The owner of two Malaysian football clubs will be imprisoned until he has paid debts he owes to players amounting to more than 1.25M USD.
🗣️ @Izham17 of @PFAMalaysia: “We will hold everyone who is failing the players and not taking dispute resolution seriously accountable.”
🗣️Miroslav Klose: "I said stop playing football because I no longer recognized it. Today, young people think about other things. As a child, I only thought about training and becoming someone in this sport that I always loved. At Lazio and in the national team, after each training session, I put myself in a bathtub full of ice to avoid injuries. But the young people on the team systematically refused.
When they saw me picking up the bags of balls to put them away at the end of training, they said to me 'But who tells you to do that?'. At that moment, I said to myself: "You're 20 years old and you can't help a 60-year-old worker? They care more about whether their cleats go with their socks. That's why I said stop. The football I knew no longer exists.
Today's young people think first of cars, contracts with their sponsors, and their new crampons. It is only after all these things that football comes. For them, their image is the most important thing. Whereas for me, all that mattered was football in its purest form"
🎙️ Javier Zanetti on Adriano:
“As soon as he arrived at Inter, he scored a goal of impressive power in a friendly match against Real Madrid. I said to myself: ‘He is the new Ronaldo, he has everything. Physics, talent, speed.’ But Adri came from the favelas and that scared me.
I had seen the problems that wealth generates on someone who has never had anything. Almost every day, at the end of practice, I would ask him, "What are you doing tonight?" Where are you going?". I was afraid that he would get into trouble.
Adriano had a father who watched him a lot and knew how to keep him focused. But before the start of the season, the unimaginable happened. They called him from Brazil and he received news that can change you forever: “Adriano, your father is dead”.
I saw him sobbing, throwing the phone and screaming like hell. Moratti and I, since that day, took him under our protection, like a little brother. During this time, he was playing, he was scoring and dedicating his goals to his father while raising his eyes and hands to the sky. But since that phone call he has never been the same. We spent entire evenings encouraging him:
“Do you realise? You are a mix between Ronaldo and Ibrahimović, you can become stronger than them, you have everything.”
But we failed, we couldn't get him out of the depression, and it still hurts me..."
Coach Sathia, you were bold and had no fear when it comes to stamping a point.
But with your players, you were a father figure, you protected them with everything you have.
I will never forget the conversations I had with you. Passionate but many times you made me chuckle.
It's never-ending and they have had enough. Just Sandro and Taylor, almost RM700,000. Coach Sathia used his own money to pay the players.
They've waited since September and yet, there is no end in sight. Verdicts given, but club management remains mum. https://t.co/14Iwt2HNPY