Kyril’s big Cats vow

KYRIL LOUIS-DREYFUS has pledged to bring the good times back to Sunderland after the Football League ratified his takeover.

On the day fans celebrated the League One club’s return to Wembley where they will face Tranmere in the Papa John Trophy final next month, the 23-year-old Frenchman becomes the Black Cats’ youngest ever chairman.

Billionaire Louis-dreyfus, whose late father was Marseilles’ owner, said: “Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter in Sunderland’s history.”

said: “The abuse of so many of our black footballers on social channels is probably the biggest problem we have. We cannot underestimate the impact social media abuse can have on an individual.

“We have to take this as a wake-up call.

“Unfortunately, we are getting to a point where the abuse a black footballer is getting is becoming increasingly normalised.” Venkatesham (below) said that Arsenal have protocols in place to tackle the problem – but urged social media companies to do more to combat it.

He added: “We provide support, psychologists, all that type of stuff.

“Across the whole Premier League, the clubs do a lot, and the Premier

League themselves do a lot. But we really need the support of the social media companies here. We cannot do this alone.

“How can you explain to a black footballer that if a piece of pirated content goes up on social media it is taken down within minutes – but that’s not the same for racist abuse? I don’t know how you explain that.”

Slavia Prague

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Europa League, last 32, first leg

Leicester BY DAVE ARMITAGE

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CZECH champions Slavia boasted they were on a Fox hunt – but let Brendan Rodgers’ wily side give them the slip.

Leicester certainly weren’t at their best but escaped the chase unharmed and are now favourites to see the job out against Slavia Prague in the second leg next Thursday.

Leicester boss Rodgers said: “We’re in a good position now and can really attack the second leg at home and look to get in the last 16.

“It’s set up really well for us. There weren’t many chances.

“They were a physical side and the pitch wasn’t great so we have to be happy with that.”

Leicester managed to keep the home side mainly at arm’s length with skipper Kasper Schmeichel also left feeling it was a job well done.

The City keeper said: “We knew we would have to be resilient.

“We’d have loved an away goal but we felt the worst-case scenario was to keep a clean sheet and we did that.

Slavia had baited Rodgers’ men before their plane had even left the runway back home.

Red-faced Slavia officials felt compelled to apologise for a club social media post clumsily attempting to poke fun at Schmeichel.

And the mind games didn’t stop there with Leicester greeted by a massive message emblazoned on the seats of the main stand, proclaiming ‘Fox Hunting.’

Slavia could have been forgiven for being sure of themselves – they went into this game on the back of a 25-game unbeaten home run, of which they won 20.

But they seemed to be forgetting that Leicester are flying high up near the top of the

Premier League and weren’t going to be that easy to corner.

Rodgers’ men survived a couple of scares early on with Daniel Amartey making a desperate hurried clearance and Schmeichel then flying through the air to finger-tip over a 20-yard effort from Nico Stanciu.

Both sides sounded each other out in a fairly evenly contested opening 45 minutes but you just felt that Leicester finished it the stronger.

The best chance had probably fallen to Harvey Barnes (above, being challenged by Slavia midfielder Alexander Bah) in the 15th minute when he surged towards the six-yard box only to get stopped in his tracks by keeper Ondrej Kolar.

But Leicester didn’t start to dictate the second half as expected.

And though Slavia looked likeliest to break the deadlock, Leicester’s defence took the sting out of them.

Schmeichel was critical of the pitch which cut up badly in parts and promised that his team would be a different proposition in the second leg.

He added: “When we saw the state of the pitch we knew it was going to be tough. But it will be a different game back home.”

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