In football, messiahs should never reach middle age. Far better that they suffer martyrdom young or fall under a bus before their 40s. Otherwise they become mere mortals. This is what has happened to Kevin Keegan, whose final exit from the game at 54, which his departure from Manchester City surely is, has been his least dramatic.
Of all the charges levelled at Jose Mourinho in the past fortnight, Uefa’s prissy suggestion that he is a poor role model has to rank among the more obvious instances of cobblers to emanate from their saintly halls. ”Coaches are role models for the players and the fans,” the Uefa communications director William Gaillard said of the Chelsea manager.
When he took over from Sir Bobby Robson earlier in the season, I said Graeme Souness would provide the backbone that Newcastle’s relegation-bound flops desperately needed. It took time, of course, but after the stirring 4-0 win over Olympiakos in the Uefa Cup on Wednesday night, the Toon finally began to sing the name of their Scottish boss.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday said that the recently announced closure of clothing manufacturer Rex Trueform’s Salt River plant threatened to put another 1Â 000 people out of work in the Western Cape and bring the clothing, textile and leather industries one step closer to complete collapse.
Three white lions have been reintroduced into the heart of the Timbavati, almost 30 years after their species disappeared from the famous private reserve bordering the Kruger National Park. The three white lions arrived in the Timbavati heartland barely a week before a major row erupted between Bantu Holomisa and the Timbavati chairperson over commercial trophy hunting in the reserve.
The national government has been accused of misleading the public over a 10-year period about its progress in combating adult illiteracy. The astonishing litany of misrepresentation is set out in a paper by University of KwaZulu-Natal academics Professor John Aitchison and Anne Harley.
Documents obtained by the Mail & Guardian belie claims by former Vista University administrative chief Reuben Mbuli that there was no conflict of interest when he accepted a hefty ”retainer” from a businessman trying to secure work from the university. These documents rubbish claims that the ”retainer” was received for private legal work, as Mbuli claimed in a letter to the M&G a fortnight ago.
The Young Communist League believes the South African Communist Party may vote at a special conference next month to go it alone in this year’s local elections .
Young Communist League secretary general Buti Manamela said: ”As far as we know, the dominant position in the party is that we should contest power through elections.”
From March 18 your movie experience will change utterly. Ster-Kinekor has announced that 80% of its movie houses will be turned into ”discount venues”, where seats will be unallocated and cost R14 each. In a move to revitalise cinema-going, hit by home entertainment and pricey tickets, the 30 ”Junction” movie houses will be largely located in malls used by black people.
Property mogul Norman Benjamin and his accountant Emiliya Peneva, at the centre of a R16-million empowerment scandal in the Eastern Cape, were arrested this week following a Mail & Guardian exposé. The Joint Anti-Corruption Task Team took Benjamin and Peneva into custody in Cape Town on Monday. They appeared in the city’s magistrate court charged with fraud.