Women’s Super League Q&A
The WSL season kicks-off tonight and the Guardian’s girls’s soccer author Suzanne Wrack is answering your questions at 1pm BST/8am ET. Ask her something: from her profession as a sports activities reporter to her hopes for the brand new season and the way forward for the ladies’s recreation:
Key occasions
West Ham are the themes of the ultimate WSL preview forward of the brand new season, that’s out now:
Women’s Super League Q&A
The WSL season kicks-off tonight and the Guardian’s girls’s soccer author Suzanne Wrack is answering your questions at 1pm BST/8am ET. Ask her something: from her profession as a sports activities reporter to her hopes for the brand new season and the way forward for the ladies’s recreation:
Tom Garry
On the eve of the brand new WSL season, London City Lionesses have performed their greatest deal to date…
The Women’s Super League membership London City Lionesses’ new front-of-shirt sponsorship cope with Nike is the biggest within the girls’s recreation, in accordance to their American proprietor, Michele Kang.
It has been reported that the biggest present front-of-shirt sponsorship deal for a girls’s soccer group is an roughly $4m per 12 months settlement reached by the brand new NWSL franchise in Atlanta – who will start competing in 2028, however Kang informed BBC Sport: “I can absolutely confirm that this is the largest women-only front-of-shirt deal. It is higher than the Atlanta number.
“I can absolutely also share that it is higher than some of the men’s Premier League front-of-shirt deals. It’s huge. That’s why it is landmark. There are so many other people who believe in the future of women’s football. They [Nike] didn’t make this decision lightly. They did not write a charity cheque. They believe in the future and they believe together we will invest and build this future together.”
More particulars:
Liverpool signal younger St Etienne winger N’Guessan
Andy Hunter
Liverpool have signed St Etienne winger Djylian N’Guessan as a part of their drive to add highly-rated younger expertise to their ranks.
The 18-year-old, who made his senior St Etienne debut at 16, has signed a pre-contract settlement that can see him formally grow to be a Liverpool participant in January. He has price €5m and St Etienne secured a sell-on clause. N’Guessan will now spend the primary half of the season on mortgage at Brest earlier than Liverpool overview his subsequent step in January. N’Guessan’s signature follows the £30m deal for goalkeeper Lucca Brughmans to arrive from Genk subsequent summer season and different signings recognized by Liverpool’s international expertise group within the final 12 months – Armin Pecsi, Mor Talla Ndiaye, Ifeanyi Ndukwe and Samuel Martinez.
Allow Instagram content material?
This article contains content material supplied by Instagram. We ask to your permission earlier than something is loaded, as they could be utilizing cookies and different applied sciences. To view this content material, click on ‘Allow and proceed’.
That’s the nonsense out of the way in which, right here’s a switch…
Barry Glendenning
More on Dean’s free lips from Barry Glendenning in yesterday’s Football Daily:
Dean seems to blow the whistle on himself over in-match recreation claims
While Football Daily likes to suppose we now have our finger on the cultural pulse, earlier than this week we have been oblivious to the truth that Jamie Vardy has his personal podcast. Called Jamie Vardy’s Having a Party, it’s a far more sedate affair than the title suggests, given the one episode we now have seen options our t1tular hero and his sidekick the comic Josh James listening to Mike Dean reminisce about his time as a referee. While Football Daily can’t consider any social gathering that wouldn’t be enhanced by the presence of a 61-year-old former match official from the Wirral on its visitor listing, this isn’t a lot a celebration as an sometimes awkward dialog. Its declare to be “a hilarious look back at Mike’s career at the heart of English football” is as daring as it’s false, however what the episode lacks in laughs it has more than made up for in controversy.
During the course of the chat, Dean revealed to his hosts that within the pre-VAR period he and his assistants used to preserve themselves amused by taking part in little video games inside video games of top-flight soccer. “We used to say: ‘Right, we’ll kick off now, right? See how long we can go without blowing a whistle’. Done that a few times in the Premier, before VAR obviously. Went 20-25 minutes without blowing a whistle a few times. Let it go, let it go, let it go.” Dean went on to inform his inquisitors that he additionally used to see how lengthy he may go with out leaving the centre-circle whereas video games have been being performed round him, claiming that he as soon as arrange camp in a single for nearly quarter-hour. “That was just me joking about,” he honked, promptly eliciting not solely convincing laughs from a clearly shocked Josh and Jamie.
Read the Football Daily in full:
I believed nonsense and transfers have been over for some time, alas.
Dean claims he performed secret video games for fun whereas refereeing matches
The former Premier League referee Mike Dean claims he used to participate in secret challenges whereas officiating, together with attempting to keep within the centre circle for so long as doable, as he confessed to “just joking about” throughout matches. The remarks, made by probably the most well-known officers within the English recreation, have been met with bemusement by refereeing officers who say there isn’t any proof of any such behaviour having ever taken place.
Dean was a member of the choose group of referees for more than twenty years earlier than he retired in 2022 and a short spell as a video assistant referee adopted. In an interview on Jamie Vardy’s podcast this week, Dean shared anecdotes from his time as a top-flight official within the pre-VAR period. “We used to say, ‘We’ll kick off now. Right, see how long we can go without blowing a whistle,’” he mentioned. “I’ve done that a few times in the Premier League, before VAR obviously – [I] went 20, 25 minutes without blowing a whistle.
“I used to do another thing. I used to stand in the centre circle – see how long I could stay in the centre circle before I had to leave. That was just me joking about. I got about 15 minutes once.”
Officials throughout the refereeing organisation, Pro Ref, are understood to be puzzled by the claims, with the suggestion {that a} referee may keep within the centre circle for quarter-hour with out somebody noticing, for instance, seen as extremely inconceivable.
Full story right here:
Preamble
Can we concentrate on the soccer now? That’d be good, wouldn’t it? A full Premier League programme of fixtures, together with 5 (sure, 5!) within the Saturday 3pm slot. The Women’s Super League is again and subsequent week we begin speaking about how a lot we hate the (not) new format of the Champions League. No more transfers for a couple of months, Enzo Fernández has a brand new membership, time to concentrate on what issues, the sport itself… wait! Mike Dean mentioned what? Oh Jesus wept.
More on ‘Mike’ in a minute, plus all the most recent from the Premier League press conferences and different information all through the day.