₦airaland Forum

RichyBlacK:
And Blago's mandate was given to him by Chinese?

Blago exercised his constitutional duty of appointing a replacement for Obama, and if Obama and Reid don't like it they can go cry to Pelosi, who cares!

Blago is innocent until proven guilty and still the governor of Illinois! No amount of massaging the truth can change that reality!

And the Chinese also gave the Democrats the mandate to reject Blago's appointment if they think his position is compromised?

Only a brave man such as yourself would stick his neck out for Blago after the FBI have said that they have him on tape. Unless you want to call the FBI liars, Blago's fate is sealed. He is 'morally illegitimate', soon to be 'officially illegitimate' after the court case.

I hope you remember that Obama's commerce secretary has also resigned, despite not being convicted on corruption charges yet.

In your reactionary fervour, you have quickly concluded that Obama and Reid's rejection of Burris' appointment is linked to some intention to keep blacks from progressing. Thats why Bronx-Dog called you a bearded racist. I hope you know that this is a democracy, not the middle-east where you shout "Allahu Akbar!" at any perceived slight. 

How do you even know that Obama would not prefer to be seceded by another black guy?

Just not this black guy (Burris). His appointment has been compromised.

Sharrap dia!

Obama, like the true democrat he is, stated his preference for a fresh election instead of a Governor's appointment way before this scandal broke.

I see no reason why he shouldn't maintain that line, whether Burris was appointed or not.

Obama was given a mandate to be Americas leader, not a civil rights leader, so just chill with that shit.

RichyBlacK:
Obama made fool of himself by initially supporting Reid and the rest of those Dems in the senate. Blago's pick of Burris was a smart one! And I'm glad Obama has come around.

I'm beginning to think of Obama less as a black president and more as just another US president. I'll finalize my view about him after he kicks off his administration. That move against Burris, was probably because he wanted to distance himself from the civil rights era blacks. Recall that Bobby Rush, a strong supporter of Burris, defeated Obama in the 2000 US House of Reps race. Maybe Obama didn't like the Rush-factor in the Burris nomination. Anyway, I think Obama should stop distancing himself from civil rights era black politicians and learn to embrace them. I was 100% sure that the Congressional Black Caucus would put their weight behind Burris, the Blago-factor notwithstanding, however, Obama probably didn't see that coming before taking sides with Reid and his gang!

My friend, stop yarning your personal feelings. . . . this is politics and there is a due process to follow.

Blago delegitimised his governorship with his corrupt antics. An illegitimate Governor cannot appoint a senator, therefore Burris' senateship is illegitimate ab initio.

The Democratic Party cannot be seen to approve his nomination because they will taint themselves by association.

And yes, Obama is Mr President, not a civil rights activist.

All the civil rights activism he did in his younger days, e never do una?

GBAM!

Keyamo has shone a torch into the hidden crevices of Ribadu's world.

This letter alone can finish Ribadu's credibility.

But Keyamo, why you dey expose your guy Omoyele na? You no say Naijamen dey do some kain funny things to get visa. 

4Play, I need legal analysis on this shit. 

Back then Beckham scored at least 5 to 8 freekicks per season.

Chairman,

Happy New Year o!

You caught us fighting as usual.

O boy fashi. As of 1998 - 2001, Beckham was king of freekicks o!

The same Southern Nigerians who promote "ONE NIGERIA" are the same Southern Nigerians who are here condoning (or denying) the actions of the police in the Jos riots without knowing the full story.

This quickness to absolve the Police of any wrongdoing is disturbing. It dehumanises the victims.

What is there to unify us if even "ONE NIGERIANS" cannot act or think in a manner which is conducive to unity?

Further evidence that there is no such thing as "ONE NIGERIA".

You cannot be a Republican on one hand and then deny justice to citizens of the Republic (in this case, Hausa) on the other hand.

Police should all be prosecuted. If they are innocent, we will find out in a court of law. This is just the "due process" that all democratic Nations employ. We should expect no less in Nigeria.

@ Poster, direct your ire at the Nigerian Govt who run an education system which produces half-baked graduates. Multi-nationals are not your concern.

Sinisa was the god of freekicks but some would argue that Koeman and Beckham were better or equal in their prime.

Coups beget coups, until you end up with Abacha.

Olukony:
Check what the Forbes figured, then figure more
'because they 4got to account what I did with the raw - JAY-Z (Roc Boys)

Hehehe. . . . that line is madness. . . . I just got it, despite hearing that track several times.

Some of the best underG rappers:



Saigon

[flash=425,344]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-xQtWUU9A&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]




Crooked I

[flash=425,344]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZURRPZLTHUg&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]





Masta Ace

[flash=425,344]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GZ_1g3Mu_E&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

Forget new Canibus. . . . when Canibus was signed with Universal from 97-2000, he was spitting illness and was also sonically sound. . .

I still remember the first time I heard him on this track called Beasts from the east.


[flash=425,344]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8766Wavlg4&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

dayokanu:
@Poster,

Your friend is nuts
What is the conversion rate of Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham?

I might find Del Piero vs Juninko more debatable but not thise losers called Ronaldo and Beckham.

@Topic who created Gerrard, lampard, and those jesters as free kick takers not even Ronaldinho, Pirlo

Dayo, I am dissapointed.

Of everyone on Nairaland, I expect you to know that Wendel is the best freekick taker right now.

Juninho lost it.

Akolawole:
Na Ajegunle proffessor i mean, me no go school o.

De time wey you for go school sef, dem never invent internet.

Typical Akola!

Everytime you provide incontrovertible evidence, he tells you that his Professor told him not to trust google - quite ironic, since he claims that he never went to university. 

My friend, I never said Grant will not be sacked. Go and check the archives and correct yourself. I remember the conversation you are referring to.

Anyway, if you want to call Independent and Telegraph blogs, thats your business. I also remember reading it in The Times. I cannot find a link for you from them, but you can take my word for it unless you wish to call me a liar.

I think I have proved beyond reasonable doubt that JM railroaded Chelsea into a new contract despite already being the highest paid manager in the world. Only the hardhearted would still disbelieve despite all the evidence I've provided.

Anyway, we can see the tone that JM's contract negotiations set when it was the players' turn to negotiate their own contracts.

QED.

So JM was already the top earner in the World on £4.2m and he still needed new contract?


MONEY TALKS: TOP MANAGERS' EARNINGS IN EUROPE


England

Jose Mourinho Chelsea pounds 5.2m

Sven Goran Eriksson England pounds 4m

Sir Alex Ferguson Manchester United pounds 3.6m


Italy

Marcello Lippi Italy pounds 0.68m

Fabio Capello Juventus pounds 2.05m

Roberto Mancini Inter pounds 1.7m

Carlo Ancelotti Milan low basic wage with big bonuses


Germany

Felix Magath Bayern Munich pounds 3m


Spain

Luis Aragones Spain pounds 0.34m

Frank Rijkaard Barcelona pounds 0.82m

*Claudio Ranieri Valencia pounds 1.5m






Some more links for the readers of Ajegunle Standard:


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050407/ai_n13564580


[center]Chelsea defuse Mourinho row with £5.2m-a-year pay[/center]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
That followed Chelsea's failure to appeal against the two-match ban imposed by Uefa, the governing body of European football, for bringing the game into disrepute, which prevented him from being in the dug-out or the dressing- room for last night's Champions' League quarter-final against Bayern Munich. In protest, but also as a calculated sign of the faith he has in his players, Mourinho decided not even to go to the stadium. Instead, he watched the game 'in a private place'.

He was to be joined there by his agent, Jorge Mendes, and Mendes's nephew, Luis Correia, also an agent. It was Mendes who brokered the new deal and also handled the negotiations with the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, and the chief executive, Peter Kenyon, which brought Mourinho to England in the first place. Although Mendes was only brought in by Mourinho to smooth his departure from Porto, at a time when he was being bombarded by agents claiming to be acting for almost every major club in Europe, he is trusted implicitly. Indeed, Mourinho absented himself completely from this week's talks, although he did hold a discussion with Abramovich and his close associate, Eugene Shvidler, at Chelsea's training ground in Cobham, Surrey, on Tuesday.

Chelsea have tried to play down the crisis, with Mourinho complaining about everything from the way he has been implicated in the Ashley Cole tapping-up incident to the role of the club's chairman, Bruce Buck. But the fact that the contract negotiations took place in the run-up to the club's biggest game of the season shows how serious the situation was.

It is indeed unheard of, even if Chelsea claim not to have been surprised by the events of the last few days. But then again they were warned " and by Mourinho himself. When he succeeded Claudio Ranieri, he made perfectly clear that he would be high-maintenance, that he would be demanding, that he would expect a lot in return for the intense commitment he himself shows. And that it would be a roller-coaster ride at times.

However, the issue of the contract undoubtedly rankled " and simply because Mourinho had made plain to Abramovich before Christmas that he wanted a longer and more lucrative deal. The response he got back was not discouraging but Abramovich, not unreasonably, expected negotiations to take place after the season had finished. He never wanted to lose Mourinho but somehow, rightly or wrongly, the message that was relayed seemed to be a cool one of saying, 'Let's see what we win first, then we'll talk'.

Mourinho is undoubtedly a calculating character and even his most apparently spontaneous actions are usually thought through in advance. The events of the last few days have significantly strengthened his position at the club, especially as the players were starting to be unsettled by talk of his departure. Abramovich knows he is a winner and is willing to go along with that. For now. Mourinho, in turn, has also conceded that maybe he needs to accept some of the strategies, and structures, Chelsea have in place just as he has said he has to learn that the football authorities in England also do things differently. ________________________________________________________________________________________________


JM apostles, go and sleep.

Akolawole:
As at 1st April, we've not even play Bayern at the Bridge let alone going to germany for the second leg.


FYI, we played Bayern first at the bridge on April 6 and qualified in germany a week later.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4407909.stm

What does it matter? The first leg of Champions League quarter-final is usually played at the end of March hence I said we are safely past Bayern. There is no need for pedantry. You made a silly "conjecture" that Mourinho would not ask for new contract inbetween both legs against Barca. I say "conjecture" because I am providing links and you are making conjectures. The evidence from several links shows that Mourinho wanted a new contract in April, hence we were already way past Barcelona. That is all that matters.

You say the club "offered" a new contract. To which I ask, what club offers new contracts just 9 months into a managers' tenure? It is not like he wasn't already the highest paid manager in the whole world.

somze:
The links you gave do not prove that JM wanted a raise. All we can get from it is - he was offered a new contract and he accepted.

We need a link where JM stated explicitly that he needed a new contract.

Somze, do you expect JM to come out and publicly say he wants to leave Chelsea unless he gets a bigger contract? In the whole history of football, can you name one manager who has done that? When it comes to JM, common sense evades you.

My links stated explicitly that JM could only be pacified by a larger contract after the Anders Frisk affair. All three links.

Akolawole:
Can you read this from your favourite times, particularly the paragraph quoted below. Please note that date, it was after we won the premiership.

Mourinho is ready to prove that “my heart is with Chelsea” and he knew that five minutes after securing the title, live on television, was a good time to raise the subject of his new £5 million-plus contract. His agent, Jorge Mendes, is in England this week when talks should resume. Mourinho knows his own worth: the title takes his haul of trophies to seven — and counting — in three dazzling seasons.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article387672.ece

How does the writer know the contract is for £5m if discussions have not already taken place long before the Bolton game? 

Your cognitive reasoning escapes you when it comes to JM issues.

Again I ask a simple question: Is the journalist in the Independent a psychic to predict that JM would get a new contract since April 21st? Discussions had already been taking place since the start of April!

It is just a PR stunt to claim that Chelsea are offering a new contract after the Bolton game. Everything ties in nicely. Did Kenyon conceive of the idea inbetween the final whistle and the press conference or had talks been ongoing?

Here is a link from April 6th 2005 that says Chelsea have offered JM a new contract:

http://www.rediff.com/sports/2005/apr/06chel.htm


I can play the links game all day.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/the-final-days-text-messages-and-grief-from-golden-circle-that-signalled-the-end-was-nigh-402999.html

Quote:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cracks started to appear over his reaction to the Uefa inquiry following the retirement of the referee Anders Frisk and the claims Mourinho made in Barcelona.

He felt, in the wake of the storm, unsupported. Mourinho was even exasperated when he read the comments from Buck on the back page of this newspaper the day after the Uefa ban was announced, in which the Chelsea chairman declared the hearing "full and fair". The manager didn't know the chairman well and believed he was not a big enough figure in football.

He threatened to quit. In the end he got a bumper new contract from Abramovich – who was forced to fly in and sort out the crisis, even if many at Chelsea felt it was all simply a ploy to get a pay rise and the club's owner is no fool.
______________________________________________________________________________________________


I don't know why I am arguing about this with readers of the Ajegunle Standard who are not getting the full koko.

If we were in 2005 now, I would get you a hundred links. I no get time to dey google search for right wingers just so I can teach them Chelsea history.

Akolawole:
How could a Coach be asking for for increase in wages when he is on the verge of being booted out of the champions league by Barca?

By April 1st when Mourinho started making his demands, we were already safely past Bayern Munich.

Still, JM apostles refuse to believe despite overwhelming evidence and three solid links. But if I tell them Mourinho can fly, they need no links to believe.

Anyway, on to Manchester United. . . .

Is anyone confident about the game?. . . .

debosky:
All this is based on ONE article - I remember Ade's saga over the summer, he claimed he never asked for a transfer or pay rise, but numerous articles were written to that effect. Does that make it true?

Of course Ade asked for transfer or pay rise. I saw the interview on Sky Sports news where he was non-commital on his Arsenal future. He did not officially hand in a request but he let it be known quite clearly what his intentions were. A player who is happy at a club does not hesistate to tell you he is happy.

It's not just one article on this Mourinho. I only found this article by google search yesterday. I don't think I have seen it before. I was reading about it in MANY articles in 2005. Besides, I have provided 2 more links.

Chelsea would have no reason to release info to the press which discredits JM - certainly not in April 2005. I buy The Times everyday and they covered this saga fully back in 2005. I also find The Times to be the most credible source of information among all newspapers.

As for Gallas, how do you know he never threatened own goal? 

Shebi he refused to join the team for pre-season in LA and even refused to play the first match of the season against Man City?

Maybe he thought Mourinho's contract negotiation style would work for him.

Akolawole:
@Ibime

Please apply common sense to this.

(1.) A Coach came into England, been paid the highest in the land and within 10 months demanding for increase even without winning the holy grail. Use your head man

(2.) The article was just about wahala in Barcelona, the rullings and "sidon look" of chelsea management when Jose need support.

My friend stop chatting nonsense. Mourinho is a greedy sod. Stop making silly excuses for your idol.

(1.) He was already clearly on his way to winning the league and had a 13 point lead in the table. It was on April 1st that the stories started coming out in Portugal that Jose is unhappy unless Chelsea give him a new contract. Read the article with your eyes, not your nyash. The fact that JM was asking for new contract was carried in the newspapers for a few weeks. If Ajegunle News was busy concentrating on other news stories at the time, I cannot help you.  Here are other links to help you to believe what is already a known fact.

http://www.oleole.com/blogs/chelseablog/posts/new-deal-for-jose

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2357823/Mourinho-antics-may-hasten-new-contract.html



(2.) What nonsense! JM clearly handled the Anders Frisk affair poorly, claiming he saw something when he did not, then later changing his story to say that it was Stevie Clarke that saw it, not him. The club decided not to appeal his fine, not because they didn't support him, but to take the furore out of the whole situation. Afterall, a man's life had been threatened over the saga and UEFA were pissed that they had just lost their star referee so Chelsea did not want to get into UEFA's bad books. I don't see the problem there. WTF are you talking about "Siddon Look"? This shows that anything done by JM is excusable in your eyes. Jose just used the silly excuse of the Anders Frisk affair to launch a money-grab.

The article clearly states:

Although Mourinho's supporters insist the dispute was not about money or his contract, it is clear that a new deal was always going to be the resolution. Chelsea just wanted, not unreasonably, to wait until the season's end. Mourinho didn't want to do that.

A manager threatening the club over a new contract is unprecedent in the history of EPL. I hope you know that what may be acceptable for a player is not acceptable behaviour for a manager.

Nice job Seun. I thought someone needed to make a classifieds website for Nigeria. I hope you become the Sergey Brin of Naija.

Still, I think the site could be made easier to use by dividing everything into subcategories instead of lumping everything into one.

Anyway, check out gumtree.com, their service is really easy to use. If you could replicate that, then its all systems go.

Akolawole:
This is the second time you will be giving us the link. Thank you very much sir

1) That piece was written on sunday April 10 2005 and Mr jose has not even won the Premiership then. He is just a winner of carling cup. And as far as England is concerned, he is not yet a winner. I don't believe he is forcing wage increase at all.

According to Kenyon, Carling cup has already increases Jose's money.

2) I don't know if you are a product of WAEC( old form 5 students) or Newer SSCE(6 years) one . Go and read that piece over and over again, was it about forcing a wage increase?

FYI, JM only signed new improved contract [b]after we won the premiership on April 30 in Bolton[/b]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/4514405.stm

I knew you will twist the argument again but i dey.

Is it the same link I gave you last time? I cannot remember. I thought you said the first link I gave you was yeye link. Shebi you know say Independent and Goal.com na two different levels.

Anyway, all of this was heavily covered in the UK newspapers at that time. Maybe Ajegunle Standard wasn't following the story that closely.

If you are insinuating that the writer is a psychic since he predicted the contract before it was signed, I will call him up and ask him to give me next week's lottery numbers.

The day that someone agrees to sign a contract is not necessarily the day that he might physically sign it. It may need to be passed through lawyers and such, or JM may simply have been too busy to pore over the details. Or the club could actually delay the official signing till he officially wins the prem, to make it look like he is being rewarded for success, as opposed to looking like the club was railroaded into it by threats.

Look, everyone knows that Jose threatened the club in 2005 over new contract.

This whole skizzle is a European problem.

All Middle-eastern countries voted against the creation of Israel at the UN in 1947, yet they still went ahead and did it. Not to mention all the countries who weren't independent and as such were denied a vote. What did they expect? Handshakes and greetings? Hence, Israel will always be seen as an outpost of the European empire.

It is quite obvious to me that Israel is not intentionally targeting kids though. They are just returning fire to the very positions that the rockets came from. If that is a school, then Hamas are using their own kids to launch a propaganda war. This is a fight between two peoples trying to fight for their survival. Neither is right and neither is wrong. Any tribe or country would do the same when faced with such a deadlocked situation.

If you think Vidic is better than Ferdy, you have the wrong perception.

In any defence, the one who organises the defence is always the best defender.

The defender who does not go to ground, but wins the ball cleanly through good positional play is always the senior partner (Baresi, Maldini, Ferdinand, Laurent Blanc, Lothar Matteus, Tony Adams etc)

The defender who is always involved in the challenges and scraps is the junior partner in the defence (Gallas, Keown, Vidic, Taribo West  etc)

Everybody at Chelsea thought Gallas was a better defender than Terry until Gallas went to Arsenal and actually had to organise a defence for himself.

Ferdy is unbeatable in the air, on the ground, cannot be outpaced and cannot be outmuscled.

Julius Aghahowa can testify in WC 2002.   

mukina2:
Ibime
i know you want to lyrically murder soemone but please be a little bit patient

It's like you read my mind.

Akolawole:
Its not for months you have been asking that, its was shortly when you joined Nairaland and you later provided on "unproven yeye link" to support that

Provide it again to get your 2:1

You must be suffering from amnesia. Maybe you started supporting Chelsea in 2006.  

I would remind you that the problem started when Mourinho threatened to quit over Chelsea's refusal to back him during the Anders Frisk affair. Go and search the archives. Don't worry, Ibime will keep schooling right-wingers about Chelsea history.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/how-mourinho-triumphed-in-risky-game-of-corridor-power-482623.html



Quote:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Just after 11pm at Stamford Bridge and the crowds have drifted joyously away following Chelsea's 4-2 victory over Bayern Munich. Jorge Mendes slips through the entrance to the Chelsea Village Hotel. A few minutes later and Peter Kenyon also rounds the corner, past the old Shed End, but heads in the opposite direction for the VIP car park.

The talks between the two have been all but complete. They also know that the new contract being finalised for Jose Mourinho means a pay rise of more than £1m a year, taking his annual salary to an eye-popping £5.2m excluding bonuses, and a five-year deal for the Chelsea manager. It reveals a shift in power which confirms Mourinho and not Kenyon, the chief executive, as the more important man at the club and also signifies Mendes, Mourinho's agent, as an increasingly influential force in his own right. There is no one bigger than Mourinho at Chelsea, and not just because there is no one who will be more highly paid.

It was always an unequal contest. Ever since Mourinho had threatened to walk, even if he didn't really want to, Kenyon knew that his best gambit was to allow the crisis to run its course and to wait for the inevitable intervention of Chelsea's owner, Roman Abramovich. That came last Monday, following a call to fly Mendes over from Portugal, after it was made clear that Mourinho's threats, which had surfaced the Friday before and which exploded with Chelsea's refusal to appeal his two-match touchline ban imposed by Uefa, were real. It didn't help that Eugene Tenenbaum, Abramovich's most trusted lieutenant, his fixer, who has a good working relationship with Kenyon, and the man who could have quickly smoothed things, was not around.

Abramovich rapidly made his decision. And his decision was to give Mourinho exactly what he wanted. It wasn't a slight on Kenyon, but merely the affirmation of what everyone at Chelsea expected. Mourinho is in charge and "Mr A", as Abramovich is known, has backed him. And the reason why is simple. Mourinho is a winner and Abramovich wants nothing more than to win. "At the end of the day PK [Peter Kenyon] realises how seriously Mr A takes it all," says one source. "So what else could he do?" Indeed, Mourinho has now been handed the most incredible of mandates. No transfer target will be refused, no resource denied. If a winter training camp needs to be established on the Algarve, for instance, it will be. If Mourinho wants to rip up his squad and start again (which he doesn't) then the cheques will be written. "He can have the money for whatever he wants," a source says.

. . . . . .

That Friday, stories started to surface in Portugal - on websites and then picked up by television. At first they were hard to verify, partly because Chelsea officials themselves believed they were simply April Fool jokes, even if they were second item on the running order of the news, after the Pope's illness. By the end of the evening it was clear that Mourinho was, indeed, unhappy. It wasn't until Sunday that the story began to truly gather pace, and although Mourinho's associates made it clear that he wanted to stay, they were not adverse to mentioning that the support he felt he lacked would be forthcoming at a club like Internazionale.

Although Mourinho's supporters insist the dispute was not about money or his contract, it is clear that a new deal was always going to be the resolution. Chelsea just wanted, not unreasonably, to wait until the season's end. Mourinho didn't want to do that. He will also be given a greater say in the club's policies in return for cooling his own outbursts. It is also not surprising that, after negotiations were complete, a fuller picture of what happened in Barcelona has emerged and the dispute with Uefa continued.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________



What kind of manager cannot respect his contract for more than 10 months and will put a gun to his clubs head because of his greed? What kind of example does this set for the players?

JM apostles please send your answers on a postcard.

As for Ferdinand, can someone name a better defender in the world for the last 2 years?

ogasa, this no be court of law o!

All this argument wey you dey make, na proof by induction, contradiction or abi na proof by contrapositive?

Anyway, wasn't there a story about dumping of nuclear waste off Nigerian shores?

This whole piracy skizzle reminds me of how Naija Delta militancy first started.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html


[center]You Are Being Lied to About Pirates[/center]

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters, We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?

Berbatov is a waste of money for now. I prefer the Tevez and Rooney combination which gives Ronaldo more freedom to go forward because they always cover him.

Rooney's £30m is fully justified. They can still sell him tomorrow for the same price.

Ferdinand was bought at a time when £30m was a common price to pay for players. At that time, the transfer market was in the middle of a bubble which ended in 2003. Crespo, Ronaldo, Vieiri and such went for more than £30m at about the same time. By the way, Ferdinand is the greatest defender I have seen in the Premiership.

Akolawole:
1) How much was Lampard earning under JM

3) How much was Didier earning under JM and who increases his pay and when?

4) What of John Terry

I would be happy if answers were provided in a legible manner NOT THE USUAL MUDDLING UP AND YEYE LONG POST.

(1.) Lampard contract negotiations started under JM, not yesterday. Lampard's been earning £95,000 since 2004. JM put pressure on the board to give him what he wanted, even insinuating several times that he was worth as much as Sheva and Ballack. This was when Sheva and Ballacks wages were considered obscene and based on their performances as world class players at previous clubs. They gave Lampard an obscene contract only under threat of free transfer and to keep him from going to Inter. He earns £120,000 now rising to £150,000 in 2011 and dropping back to £80,000 in 2013.

(2.) Drogba talks started under JM. Again, JM put pressure on the board. Drogba earned £91,000 under JM, now its £100,000.

(3.) John Terry talks started under JM. Same story again. Kenyon gave him what he wanted just like he gave Drogba,  Essien and such to keep them from leaving after the farcical way JM's sacking was handled and an unqualified coach like Grant brought to replace him.

(4.) JM also put pressure on the board to give Gallas new contract at £90,000, the same as Terry.

Now, answer the questions I have been asking for months:

Why did JM threaten to leave Chelsea after his first year and why was he only pacified by a humongous new contract which almost doubled his wages?

I have given numerous examples of SAF and Wenger going to war over the amount of money that players were asking for. Don’t make me repeat myself.

Now, please give me one example where Jose went to war over the amount of money that players were asking for.