Cabaye: Have we been conned again by Newcastle United?As I wrote at the time, with Newcastle United, the club of smoke, mirrors and downright lies under current owner, Mike Ashley, there are things we still do not know about the Yohan Cabaye kerfuffle at the start of the season.
In an interview as part of the France squad at the side’s Clairefontaine HQ, Cabaye made some rather suggestive comments about what Alan Pardew called “the situation” at the time. If you recall, Pardew made a series of simlarly suggestive statements, implying that Cabaye refused to play in early season games in order to allegedly force a move to Arsenal. However, he steadfastly refused to mention it outright under the pathetic pretence that he was “protecting” Cabaye, even though he was actually hanging him out to dry with innuendo. When interviewers did ask for a direct answer, interviews were quickly halted by a female press secretary and they quickly got the message.
However, the fleet-footed Frenchman has now cast doubt on the Pardew’s and the club’s narrative, suggesting that only he and Joe Kinnear know the truth of what really happened, challenging Kinnear to play “Deep Throat” and finally come clean on what really happened in the ‘Cabayegate’ scandal.
Below is the full exchange about Cabaye and the Newcastle United imbroglio (translated by myself):(more…)
Captain Colo: The latest vistim of made up media stories?There has been much talk amongst fans in the past few weeks on the situation with Newcastle United’s captain, Fabricio Coloccini.
While there is no doubt that the player is having personal problems at the moment, that he made a request to go back and join his family in Argentina, and that one of his previous clubs, San Lorenzo (where Coloccini’s father Osvaldo works as a youth coach) tried to take advantage of the player’s personal problems by making an audacious attempt to sign the player for free, and finally that the situation has now been resolved until the end of this season at least, there have been other things have been repeated as facts in the media which were completely unsubstantiated.
Is this just the usual dishonest media tripe? Or was a “deep throat” who was party to the negotiations leaking information?
One example without a byeline in the Daily Express confidentally proclaimed: (more…)
DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!Speaking in a pre match press conference for this evening’s Europa League game against Maritimo in Funchal, Alan Pardew has revealed his displeasure at the recent words of Demba Ba’s spokesman, Alex Gontran, also revealing that there is STILL a release clause in the player’s contract.
Telling the media of a recent conversation with Ba about his spokesman’s comments, with Ba himself also revealing that “lately I am not so happy with some things going on.” at the club in his Everton post match interview, Pardew commented:
“I have spoken to Demba [about his agent] and told him I was disappointed with some of the comments around him. Sometimes it’s out of his control and out of my control. We know each other well enough. I just think people were saying things they shouldn’t say, really.”
Pardew then reiterated however that despite all the current fuss and bother, they still have a good working relationship, saying: (more…)
Douglas: Nutter.Speaking in an interview for “talksport” radio, their consultant on matters of Dutch football, Marcel van der Kraan, suggested that Newcastle United’s alleged pursuit of FC Twente centre back, Douglas Franco Teixeira, has been complicated by the fact that he is a Brazilian who is owned by three Brazilian agents, who will all want “a big share of the pie” as van der Kraan put it.
After explaining that both Newcastle United’s manager and scouting department have been in the stands at Twente closely checking out the “big unit” centre back, van der Kraan went on to outline the difficulties of signing Brazilian players in general due to the highly complicated ownership of players by agents rather than clubs, saying:
“The tragic thing about this is that Brazilian players are owned by three different people in their own country. When they’re young, they sign contracts for agents instead of clubs – The agents hold the ownership of the player. It’s a card, what they call the player’s pass, and that is usually signed by the player and his parents for about ten years or even longer. They’re sold to the agent, and the agent has ridiculous power over the player for so many years. (more…)
Teamwork is the key to Toon successYohan Cabaye states in an interview that he believes teamwork has been responsibly for a lot of Newcastle United’s success this season and that it’s teamwork that can help us compete even with clubs that have better players.
Yohan Cabaye has been assessing the season for French site Sport24.com and this is what he had to say:
Interviewer: “Yohan, what is your assessment of your first season at Newcastle?”
Yohan: “I think the outcome is very positive. Early in the season, if we were told that Newcastle would finish 5th, nobody would have believed it. Our results have been beyond the expectations of the fans.”
Interviewer: “You have near caused a big surprise by getting qualification to the Champions League … ”
Yohan: “As the season progressed, we found ourselves playing in 3rd or 4th place. There is a little disappointment that we didn’t finish there but it is quickly forgotten because we had a good season anyway. And to qualify for Europe and the Europa League was really important for the fans and the club. This has been a very successful season.” (more…)
