Bayern star Gomez reveals Chelsea tried to sign him

BERLIN: Chelsea offered Bayern Munich 42mil (US$57.3mil) last month for striker Mario Gomez, but the German giants said no, the Bundesliga’s top scorer revealed yesterday.

“I only found out about the offer after the club had turned it down,” the 25-year-old Germany international told theSport Bild weekly in an interview.

“But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I am already at a top club and I am playing where I always wanted to.”

Chelsea instead ending up paying £50mil (US$80mil) for Liverpool striker Fernando Torres just before a transfer deadline, smashing the British record.

Gomez joined the defending Bundesliga champions in 2009 from Stuttgart in a 30mil move. After a lacklustre start, he is the Bundesliga’s top striker this season, with 16 goals to his name. Torres, by contrast, found the back of the net nine times before his move to Stamford Bridge. 

  

Spurs and Becks’ LA Galaxy plan strategic alliance

LONDON: Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and David Beckham’s Los Angeles Galaxy are planning closer ties that could lead to players crossing the Atlantic in both directions.

Tim Leiweke, president of the American sports and entertainment giant AEG who own the Galaxy and are bidding in partnership with Spurs to take over the London 2012 Olympic Stadium after the Games, told reporters the two sides were forging a strategic alliance.

“We have an existing relationship now with Tottenham where we are beginning to think outside the box on football and how we do things together on football,” he said in a conference call from Los Angeles.

“Whether that’s David Beckham training (with Spurs) or maybe players from Tottenham coming to the Galaxy, playing games against each other.

“Strategically you’ll see more of an alliance between us and Tottenham long term,” added Leiweke.

Former England captain Beckham, 35, has been training with north London side Tottenham but hopes of a short-term loan deal during the Major League Soccer (MLS) close season have come to nothing.

Leiweke said he wanted Beckham back in Los Angeles for the start of the season.

“I am the one who made the decision in asking David to come back and play a full season in MLS because we haven’t been able to do that, be it for loans or injury,” he said.

“Our commitment has been ‘David, you need to be back here for the MLS season that begins in March’.

“It is because we have asked for that commitment, and the timeline in Tottenham was such, that it was very difficult for them (Spurs) to figure out a way to integrate David into the team,” he added.

Leiweke said AEG had encouraged Beckham to go to Tottenham because of the relationship with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.

“There are other examples of conversations we’ve had with Daniel in how to take that kind of cooperation and now extend it to our team in the United States,” he added.

“You are going to hear more about that in the future but part of what has been created here is a strategic alliance between AEG and Tottenham on thinking about how we can be involved in Tottenham the football club.”

   

Real set to build academy in Saudi Arabia

MADRID: Real Madrid have reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Salman Foundation to build a sports academy in the Middle Eastern country.

Madrid president Florentino Perez (pic) – who also heads Spanish construction giant ACS – says the academy will help “to serve 300 children and will help establish a relationship with the country”.

Arsenal and Inter Milan already have sports academies in the Middle East.

Madrid are one of world football’s richest clubs and claim to already have 68 academies across 32 countries. 

  

Spanish champs insist Fab transfer deal is dead – for now

GENEVA: Barcelona described any deal for Cesc Fabregas as “dead” on Tuesday and admitted that next week’s Champions League tie against Arsenal had been a draw they wanted to avoid.

Raul Sanllehi, Barcelona’s director of football, was involved in the effort to bring Fabregas back to Spain last summer but, with Arsenal having rejected two bids, there are no plans to revive their interest.

“Cesc is a great Catalan player.

“He played for us as a kid and he will be welcome back at Barcelona for the Champions League match,” he said. “Right now, everything is dead regarding a transfer.”

He added that Barca were wary of the threat posed by Arsene Wenger’s side.

“Arsenal are one of the challengers for the trophy,” he said. Arsenal will take Sanllehi’s remarks about Fabregas with a pinch of salt after receiving a similar message from Barcelona last year prior to a concerted attempt to buy their captain.

However, Barcelona’s financial situation makes it difficult for them to fund the sort of deal that might tempt Arsenal.

According to their president, Sandro Rosell, Barcelona recorded a loss of £65mil for 2009-10 and had debts of £272mil. Rossell has said that Barcelona would not pay more than £42mil for Fabregas.

Arsenal are certain to reject any renewed offer that falls below £50miln, particularly given the recent values that have been placed on leading Premier League players. 

  

Barca to drop UNICEF logo from first-team shirts

MADRID: Barcelona plan to drop the UNICEF logo from the front of their first-team shirts from July and replace it with the name of their new Qatari sponsor, a vice-president of the La Liga club said on Tuesday.

The Spanish champions are one of the few clubs in world soccer not to have a corporate logo on their shirts, instead displaying the name of the United Nations Children’s Fund, for which they pay the organisation 1.5mil a year.

However, they last month agreed a record five-year sponsorship deal with Qatar Sports Investment worth 30mil (US$41mil) a season and will have “Qatar Foundation” emblazoned on their shirt fronts from July 1.

“It has been decided that the Qatar Foundation logo will go on the front of the shirt, on the breast,” Barca vice-president Javier Faus said at a news conference.

“In the end, there will be only two words ‘Qatar Foundation’ in yellow,” he added. “UNICEF will go on the back underneath the player’s name.”

The sponsorship deal, the biggest for any soccer club, will net as much as 170mil, including 15mil for commercial rights for the current season and a bonus for winning titles that could be as much as 5mil.