Everton owner Moshiri says Lukaku exit swayed by ‘voodoo message’
EVERTON majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri says that the club’s former striker Romelu Lukaku turned down a big offer to stay in Merseyside on the advice of a “voodoo message” that was passed on to him by the player’s mother.
The 24-year-old’s prolific form garnered interest from top clubs in England after the Belgian international scored 25 goals in 37 league appearances last season.
Lukaku was initially expected to return to his former club Chelsea but the 24-yearold instead sealed a move to United in July, and Moshiri says Everton offered everything they could in an effort to hold on to their main goal threat.
“With Romelu, I wasted two summers trying to keep him,” Moshiri said during Everton’s annual general meeting on Tuesday. “The first summer, I spent almost three months, and we managed to keep him for another year.
“Last summer, we offered him a better deal than Chelsea and he just didn’t want to stay... If I tell you what we offered, you won’t believe it. His agent went to Finch Farm to sign the contract. Then somehow during the meeting, Romelu called his mother and said she was on a pilgrimage to Africa and had seen some sort of voodoo that said he had to sign for Chelsea.
“What can you do? He’d gone to Los Angeles and wouldn’t come back, his brain had gone.”
Sevilla will report Manchester United to Uefa for not offering their fans enough tickets for the Champions League last 16 second leg at Old Trafford, the Spanish club said in a statement yesterday.
The two clubs have been engaged in a price war over tickets which escalated when United informed their travelling supporters their first leg tickets to the Spanish match would be subsidised by charging Sevilla fans more for the second leg.
Sevilla are charging United fans between £89 and £133 to watch the game at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on 21 February, which the English club considered excessive. In an email to ticket holders for that game, United explained they would be refunding them £35, which is the difference between the £89 ticket price and the £54 price Liverpool supporters were charged by Sevilla during the group stage of the competition.
Sevilla responded by saying they would subsidise their own supporters’ tickets to the Old Trafford match and complain to Uefa about their fans’ allocation of 2 995, which they say is 4.1 percent of the stadium’s capacity.
Champions League rules dictate that home sides make 5 percent of the seats available to visiting supporters.
Manchester City forward Sergio Aguero’s last-gasp header secured a 2-1 victory over Bristol City in their League Cup semi-final first leg on Tuesday after the second-tier side had frustrated the Premier League leaders.
City, who have dished out a string of maulings in a stellar league campaign, found the Championship side a tough nut to crack and had to wait until the 92nd minute to grab the winner when Argentine substitute Aguero darted in to head home.
The visitors had opened the scoring with a penalty just before halftime after central defender John Stones had fouled Bobby Reid, who dispatched the spot kick with aplomb. Kevin De Bruyne’s equaliser soon after the break turned the tide and City then laid siege to their opponents’ defence in the closing stages. – Reuters