Olympiakos defender Semedo arrested over rape allegation

Athens (AFP) – Portuguese footballer Ruben Semedo of reigning Greek champions Olympiakos was brought before an Athens public prosecutor on Monday on charges of raping a 17-year-old girl.

The 27-year-old central defender was arrested on Sunday after the girl told police that he, and a 40-year-old Nigerian man who was arrested on Monday, had lured her back to his house and raped her. 

Semedo met the girl at a bar in the seaside town of Oropos for drinks on Saturday and then drove her to his home in the Athens suburb of Glyfada where the girl said she was raped.

His lawyer Stavros Georgopoulos told reporters outside the court that the player denied the accusation.

“My client denies the accusation. He claimed that the complainant was 19 years old,” the lawyer said.

The accused was led away from the hearing in hand-cuffs.

He added that Semedo and the alleged victim were part of “a group that was together for 15 hours, it is inconceivable that they were involved in such an incident”.

Olympiakos said it would take no action against the player, nor would it comment on the matter pending a judgement.

“Olympiakos fully respects the presumption of innocence,” a club statement said.

Semedo has recently been linked with a move to Porto or Torino.

He joined Piraeus-based Olympiakos two years ago on a four-year contract from Spanish club Villarreal.

He left Villarreal after being convicted of attempted murder for which he was given a five-year jail term but he avoided going to prison in exchange for an eight-year ban on entering Spanish territory under an agreement struck in 2020. He was also fined 46,000 euros ($54,300).

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Irish FA agrees equal pay deal for men’s and women’s teams

London (AFP) – The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) hailed on Monday “a ground-breaking deal for Irish sport” after an agreement was reached for the Republic or Ireland’s male and female footballers to receive equal pay for internationals.

As part of the deal, the men’s team have agreed to reduce their match fees with the FAI matching that contribution to increase pay for the female players.

“The Football Association of Ireland is proud to announce that players representing the Republic of Ireland senior men and senior women’s international teams will receive the same match fees on international duty with immediate effect in a ground-breaking deal for Irish sport,” the FAI said in a statement.

England, Brazil, Australia, Norway and New Zealand are among the other nations to have publicly committed to paying their men and women players the same amount for earning a senior cap.

“This is a great day for Irish football,” said Ireland women’s team captain Katie McCabe.

“We have taken a huge step forward with this deal and have shown the world what can be achieved through unity as we offer male and female international players the same opportunities.”

Everton defender Seamus Coleman said the Irish men’s team were happy to play their part in ensuring a deal could be reached.

“We are delighted as players to do what we can to ensure that our female international players are treated equally and fairly and we remain fully committed to doing whatever we can to achieve that goal together,” said Coleman.

The FAI said the equal pay will begin immediately with September’s internationals and “equality of approach” has also been agreed with regard to bonuses for tournament qualification.

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Bakayako returns to Milan on loan from Chelsea

Milan (AFP) – Tiemoue Bakayoko returned to AC Milan from Chelsea on Monday after the France international completed yet another loan move away from Stamford Bridge.

Midfielder Bakayoko arrived for a second spell at Milan on a two-year loan deal with option to buy for a reported 15 million euros ($17.7 million) after spending each of the last three seasons away from Chelsea.

Milan said they were delighted to welcome the marauding midfielder back and said they would be obliged to make the deal permanent if “certain conditions were met”.

The Blues bought the 27-year-old in the summer of 2017 after he starred alongside Kylian Mbappe in Monaco’s run to the semi-finals of the previous season’s Champions League but struggled in the Premier League.

He was first sent to Milan on loan a year later when Gennaro Gattuso was coach, but the ‘Rossoneri’ did not take up their option to make the move permanent.

The following season he returned to Monaco on another year-long loan but again was sent back to Chelsea, before rejoining Gattuso at Napoli last campaign, playing 44 times as the southern side missed out on Champions League qualification on the final day.

With Gattuso gone and Luciano Spalletti in the dugout at the Stadio Diego Maradona, Bakayoko again went back to London this summer before making his return to Milan.

Bakayoko has played once for France, coming on as a substitute in a 2-0 friendly defeat to Spain.

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Sabitzer departs Leipzig for Nagelsmann reunion at Bayern

Berlin (AFP) – Austria midfielder Marcel Sabitzer will be reunited with former coach Julian Nagelsmann at Bayern Munich after completing a move from RB Leipzig, the German champions announced on Monday.

The Leipzig captain, who has signed a deal up to 2025, was left out of the squad for Sunday’s 1-0 loss at Wolfsburg.

“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to play for FC Bayern,” Sabitzer said in a club statement.

“As a child my Bayern kit was my pride and joy — I got a new one at Christmas every year.

“I’ll give everything for this club, I want to win as many matches as possible and of course collect lots of titles.”

Sabitzer, 27, scored 52 goals in 229 appearances for Leipzig but was out of contract next June. 

No transfer fee has been made public but media reports in Germany put the likely fee at around 16 million euros ($18.9 million).

He will link up again with Nagelsmann, who quit Leipzig to take over at Bayern this season, and Dayot Upamecano, who followed his former coach to the Allianz Arena.

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Injured Suarez to miss Uruguay qualifiers

Madrid (AFP) – Uruguay will be without Luis Suarez for this week’s World Cup qualifiers after Atletico Madrid revealed on Monday that the striker is suffering from a left knee injury.

Suarez is believed to have picked up the injury during Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Villarreal in which he scored.  

“Atletico Madrid’s medical team examined Luis Suarez at Navarra University Clinic (Madrid) after he came out of the game against Villarreal with pain,” the Spanish champions said in a press release.

“The MRI has detected moderate edema on the posterior surface of the left knee.”

Atletico did not comment on how long the 34-year-old would be sidelined but the injury rules him out of Uruguay’s matches against Peru (Thursday), Bolivia (September 5) and Ecuador (September 9). 

Uruguay will also be without Manchester United forward Edinson Cavani after his call-up was withdrawn by the Uruguayan Football Association.

The Premier League announced last week that its clubs will not release players for international matches played in countries on the United Kingdom government’s red list for travel.

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Arsenal’s steady demise hits rock bottom

London (AFP) – Arsenal’s worst start to a league season for 67 years will see the Gunners spend the next fortnight during an international break bottom of the table without a point or even a goal to show from their opening three games.

Mikel Arteta’s position as manager is under increasing pressure with the Spaniard reportedly given four more Premier League games against Norwich, Burnley, Tottenham and Brighton to save his job before the October international break.

To rub salt into Arsenal wounds, for the first time ever they sit bottom of the English top-flight table while north London rivals Spurs are top.

However, their decline has been a slow and steady process since the final years of Arsene Wenger’s 22-year reign in charge and has only accelerated since the Frenchman’s departure.

AFP Sport looks at what has gone wrong for one of English football’s traditional giants.

– Shoddy recruitment –

Long after Wenger’s great sides of the late 1990s and early 2000s stoped winning league titles, he managed to keep Arsenal as part of the Champions League fabric despite a limited budget to buy players and even selling some of his best as the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie and Samir Nasri departed.

Despite fan protests towards the club’s American billionaire owner Stan Kroenke, Arsenal have long since ditched their frugal policy on transfer fees.

Since Wenger left in 2018, the Gunners have spent £425 million ($585 million) on new signings and have the second highest net spend in the Premier League behind Manchester United.

Even this window they have been the biggest spenders with £130 million splashed on Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Nuno Tavares and Alberti Sambi Lokonga.

However, so much of that money has been wasted.

Two years on from a £30 million move from Saint Etienne, William Saliba is yet to play a game for the first team. Young midfielders Lucas Torreira and Mateo Guendouzi have been deemed surplus to Arteta’s requirements and farmed out on loan.

Club record signing Nicolas Pepe has failed to live up to his £72 million price tag, while a series of huge pay packets have also been wasted and made it difficult to move players on.

The club had to pay up for the remaining months on contracts for Mesut Ozil, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi before they left for free in January.

– No clear direction –

Should Arteta face the sack in the coming months, he will be the third manager in three years to leave the club.

Changes have also been constant among the hierarchy. Highly-regarded former Borussia Dortmund chief scout Sven Mislintat left after just 14 months in 2019 due to differences with then head of football Raul Sanllehi.

However, Sanllehi also left the club last year due to dissatisfaction with his transfer business.

Arteta was promoted from head coach to manager, with more say over recruitment, after just nine months in the job.

Arsenal’s focus now appears on youth with all of their summer signings aged between 21 and 23.

But that followed the expensive mistakes of giving huge contracts to players over 30 such as former Chelsea duo David Luiz and Willian, Ozil and current captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Ozil even poked fun at Arteta after Saturday’s 5-0 thrashing by Manchester City by tweeting “trust the process”.

– Falling further behind –

As Arsenal have gone backwards, the teams at the elite end of the Premier League continue to improve.

City, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool have finished in the top four for the past two seasons and all look even stronger this season for their new signings, or in Liverpool’s case the return from injury of a number of key players.

During Wenger’s reign, Arsenal boasted a record only matched by Real Madrid of 19 consecutive seasons in the Champions League.

Now they have failed to qualify for a fifth straight season and would need a miraculous turnaround to prevent that streak stretching into a sixth year.

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Man Utd confirm Cavani to miss Uruguay World Cup games

Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Manchester United confirmed on Monday that Edinson Cavani will miss Uruguay’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador after his call-up was withdrawn by the Uruguayan Football Association.

The Premier League announced last week that its clubs will not release players for international matches played in countries on the United Kingdom government’s red-list for travel.

Players who do travel to red-list countries on international duty have not been given an exemption from quarantine on their return so would have to spend 10 days in a government-allocated hotel.

“Manchester United forward Edinson Cavani is set to remain in England during the international break, after his call-up for the Uruguay squad was withdrawn,” United said in a statement.

A further complication for South American internationals is that the third round of qualifiers is due to take place on Thursday, September 9, just hours before many are supposed to be in action for their clubs.

Spain’s La Liga failed in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the weekend for clubs to be able to refuse to release their players after FIFA extended the window for international games by two days.

CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, is trying to make up for lost time after March’s World Cup qualifiers were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the united stance of Premier League clubs last week, Aston Villa have allowed Argentine duo Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia to travel on the agreement they miss their country’s third qualifier against Bolivia.

Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso were also pictured on social media travelling with Martinez and Buendia.

Liverpool manger Jurgen Klopp said on Friday his players affected will not be travelling as the quarantine conditions could see them miss multiple games.

Brazilian trio Alisson, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino and Egypt’s Mohamed Salah are therefore not set to travel.

“It’s not even close to a spa hotel, it’s eating and waiting and sleeping,” said Klopp.

“As the clubs we cannot do that not only because we play games in that time but because without being positive (for coronavirus) they lose 10 days of training.

“Without any chance of moving you lose muscle. I’s a real risk for the boys if they have to then play three, four or five days after 10 days in quarantine.”

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