The Sun-Herald

Socceroos can't beat big business

THE cancellation of the Socceroos' friendly match with Argentina was more complicated than originally thought, Parrot's Buenos Aires office reports.

Last year, the Argentina Football Association sold to a Russian company called Renova for $US18 million ($21.8m) the rights to 24 friendly matches until 2011. A contract clause gave Renova the right to name 30 players for the games, of which six must play. The catch: coach Alfio Basile has stubbornly built a team of home-based players for the Copa America. Renova was unhappy with that but had also booked the supposed superstar team to play Switzerland in Basel on June 2, four days before the planned MCG clash. Basile didn't want to take a round-the-world flight and, so, the MCG lights were turned off.

Culina's signed, right?
HAS Branko Culina really signed a contract to be Sydney FC's permanent new coach or is this all a cruel hoax? We ask because the owner of Romanian club Steaua Bucharest has confessed that a contract coach Cosmin Olaroiu recently signed before TV cameras was fake. "It was a bluff aimed to give peace to my players and the coach," owner Gigi Becali said. "The document we signed was an old contract. We don't need a new written contract." That wouldn't happen in Sydney, would it? Answer: no. Even if Culina should have got the job two years ago.

Mum to the rescue
CHELSEA star Michael Essien was arrested for drink-driving on Tuesday after cops pulled him over at 5am. Essien was suspended for the midweek Champs League game with Liverpool so spent the build-up in a nightclub instead of the training pitch. The Ghanaian denied being over the legal limit but the incident caused Chelsea's spin machine to go into overdrive. "He is a very quiet young man who reads the Bible and spends more than an hour a day on the phone to his mum," claimed an unnamed Chelsea "source", suggesting religion and your mum will always beat a nightclub in a game of paper, rock and scissors.

Jose lets fly with facts
IN unsurprising news, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho blasted referee Markus Merk for failing to give his team a penalty against Liverpool during the midweek Champs League kickaround, which the London side won 1-0. "I don't understand how we don't have penalties," Mourinho moaned. "When the penalties are so clear, I don't understand. I go for the facts and it's a fact." Liverpool's Alvaro Arbeloa clearly did handle the ball in the incident that angered Mourinho. Except he was almost a metre outside the penalty box. Rafael Benitez, sarcastically, backed his rival: "If Jose says it was a penalty, I am sure it was a penalty."

A quick word with . . .
MANCHESTER City boss Stuart Pearce (pictured), a little annoyed at heckling from Blues supporters: "The next time I go to the theatre, I'm going to let some thespians have it. It might make me feel better and then I'll claim I pay their wages when I leave."

Not so Keane on Sydney
REMEMBER old pal Dwight Yorke? Don't get too sentimental. Sunderland, whom Yorke controver-sially joined from Sydney, could win the Cham-pionship (England's second division) this season, handing Yorke success he apparently couldn't find elsewhere. At least, that's what Sunderland boss Roy Keane suggests. "He won a League Cup at Villa, I'll give him that, but that's the League Cup, isn't it?" Keane said. "He didn't win too much at Birmingham and Blackburn and you can't count Sydney, can you?" Ouch. Forget the myth that leaving the A-League was a wrench for Yorke. "I didn't hesitate when [Keane called]," he confessed to British media. "Although I did give it at least a day before I answered, just to keep him sweating."

BECKS BIDDING GOODBYE TO BERNABEU
BECKSMANIA'S days in Madrid are fast fluttering away and the old sock is getting sentimental. "For me, playing at the Bernabeu is one of the best feelings in the world," he said of his old home. "I always loved playing at the Bernabeu and, when I look back, playing [there] will be the highlight except for wearing the famous white shirt." Highlight, indeed, mainly because Real failed to win anything during Becksmania's four-year confinement. Except, just maybe, this season when the Spanish title will go to the wire. Coincidentally, it's a season in which Beckham has had a lesser role to play.