Author: Chronicle Editor

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi wants the club to move for Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli, 21, before Real Madrid do. (Don Balon – in Spanish) Atletico Madrid striker Fernando Torres, 33, is keen to return to the Premier League, with Southampton and Newcastle interested. (Daily Mirror) Manchester United are prepared to pay £177m to sign Real Madrid midfielder Marco Asensio, 21. (Don Balon – in Spanish) Manchester United want to sell 22-year-old England left-back Luke Shaw for about £20m in January. (Times – subscription required) READ: $1.2bn airline revenue blocked in Nigeria, Angola, others – IATA Manchester City and Juventus want…

The global airline industry has $1.2 billion blocked in nine dollar-strapped African countries, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Monday. The global commodities price crash that began in 2014 hit economies across Africa hard, particularly big resource exporters such as Angola and Nigeria. Low oil and mineral prices have reduced government revenue and caused chronic dollar shortages and immense pressure on local currencies. The fiscal slump has meant governments have not allowed foreign airlines to repatriate their dollar profits in full. READ: Don’t pay for meter installation – Eko Electricity At an aviation meeting in the Rwandan capital,…

The management of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), on Monday warned consumers within its network against paying its personnel for installation of the company’s prepaid meters. Mr Godwin Idemudia, the General Manager, EKEDC gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos. According to him, complaints have reached the company that some personnel are collecting money for installation from consumers who had been given meters free. “As long as the meters are free, installation is also free. READ: Rivers APC laud Buhari for Maritime University, N128b capital projects “If there are other back end…

Rivers chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the allocation of over N125b out of the N8.612 trillion appropriation bill presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on 7 November as ‘unprecedented’. The funds will be used for capital projects in 2018 in the Niger Delta region. Rivers APC described it as a demonstration by President Buhari to right the wrongs the region suffered in the hands of opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) particularly during the regime of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. READ: Daniel, Bode George, others will accept who emerges chairman – Fayose Describing Jonathan’s regime as a “misfortune…

New West Ham manager David Moyes has confirmed the appointment of Alan Irvine and Stuart Pearce as his assistants at West Ham United. A statement on the club’s website said Moyes also hopes to confirm the appointment of Billy McKinlay – currently in a caretaker role at Sunderland – as a third assistant in the coming days. Irvine will be reunited with fellow Scot Moyes, whom he has previously worked with at both Preston North End and Everton. The 59-year-old Glaswegian has managerial experience of his own, having taken the reins at Preston, Sheffield Wednesday and West Bromwich Albion and…

The owners of Leicester City Football Club are reportedly being sued for £323m over money owed to the Thai government. A criminal court in Bangkok accepted the case against King Power International on Monday, according to Reuters news agency. The case is also being brought against executives of state-owned Airports of Thailand (AOT), Reuters says. READ: Croatia secure World Cup place at expense of Greece The BBC has contacted Leicester City FC, King Power and AOT for comment. Retail business King Power was founded by Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in 1989 The company was awarded its Thai duty-free monopoly in 2006 Srivaddhanaprabha,…

The eight contenders for the National Chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have agreed to work with any of them elected at the party’s National Convention on December 9. Chairman of PDP Governors Forum, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti, made the disclosure at a news briefing in the early hours of Monday after a five and half hour closed door meeting in Enugu. Fayose said that the governors met to deliberate on the forthcoming national convention and discussed with the chairmanship aspirants. READ: Four home-made bombs explode in Cameroun According to him, the forthcoming PDP convention will serve as…

Four makeshift bombs exploded overnight in the main city in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking region, but no one was injured, officials said Monday. “Four home-made bombs exploded in Bamenda, one at 9:00 pm and the three others at 3:00 am,” said a source close to the security services. “The blasts did not cause any casualties. They caused minor damage in various places,” the source said, in an account confirmed by a security source in the capital Yaounde. One of the explosions detonated close to a police unit from the Mobile Intervention Squad (GMI) and another near a well-known supermarket, the sources…

The founder of groundbreaking dating site Gaydar has died in his native South Africa. Henry Badenhorst, 51, died after falling from a tower block on Saturday, news website Buzzfeed reported. He died a decade after his co-founder and former partner Gary Frisch fell to his death in London. The two created Gaydar, which became the world’s largest dating site for gay and bisexual men, in 1999 when a friend said he was too busy to find a partner. READ: Presidency blasts Sule Lamido, ex-Jigawa governor Mr Badenhorst told the Guardian in 2009: “We put him on Excite [a search engine],…

The Presidency has blasted the former governor of Jigawa state, Sule Lamido saying he lacks the moral standing to describe President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign ‘a mockery’. Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity made the allegation when he reacted to recent interview by former Jigawa governor Sule Lamido. He said in a statement in Abuja on Sunday that the politicians were particularly targeting the destruction of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the courts. Shehu accused Lamido, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of nursing…