Premier League Weekly | Latest News & Stories – Oct. 20, 2021
More bad news for Rafa Benitez and Everton fans
The start of the new season on the Everton bench for Rafa Benitez isn’t bad. Everton sits at 8th place with 14 points. But, off the field problems with injuries threatens to ruin the excellent run of the results. Everton is without Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin for a couple of weeks now, and more bad news comes today for Everton supporters. One of the key players in midfield and engine of the team Abdoulaye Doucoure suffered an injury in training, and he will be out for 6-7 weeks. At the first look, it seemed like a very bad injury and potential leg fractures, but after scans, it was found that there were no fractures.
Doucoure signed for Everton last summer for 20 million pounds from Watford. The 28-years-old box-to-box midfielder establishes himself as one of the key players in the Everton team. He played 28 games during the last season and every minute at the start of this 2021/22 season.
Premier League clubs vote to block Newcastle sponsorship deals
The wealthy owners of Newcastle United bother other clubs. Definitely, it’s not the same for the rest of the Premier League when Saudi owners bought Newcastle United and became the main contender even to the best teams in England. PIF group, which has 80% of the club owned by has assets worth more than 300 billion pounds. So, basically, they are the richest football club owners in the world.
That turn on an alarm at the rest of the Premier League. Owners of the rest 19 clubs have a meeting where they voted to ban Newcastle United from signing lucrative deals with a company that is related to the PIF group. Many clubs in the world are looking for a loophole in the rules of the financial fair play, and their owner’s sign deals with their own companies for a big amount of the money. So, basically, they insert their own money into the club, but in a legal way.
Per English media, 18 clubs have voted for a ban, and only Manchester City’s owner was restrained. It means that Newcastle United is given one monthly ban that prevents them from signing sponsorship contracts with companies that the PIF group owns.
England gets banned by UEFA
Because of big crowd trouble before EURO final against Italy, when fans clashed with the police, UEFA has given a one-match ban to England and ordered FA to pay 100,000 Euros fine.
Before the EURO final on 11th July, fans wanted to break into Wembley stadium without a ticket, so they clashed with the police, and many fans were injured. One of them was the father of England defender Harry Maguire.
England lost that match after penalties, and three months later, UEFA gave them punishment. This is the first time that FA has received this kind of fine and the first time that England will have to play one match behind closed doors. That match will be the first in the National League next June.
England club to build training ground with money from Ollie Watkins transfer
One touching story comes from the lower leagues of English football. Exeter City is known as a club with one of the best academies in the England lower leagues. This club from Devon promoted some very good players in recent years: Ollie Watkins, Ethan Ampadu, Matt Grimes…
Ollie Watkins made his debut for Exeter at the start of the 2013/14 season in League Two against Hartlepool United. That was his only appearance in that season. He stayed three more seasons at Sent James Park, and in the summer of 2017, he completed the transfer to Brentford for 1,8 million pounds. After three years at Brentford and 49 goals scored, he moved to Aston Villa in the transfer that is worth 28 million pounds.
The deal was very good for Exeter because when they sold Watkins to Brentford in 2017, they put a sell-on clause in the deal, which grants them 15% of the next sale. When Brentford sold Watkins to Aston Villa last summer, Exeter made about 4,2 million on that transfer.
This week Exeter’s supporter’s trust has voted to use money from that transfer and improve the current training ground, which was built in the 1970s. The cost of work will be 2,2 million pounds.
