Author: pr web

The Seychelles women’s volleyball national team defended its champion title for the fourth consecutive time at the 11th edition of the Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG) on Sunday.

The Seychellois side defeated host country Madagascar 3-2 at a set score of 25-11, 23-25, 25-21, 23-25, and 15-11 to give Seychelles its 11th gold medal at the Games.

The women’s volleyball was the only team sport in which Seychelles won a gold medal at the 11th edition of the IOIG. The team won the volleyball competition in the Indian Ocean Island Games in 2011 in Seychelles, 2015 in Reunion, and 2019 in Mauritius.

The President of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan, sent a message of congratulations to the team.

“The gold medal is coming home. Well done to our women’s volleyball team. Congratulations ladies! You fought hard and showed what you wanted to do in Madagascar. You have truly made Seychelles proud. Congratulations again,” said Ramkalawan.

Athlete Iven Moise on Saturday won a second gold medal when he came out first in the 5,000m race in 15 minutes 02.51 seconds. His first gold medal was in the 10,000m race.

In his congratulatory message, Ramkalawan said: “Well done Lieutenant Ivan Moise on winning another gold medal for Seychelles! Congratulations and thank you for making Seychelles proud. As Commander-in-Chief, I commend you on your achievements that have undoubtedly made the Seychelles Defence Forces and Seychelles proud.”

Moise is the only Seychellois athlete to win a gold medal in the athletics competition.

As the game ended on Sunday, Ramkalawan expressed his sincere appreciation to all Seychellois athletes who participated in the games.

“We admire your determination and courage. Despite challenges, you all did your best. You proved yourselves and we are proud of you. To all the coaches, officials and organisers who have worked tirelessly to prepare and support our athletes, we say a big thank you. To all the media crews and technical teams who have brought us live transmissions and kept us updated throughout the games, thank you. To all of you who have helped in one way or another our sincere appreciation to everyone. Well done Team Seychelles,” he said.

Seychelles’ delegation at the Games will return home on three separate flights. The first flight will be on Monday, the second on Tuesday, and the final on Wednesday.

Seychelles ended the IOIG in 4th place on the medals table with 84 medals – 11 gold, 33 silver, and 40 bronze.

Madagascar topped the table with 272 medals – 121 gold, 71 silver and 80 bronze, followed by Mauritius and Reunion.

In the last IOIG in 2019 in Mauritius, Seychelles won 111 medals among which 28 were gold.

The next Games are expected to take place in Comoros in 2027.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

In Chelsea’s matchday programme ahead of Nottingham Forest’s visit to Stamford Bridge, Mauricio Pochettino insisted he is ‘pleased with the progress’ his new side is making. And after a slow start to his reign, consecutive wins over Luton and AFC Wimbledon suggested the Argentine had a point.

Those are hardly inspiring results, but there were small signs of encouragement in each fixture to give Pochettino optimism about the direction Chelsea are heading in. But Saturday’s shock home defeat by Forest is a significant bump in the road and will clearly hurt the former Tottenham boss.

However, Pochettino’s project will take time as he attempts to stamp his mark on a completely new squad full of young players. Chelsea’s starting XI against Forest had an average age of 24.5, and there is nobody better than the 51-year-old to guide their development.

Pochettino will be confident of finding a winning formula and bringing his attractive style of football to Chelsea, but he won’t be naive. After spending a record amount of money in the summer transfer window and already passing the £1bn mark under the ownership of Todd Boehly, he’ll know the club’s hierarchy will want to see clear improvements sooner rather than later.

Spurs head coach Ange Postecoglou decided to lead the line with Heung-Min Son for the first time under his management – and the decision paid off handsomely at Burnley.

Son scored a fine hat-trick at Turf Moor to keep Spurs unbeaten in the Premier League and also kick-start his campaign

The South Korean had not scored before the trip to Burnley but the switch to the number nine position – that had been taken up by Richarlison in Spurs’ previous four games in all competitions – brought the best out of him in this fluid ‘Angeball’ system.

His captain’s display saw him have the most shots (5) and shots inside the box (4) of any player in the 5-2 win at Burnley.

Son also combined superbly with Richarlison’s replacement Manor Solomon, with the winger – taking up Son’s previous position on the left – setting up his first two goals.

Solomon created the most chances (5) in the victory and, with Son showing he can be the player to replace Harry Kane up front, Richarlison will surely remain on the bench for the next game at home to Sheffield United after the international break.

Haaland hits hat-trick as the Citizens beat Fulham 5 – 1

On a day Erling Haaland bagged another hat-trick – and a good one at that – the thing we continue to circle back to, the thing that hogs the headlines, is VAR. Contentious VAR. The system that was created to put an end to controversy, is actually serving to fuel it.

Phil Foden’s corner was promptly nodded goalwards by Nathan Ake in second-half stoppage time – nothing wrong with that. But as Manuel Akanji lept over the ball, he did so from an offside position. There is no doubt Akanji was ‘in the line of vision’ of goalkeeper Bernd Leno, which a quick scan of the rulebook will tell you is a definite infringement. The entire episode was somehow missed by on-field referee Michael Oliver.

Sounds like a clear and obvious error, right? Wrong. ‘He must have put the goalkeeper off, he must be interfering with the goalkeeper,’ said former referee Mike Dean on Soccer Saturday. VAR, remarkably, disagreed.

The system is fundamentally flawed – governed by judgements that are far removed from the actual nuances of any given football match.

Haaland touched the ball 17 times against Fulham. Three of those were goals. One was an assist for Julian Alvarez. It’s a truly remarkable return. Yet, all the reflections centre on an issue that isn’t going away. Haaland won’t go away either, of course, but while we celebrate his achievements, VAR continues to be a sleight on our sport.

Brighton 3-1 Newcastle: Evan Ferguson’s hat-trick rocks ragged Toon

Nick Pope set the tone for a wobbly Newcastle performance, making multiple errors for Brighton’s opener which was clinically finished by Ferguson after Billy Gilmour’s shot was spilled by the Toon goalkeeper.

Brighton’s football at times was sumptuous, running rings around Newcastle’s midfield and Ferguson’s second goal was a thing of beauty as he curled home majestically from 25 yards.

The points were wrapped up by Ferguson on 70 minutes as his deflected effort completely wrongfooted Pope to cap a quite extraordinary performance from the 18-year-old.

Source: Somali National News Agency

Activist and football analyst, Rémy Ngono, has said that Cameroonian-born and Manchester United goalkeeper, Andre Onana will not take part in the decisive match pitting Cameroon and Burundi at the Garoua Stadium on September 12, 2023.

While on France 24, he told journalists that before including Onana in the list of 24 players for the match, the head coach made no physical nor telephone contact with the keeper.

“I can tell you with certainty that Andre Onana is not ready to return to the national team. He won’t be in Garoua in September.” He said.

Since the World Cup in Qatar, Onana has not played with the Indomitable Lions after a misunderstanding between him and the coach led to his early retirement from international football.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

Seychelles is hosting the first ever All-African Artistic Dance Championships at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Hotel on Mahe Island where non-elite and masters in artistic dance will clash in a showdown.

The event, which is being organised by the World Artistic Dance Federation (WADF) in collaboration with the Seychelles National Institute of Culture Heritage and the Arts (SNICHA), and the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC), is taking place on September 1 and 2.

Around 200 dancers from across six nations will be participating.

The president of WADF, Nils-Håkan Carlzon, who met with Seychelles’ President Wavel Ramkalawan on Friday, told reporters “We are attacking Africa through dance, from the Seychelles.”

He said that this is the first competition WADF is running in Africa.

WADF is a non-profit worldwide dance-organisation with over 100 years of experience in dance – which also gives non-professional dancers a platform.

“We’ve been planning it for two years actually, there has been a lot of planning,” he revealed.

He added that Seychelles has been chosen to hold the competitions this year as the “organisers have shown a great interest in our association.”

On the first day of the competition on Friday, dancers will show off their skills in Afrobeat combats, hip hop, urban and traditional forms of dance from 11 am to 6 pm.

On the second day on, the emphasis will be more on classical, ballroom, and Latin dance.

A welcoming ceremony will be held on Day 2 for all the guests to the All-African Artistic Dance Championships. There are also 13 international personnel who will be among the technical team, including Carlzon.

The championship is classified into different categories namely mini-kids from 4 years and above, juveniles from 9 to 12 years, juniors, youths and adults and masters from 35 years and above.

When asked what spectators may expect from the competition, Carlzon said “a lot of happy dancing, very nice people and good dancing of course. We have representatives coming from Europe and Russia as well; and they are very good dancers, but the big amount of dancers will come from Africa.”

“We are very pleased that the dancers and dance schools in Seychelles have such good support with sponsoring as they are able to travel actually,” added Carlzon.

He said that there was “a big delegation of Seychelles that had gone to Greece about four weeks.”

The winners of the competition will receive their prizes on Saturday night.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

The minimum salary for a league one player will stand at F CFA 200,000 during the next football season while that of a league two player will be F CFA 75,000 and that of a Guinness superleague player will be FCFA 50,000. This is contained in a circular from the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, this Wednesday August 30.

The same circular also reveals the minimum salary of coaches at the league one championship will be F CFA 250,000 and for league two coaches will be F CFA 150,000.

Source: Cameroon News Agency