be perceived by others.’ 

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Corona Virus pandemic
 Opinion

COVID-19: The Decline of Global Remittances Puts Rural Families at Risk | By: Pedro de Vasconcelos

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the loss of millions of jobs in the developed and developing world. Migrant workers are among the most directly affected. They work in economic sectors adversely impacted by the economic slowdown such as construction, the hospitality industry, tourism, food, agribusinesses, transport and domestic work. This loss of income has ripple effects across the world, putting millions of poor rural families at risk.

The majority of migrant workers are from low and middle-income countries who need to support their families through the remittances they send home on a regular basis. It is estimated that the world’s 200 million migrant workers send money regularly to 800 million family members to help them access food, health and education. Therefore, one in nine people in the world are directly impacted by remittance flows.

In 2019, remittances to low and middle-income countries totalled US$554 billion, with about half reaching families living in small towns and rural villages. However as a result of COVID-19, these flows are projected to make their sharpest decline in history, falling by 20 per cent in 2020 to US$445 billion, as indicated by a recent World Bank (https://bit.ly/3hbFV6P) forecast.

Although in the past remittances have been relatively resilient to external shocks, COVID-19 is different. It impacts senders and recipients simultaneously. Families living in rural areas in developing countries have been severely affected by lockdowns and social distancing. Markets have closed and transport has been disrupted. Small-scale farmers have been unable to sell their produce or to buy inputs, such as seeds or fertilizer. Daily labourers, small businesses and informal workers, who are often women and young people, are among the worst affected.

The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is tracking the impact of declining remittances on the ‘receiving end’ in developing countries, where typical remittances of $200 to $300 per month on average account for 60 per cent of household income. While the reduction in remittances will not fall evenly across countries and communities, the impact is likely be substantial in rural areas where remittances count the most.

Initial indications from countries that rely heavily on remittances are deeply concerning. Reports ranging from Senegal, Kenya, El Salvador and Nepal to the Philippines and Eastern Europe confirm not only the significant drop in remittances but also the return home of hundreds of thousands of jobless migrant workers to their strained households and communities in rural areas.

The sudden reduction or outright halt in remittance flows could also impact food production in the coming months with the planting season starting in different regions. In Mali, for example, many families in rural areas often cannot buy seeds and inputs for the next agricultural season without regular remittances.

Remittance families and food security: Opportunities for effective action

The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could push rural families even deeper into poverty and threaten global prosperity and stability. We need to act now to minimize the impact of the drop in remittances on the food security of rural families. If we take immediate action, we can provide rural people with the means to ensure a faster recovery. Several “win-win” opportunities present themselves:

  • Fast-track innovative business solutions that support remittance families in times of crisis, by promoting fee reductions and by developing products to enable migrant workers to transfer non-financial products through remittance service providers, such as food or medicine, directly to their families.
  • Identify and support income-generating opportunities for the “human capital” of returning workers. Migrants bring home experience, education and new skills. Migrants are risk takers, resilient and entrepreneurial. This crisis calls for creative ways to use their talents as part of the response back home.
  • Encourage financial inclusion among remittance families by promoting the creation and adoption of emergency savings products.
  • Promote the use of digital channels for sending and receiving remittances, and disseminate information about available remittance products and ways to obtain them. By expanding rural access to digital technology, remittances could support rural transformation, bringing new jobs and opportunities back home. Receiving remittances digitally could give rural dwellers access to savings, credit or insurance products can build much needed resilience at family level and benefit the communities around them.

To address a number of the challenges facing rural communities, IFAD is currently leading the UN-sponsored Remittances Community Task Force, a group of 35 stakeholders of different sectors, which will soon issue a series of comprehensive and integrated recommendations: A Blueprint for Action.

Taking the specific concrete actions outlined in the blueprint will improve legal and regulatory frameworks, facilitate private sector solutions and incorporate the active involvement of NGOs, particularly diaspora groups. This will empower remittance families, even during this unprecedented crisis, to maximize the potential development impact of remittances for themselves and the communities where they live, so that future generations might view migration as a choice rather than as a necessity.

Pedro de Vasconcelos is the head of the Financing Facility for Remittances at the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

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 Opinion

Opinion: Is the Niger Delta Still Part Of Nigeria?

The dance of the absurd taking place in the media space in recent times couldn’t have been had President Buhari not ordered for a Forensic Audit of the Books of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.

The National Assembly under Senator Ahmed Lawan and Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila seems to be unconcerned about the imminent dangers of a resurgence of youth restiveness in the oil and gas rich area of the country as some Lawmakers with obvious insidious interest have continued to challenge the authority of the President on the all-inclusive probe of the Commission which has been wobbling, twenty years after its creation. The excessive freedom enjoyed by those who have been publicly accused by the supervising Committee of the NDDC has been overstretched as the leadership of the 9th Assembly has either chosen to look the other way or become complicit in the macabre dance.

Since the decision by the President to look into the way billions of Naira have been frittered away through the Commission, the discordant tunes from a few, powerful Lawmakers from the Niger Delta region has become worrisome that the reading public is now suspicious of their involvement in the pathological sleaze that has characterized the Commission while leaving the region underdeveloped and gasping for air, in a manner akin to the African-American, George Floyd who died while begging to breathe.

It is worrisome that in spite of the fact that the National Assembly is led by the ruling party, APC, yet, the synergy expected between the Executive and the Legislature is far from being in existence as it concerns the Niger Delta region, which has consistently sustained the economy since 1956, when oil was discovered in commercial quantities.

Is it not beyond surprising and an effrontery for a group of Lawmakers to challenge the decision of the President in approving an intervention for the people of the region for the purpose of the pandemic? The impudence displayed by these Lawmakers who definitely have something sinister to frustrate the efforts of the Interim Management Committee, IMC, of the Commission and the supervising Minister, Senator Godswill Akpabio is a pointer that all is not well, particularly, when the supposed leader of the recalcitrant Lawmakers is from the opposition party, PDP. Could it be that the Senate President has conceded his powers to his Deputy, who recently, walked into the Headquarters of the EFCC with a letter written by the Clerk of the Senate, albeit on his instruction and requested for the probe and arrest of Buhari’s Minister, even when other Senators were kept in the dark of such an offensive? With the denial of Omo-Agege of his involvement in the scandal, will the Senate President set up a Committee to investigate him alongside the Clerk or simply sack the latter? That is up to him to stand for the truth or let his exalted office be ridiculed by his Deputy and his quest for power!

The desperation to have Akpabio removed and the Pondei-led IMC sacked is purely an effort to ensure that Buhari leaves no legacies in the Niger Delta region. The cry over the mismanagement of funds at the NDDC has been on, over time and was enunciated by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, sometime in 2019 at Delta State. There was a follow up visit to the President by the Governors of the States under the NDDC which compelled the President to give Akpabio the mandate to appoint Forensic Auditors to look into the books, with an Interim Management Committee to oversee the running of the Commission while the audit lasts.

Sadly, those who seem to have been squandering the funds meant to build high grade Schools, Hospitals, Roads and Bridges amongst other infrastructures, are desperate to have Akpabio’s head on the slaughter slab, as millions of Naira have been deployed to different youth groups and a section of the media to further plant negative stories in other to discredit those saddled with this responsibility.

More worrisome is the involvement of high profile and principal officers at the National Assembly in this distracting dance, that one begins to wonder if truly they mean well for the region. What really do they intend to achieve in ensuring that Buhari does not add a stone to projects in the Niger Delta. Is there a fifth columnist working against the President but are pretending to be partners in progress with him?

The effort made by the NDDC to source for international grant of $126 million from the International Fund for  Agricultural Development, IFAD, has been aborted at the point of delivery by this same Lawmakers who wickedly slashed the budgetary provision for the counterpart funding from N1.3 billion to a paltry N100 million in the 2019 Budget of the NDDC! Funds from IFAD meant to massively engage in Agriculture in the region was wished away with the stroke of the pen. Not done with the plot to keep the region perpetually underdeveloped and totally dependent on crumbs from. Federal Allocation, these agents of darkness ensured that the budget of N10 billion for the construction of three Specialist Hospitals in the region was slashed to another paltry N100m! Yet, they prefer that billions of Naira are allocated for non-existent Training programs, Desilting of the Waterways and Medical Tourism overseas that yield nothing.

The 2020 Budget which has since been submitted in 2019 is yet to be attended to. Those who have gathered irrespective of party affiliations, to keep the region in agony at the risk of illegal activities of oil bunkering, environmental degradation and deprivation, and massive pollution of the air and water resulting in the cancerous black smooth and death of aquatic life are not done with their offensive as they question the rationale behind the payment of contractors owed by successive Boards of the Commission.

The recent probe of N40 billion by the two Houses of the National Assembly is only a disguise of their real intents. Why is this probe more important to the supposed watchdogs of the Commission rather than allow for a thorough Forensic Audit? What is the real purpose of the Adhoc Committees of the two Houses in writing the Bureau of Public Procurement to deny the Forensic Auditors access to the nine states to verify the records of the Commission? This is not only suspicious but scandalous by those who claim to be in support of the Presidential Order of the Forensic Audit!

One begins to wonder who is actually ruling the country when a few Lawmakers have effortlessly challenged the powers of the President to seek to know what has been of the monies poured into the NDDC for over 19 years.

For the second highest ranking Senator who flaunts the title of “Leader of the South South” to resort to a petition against a Minister to the EFCC, in order to frustrate the President and leader of his political party, leaves much to be desired! It is clear that the 9th Assembly is not interested in the development of the Niger Delta region.

No wonder the same Lawmakers who claim to have an oversight function on the Niger Delta have failed to query the Presidential Infrastructural Development Fund, PIDF, on the deliberate neglect of the East-West Road which is one of the five critical projects under the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA. While they are at war with the managers of NDDC, they have left the people of the region to suffer as they navigate from one state to the other through the East-West Road. In spite of a Presidential approval of N100bn in 2018 for the completion of sections 1 to 4 of the road and a release of N19.5bn by the Minister for Finance, three years ago, for the payment of legacy debts, the PIDF under Mr Uche Orji has failed to pay the Contractors, thereby delaying their return to the site and allowing the road to deteriorate.

Without a recent intervention by the NDDC to repair the failed sections of the road, the people of the region would have completely been cut off from the West.

It is clear that there is an orchestrated plot to make sure that the APC controlled Federal Government fails in the Niger Delta region. And who are those responsible for this mess? Obviously, they are not far from us as the fate of the Niger Delta region now depends on them!

Obiaruko Ndukwe is the President, Citizens Quest for Truth Initiative

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 Entertainment

Simi and Adekunke Gold welcome their first child.

It’s a beautiful girl to the Kosokos.

Nigerian singers, Adekunle Gold and Simi have welcomed their first child; a baby girl named Adejare.

Adejare.
It’s like free-falling – this unending, soul snatching, infinite, mind-boggling love.
Deja, my baby girl, I got you. I promise. Now and forever. So help me God. ❤️ 5.30.2020

Congratulations to the new parents.

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 Sports

Brescia set to end Mario Balotelli’s contract.

Brescia are set to terminate Mario Balotelli’s contract following the striker’s failure to return to training ahead of Serie A’s restart this month.

The 29 year-old who, signed a three-year contract with the club last year was also involved in a row with the Brescia president, Massimo Cellino.

 

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 Sports

Cristiano Ronaldo is football’s first billionaire.

Forbes has named Portuguese football legend, Cristiano Ronaldo the first billionaire footballer. He’s only the third sportsperson to achieve the status after boxer Floyd Mayweather and golfer Tiger Woods. Ronaldo has also raked in around £36m-a-year in endorsements during his career, including lifetime partnerships with Nike.

The Juventus forward raked in £85million in the last year from his wages and endorsement deals. His Instagram earnings alone were put at £41.7m and he is the most-followed sports star on Facebook and Instagram.  Ronaldo took a £3.5m cut on his wages due to coronavirus, cutting his earnings down by 9%.

Also Read: Footballing world is joining the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March this year, as his contribution to the fight against coronavirus, he and his agent Jorge Mendes jointly donated life-saving equipment to Portuguese hospitals in Lisbon and Porto.

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 Sports

Premier League clubs to make 5 substitutions for the rest of the season.

Premier League clubs allowed to make five substitutions instead of the usual three for the rest of the 2019/20 season.

While each team can make five substitutions, each team will still only have three opportunities to make changes throughout the match in order to minimise disruption to the game.

A draft document containing biosecurity measures required for each match has been circulated. Premier League clubs will only be fined a maximum of £25,000 if they breach the competition’s new Covid-19 protocols.

The 20 clubs will be asked to voice any objections they have to relegation in the current season, ahead of a vote next week on how the league will be decided in the event of curtailment.

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