August 2, 2014

Louis van Gaal makes club owners richer already

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:22 pm

louis-van-gaal-paul-blankThe football season has yet to start, but new Manchester United head coach Louis van Gaal is already giving the club’s owners plenty to be happy about.

The six children of late American entrepreneur Malcolm Glazer are about to make a load of money by selling 5% of their shares in British football club Manchester United, Yahoo! writes. The share price rose steeply after the announcements of both Louis van Gaal as head coach and Adidas as main sponsor, going from 14 USD to 19.31 USD last Wednesday, raising the value of the club to to approximately 3.2 billion USD.

The Glazer family will make an estimated 155 million USD on the sale and will hold on to the majority of shares. In order to underline their intentions, the shares they are selling have reduced voting rights.

Earlier in his career Van Gaal won major awards with Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern München. In his previous job as coach of the Dutch national team, he managed to reach third place at this summer’s World Cup, the more impressive considering that most his players came from lesser leagues such as the Dutch Eredivisie.

Manchester United’s prospectus warns buyers that the club’s worth largely depends on successes in the European campaign, according to The Independent.

Photo by Paul Blank, some rights reserved.

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June 17, 2014

Dutch parody of Chilean football commercial upsets Chileans

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:44 am

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The 33 mine workers of Chile who were stuck underground for 60 days in 2010 have produced a dramatic commercial to support the Chilean football team where they mention parts of their terrible ordeal and what they were able to withstand. Recently, some Dutch comedians decided to make a parody of it, which has apparently annoyed many a Chilean if we believe the media.

Instead of seeing it as an amusing parody of ¢ Chile World Cup commercial, some people see it as Dutchmen taking the piss out of the miners, which I actually find offensive. The way they used the miners to shoehorn a message about Chilean football comes off as over the top and exploitative to me in the first place, and opens them up to criticism regardless. If the miners had made a documentary about their ordeal and the Dutch had parodied that, it would have me leaning more towards the Chileans, but not in this case.

Here is the Dutch parody of Chilean World Cup commercial (with Dutch and not so good English subtitles):

And here is the original, which is much shorter:

UPDATE: I asked an expat friend in Santiago about the parody and he said a Chilean friend had actually sent him the link to the video.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

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June 1, 2014

Roy Donders banned by Barneveld bible bashers

Filed under: Fashion,Religion,Sports by Branko Collin @ 11:32 am

juichpak-jumboThe king of tracksuits, media phenomenon and self-proclaimed stylist Roy Donders, has gotten himself in a spot of bother over his last name.

Donders is involved in a loyalty scheme for the Jumbo supermarket chain that lets football fans save up for a garish orange tracksuit (dubbed cheering suit) as part of the commercial frenzy leading up to this year’s World Cup and has lent his name to the slogan “We geven ze op hun donders” (‘let’s give ’em hell’, except that ‘donder’ means ‘thunder’).

This, according to Telegraaf, angered shoppers in the bible belt for an as yet unexplained reason. Citizens of Barneveld asked the local supermarket to remove all advertising for the scheme. The store manager gave into their demands.

Ma Donders was furious, Omroep Brabant wrote: “I don’t know what kind of faith these people have, but Donders is our last name. You cannot change that.” Meanwhile the issue has become moot because of a run on the hideous tracksuits—Jumbo claim to have run out. A spokesperson told Omroep Brabant that sales felt like “Christmas in May”.

See also: Tracksuit king Roy Donders quits his house parties

(Photo of Donders holding his track suit’s jacket: Jumbo.)

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