Author: Chronicle Editor

Manchester United will offer Real Madrid 140m euros (£121.8m) for 28-year-old Welsh midfielder Gareth Bale. (AS – in Spanish) United and Chelsea are interested in Barcelona’s Spanish 29-year-old left-back Jordi Alba. (Sport – in Spanish) Maurizio Sarri has told Chelsea he wants to sign Inter Milan’s Argentine centre forward Mauro Icardi, 25, if he is made Blues boss. (Corriere dello Sport via Metro) Manchester City believe they can sign Leicester’s Algerian midfielder Riyad Mahrez, 27, for a knockdown fee of £60m – though it will still break their transfer record. (Sun) The president of Italian third-tier side Rimini FC has…

Despite his pulsating display against Haiti and scoring a hat-trick on Tuesday night, Lionel Messi believes Argentina are not favourites to lift the World Cup in Russia this summer. But while the Barcelona man was quick to talk down their chances, he did concede that the South Americans remain a ‘very good’ team as they eye their first World Cup title since Mexico 1986. Diego Maradona stole the show at that tournament and the pressure is growing on 30-year-old Messi to deliver for the national team on the biggest stage. ‘I am very grateful to all the people, we always…

MTN Ghana launched an initial public offering (IPO) for a 35 per cent stake in its business on Tuesday, which it hopes will raise 3.47 billion cedis ($743 million). In what is expected to be the West African country’s largest IPO, telecoms operator MTN will sell about 4.63 billion shares in MTN Ghana at 0.75 cedis per share, group vice president Ebenezer Asante said. MTN is the leading mobile operator in Ghana with 17.8 million voice subscribers as of September, ahead of AirtelTigo, Vodafone and Nigeria’s Globacom. Asante said the company had earmarked $144 million for 2018 capital expenditure, mostly…

Facing impeachment over an extramarital affair and campaign finance inquiry, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens has announced he will quit on Friday. The first-term governor was considered a rising Republican star until allegations emerged he had photographed a naked woman without her consent. The ex-Navy Seal called the allegations a “political witch hunt”. The Rhodes scholar and father-of-two presented himself as a family man during his 2016 campaign. The Missouri General Assembly, which is controlled by the governor’s own party, has been considering whether he should be impeached. What did Greitens say? “The last few months have been incredibly difficult, for…

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has said that the new national minimum wage may not materialise in September as being speculated. Ngige, who disclosed this to newsmen on Tuesday at his residence in Abuja, said that the September date was just a date to conclude negotiation on the issue of minimum wage. “The committee on the new National Minimum Wage is expected to conclude its work by the end of September and present its report to the government for deliberation and approval before an executive bill is sent to the National Assembly on the issue”. The…

Manchester United are close to signing young Porto defender Diogo Dalot for an undisclosed fee, sources close to the club have said. Dalot, 19, has a release clause of £17.4m but United are not thought to have activated it yet. Manager Jose Mourinho believes the Portugal Under-21 international right-back can provide competition for United captain Antonio Valencia. Contact between the clubs has been made and it seems only a matter of time before the deal is completed. Dalot has represented Portugal from under-15 to under-21 level and made his Porto debut in October. READ: Emmanuel Petit says Arsenal going nowhere,…

Arguably the oldest man alive South Africa’s Fredie Blom aged 114 says he wants to stop smoking but somehow the devil keeps dragging him to his old habit. Blom who spent most of his life as a labourer – on a farm and in the construction industry – in apartheid South Africa but he might soon be recognised as the world’s oldest man. Although he gave up drinking many years ago, Fredie Blom is still a regular smoker. “Every day I still smoke two to three ‘pills’,” – local slang for tobacco tightly rolled into a cigarette-length piece of newspaper.…

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti says the defection of former Minister of State for Works, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Congress (APC) will not affect the outcome of the 14 July election. The governor made the claim in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communication and New Media, Mr Lere Olayinka in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday. 
Fayose said that Adeyeye’s defection to the All Progressives Congress had merely confirmed his earlier position that he was never a loyal and committed member of the Peoples democratic Party.
 “I am not bothered by…

The government of Hungary has drafted new severe laws that will criminalise those who help irregular migrants seeking asylum in a bid to reduce the influx. If passed in its current form, the legislation could make printing leaflets with information for asylum-seekers and offering them food or legal advice a criminal offence. The constitution will also be amended to prevent other EU countries from transferring asylum seekers to the Central European country. Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is defying EU policy on migration. Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia oppose an EU scheme for relocating 160,000 refugees from Syria…

The family of a small boy dramatically rescued after dangling from a balcony in Paris, France have expressed their thanks to the Malian man who saved him. “He’s truly a hero,” the boy’s grandmother said of migrant Mamoudou Gassama, who scaled four floors to pluck the child from danger. The four-year-old’s father, who had left him in their flat and gone shopping, faces charges of failing to look after his child, reports say. Mr Gassama will be given citizenship. French President Emmanuel Macron personally thanked him, gave him a medal for courage and said he would also be offered a…