Spicy Joe Vibes Blog

European football's governing body told the Spanish league on Tuesday to stop challenging the decision to move the dates of the World Cup in 2022 to November-December. To avoid Qatar's fierce summer heat, the 2022 World Cup is being moved from its traditional June-July slot, resulting in European competitions stopping for around two months. Fearing losses of around $70 million if the league shuts down, a Spanish appeal against FIFA's scheduling change has been filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport. UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino suggested La Liga President Javier Tebas' public protest was because he "wants to get some publicity out of it." "It's a bit sad that people don't accept decisions taken by a vast majority," Infantino said after a UEFA meeting in Prague. "You cannot take all decisions unanimously because otherwise you would not take any decisions anywhere. You need to be a bit flexible." Infantino said th...

UEFA has eased financial fair play rules on clubs in a bid to tempt investors after a tough three-year campaign to cut sky-high debt in the European game. With Gulf state-owned Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain still feeling the pain of sanctions ordered last year, UEFA's executive eased the rules at a meeting in Prague on Monday. They will force clubs to give extra information on ownership, but will also start new voluntary financial revival plans to allow clubs to avoid sanctions and to spend on players if they have a "plausible and conservative" business plan. The new UEFA rules are clearly intended to attract investors and Europe's top clubs welcomed the move. "The financial fair play rules are a very important tool for clubs to control their economic situation," said European Clubs Association president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern Munich. "Therefore, ECA calls on clubs to keep on supporting the financial fair play system and to work wi...

Dubai said it would construct a small office building using a 3D printer for the first time, in a drive to develop technology that would cut costs and save time as the city grows. 3D printing, which uses a printer to make three-dimensional objects from a digital design, is taking off in manufacturing industries around the world but has so far been used little in construction. Dubai's one-storey prototype building, with about 2,000 square feet (185 square metres) of floor space, will be printed layer-by-layer using a 20-foot tall printer, Mohamed Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, said on Tuesday. It would then be assembled on site within a few weeks. Interior furniture and structural components would also be built through 3D printing with reinforced concrete, gypsum reinforced with glass fibre, and plastic. The project is a tie-up between Dubai and Winsun, a Chinese company that has been pioneering the use of 3D printers to build houses. Gergawi ci...

Activities in federal universities may once again be disrupted following threats by workers to embark on an indefinite strike, reports Tribune. The workers, under the aegis of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and other non-teaching staff are poised for a showdown with the federal government over plans to remove the university staff school from the budget of various federal universities. Samson Ugwoke, SSANU President said the union has already mobilized all its members from the states to federal levels to prepare for a prolonged strike. He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call the National Universities Commission (NUC) to rescind the decision. He noted that over 2 000 teachers would lose their jobs if the Federal Government scrapped the staff schools across the country.

Ivory Coast has shortlisted five persons as the search for a new coach continues, with the name of Stephen Keshi missing. Keshi, the current Super Eagles coach, was summoned by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) over report he was among one hundred people who applied for the coaching job of the Elephants. The 2013 AFCON winner however denied the report. According to PANA report on Tuesday, the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF) has now shortlisted five persons to replace Hervé Renard. The shortlisted candidates are Patrice Neveu, Paolo Duarte, Michel Dussuyer, Henry Kasperczak and Frédéric Antonetti. FIF said a further shortlist of three candidates will soon be released before the final selection. Renard resigned as coach of the Elephants after leading Côte d’Ivoire to its second continental title in February. He is now with French league club Lille. The development may now settle the impending rift between the NFF and Keshi.

UEFA said Tuesday it had been shocked by reports that Italian second division games have been fixed for 100,000 euros. UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino reacted after the president of Serie B club Catania reportedly admitted to buying the results of five matches in the past season. "We are of course sad to learn what is happening. We are worried that a second division club can fix five matches paying 100,000 euros per match," Infantino told a press conference. "We are worried about the situation and in general and that is why we are fighting against it. "That's why we are working with the prosecutors, that's why we are working with associations." Italian police have arrested five people including Catania president Antonio Pulvirenti over the latest match-fixing scandal to rock Italian football. Pulvirenti made his confession on Monday, according to Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper. "Unfortunately we are dealing with criminal organisations,...

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, would be investigating singer Davido over inappropriate use of hard drugs in his recent hit song,‘Fans mi’which he featured American top Rapper, Meek Mill, reports Daily Post According to the NDLEA’s Head of Public Affairs, Mitchell Ofeyju, the agency considers the musical video ‘Fans Mi’ inappropriate and indecent. They said It has the tendency to negatively influence and induce drug use and trafficking, and it is counter- productive on the campaign against drug production, trafficking and abuse. He said that the agency is investigating the matter and will take necessary action.

Bayern Munich begin their pre-season preparations on Wednesday with Pep Guardiola planning some poetic licence to kick off their bid to win an historic fourth straight German league title. Guardiola planned to take part in a public event on Tuesday in Munich to read love poetry by the Catalan composer Marti i Pol in an event entitled "The Poet and the Playmaker". And the 44-year-old Bayern boss will want to see plenty of creativity on the pitch when his team gets down to training. The previous campaign is fresh in the memory, but Guardiola's Bayern start their pre-season with the goal of becoming the first team to win the German league title four times in a row. Having won the Bundesliga in both of his two seasons in charge, the head coach begins the third and final season of his contract also aiming to steer the title-hungry Bavarians to the Champions League title having only reached the semi-finals in the previous two seasons. The southern Germans are desperate to re...

Olympiakos Piraeus are keeping their spot in the Champions League for the time being despite investigations in Greece into the club's owner Vangelis Marinakis, UEFA said on Tuesday. Marinakis was banned from soccer earlier this month and has also been ordered to report to police every 15 days on strict bail terms. He is accused of being involved in and directing a criminal organisation, aiding and abetting blackmailing, aiding and abetting extortion, and aiding and abetting bribery and fraud. Olympiakos have qualified directly for the Champions League group stage after winning the Greek Super League last season. "The UEFA disciplinary bodies have provisionally admitted Olympiakos," UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino told reporters "There are investigations in Greece (and) the situation could change as we all know, this kind of investigation can take some time, we need to have some clear evidence." "I think our bodies have shown they are very firm wh...

Hackers shut down the Canadian intelligence agency's website Tuesday, officials said. The intrusion came two weeks after several Canadian government websites were disrupted by the hacker collective Anonymous in protest of a new anti-terror law that critics say tramples civil rights. The suspect or suspects in this new case mused on Twitter about whether to "let CSIS back online and hit another government website", or continue attacking the Canadian Security Intelligence Service website with what appeared to be a denial of service attack flooding a network with useless traffic. "How is a government/police supposed to protect you, if they can't even protect themselves," said another Twitter post, adding that the next target was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police website. Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, said the hack on the CSIS website is "another reminder of the serious security challenges and threats that...

Following pleas from Nigerians, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has decided to extend the deadline for the registration for Bank Verification Number (BVN) by another four months. Bank customers who are yet to register now have till October 30 to do so, reports Daily Post. The extension followed the uncontrolled crowd at the different branches of Nigerian banks that has made business transactions almost impossible. The apex bank in a circular to the banks directed them to extend the timeline to their customers to enable them have the BVN. The extension would also give Nigerian bank customers in the Diaspora ample time to register.

Being successful often means learning from those who have already achieved their goals. Having a mentor is an amazing blessing to an entrepreneur, but not everyone can find one in person. If you haven’t yet found your personal business guru, here are 21 tips for young or aspiring entrepreneur to help get you started. 1. Challenge yourself. Richard Branson says his biggest motivation is to keep challenging himself. He treats life like one long university education, where he can learn more every day. You can too! 2. Do work you care about. There’s no doubt that running a business take a lot of time. Steve Jobs noted that the only way to be satisfied in your life is to do work that you truly believe in. 3. Take the risk. We never know the outcome of our efforts unless we actually do it. Jeff Bezos said it helped to know that he wouldn’t regret failure, but he would regret not trying.4. Believe in yourself. As Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t...

To integrate coaching into your talent management strategy, the following five steps should be taken: 1. Educate your leaders Start at the top and educate your executives on the differences and benefits of coaching versus counseling. Interview them on their perspectives on coaching and assess their willingness to participate and support a coaching initiative. Explain the benefits of coaching and ask them where they see applications for coaching inside their organizations. 2. Identify coaches, participants and executive sponsors Look for individuals and managers that can become trained to be internal coaches inside your company. These individuals may be inside your talent management and organizational development areas or could exist inside the business itself. Consider having talent management or human resources executives trained and credentialed by the International Coach Federation as professional coaches. Alternatively, you may choose to utilize external coaches. If so, you ca...

Here are three steps to help you turn cricitism into coaching so that employees welcome your feedback: 1. Define the goal. Feedback works so well in competition because the common goal -- to win -- outweighs the coach's discomfort in giving cricism and the player's discomfort in receiving it. Olympic athletes don't resent getting criticism on how to improve. In fact, they resent not getting the proper insight that might help them win medals. So what is your business's goal? Unless you have a startup that's trying to change the world, like Apple in its early years, I find personal goals that also benefit the company resonate better with employees than big-picture company goals. For example, an employee will be more motivated to achieve a personal goal of $1 million in sales than to help the company as a whole make $10 million in sales. All employees have career goals even if they don't tell you about them. The key is to find out what goal each person has that be...

Most business owners think of themselves as open-minded and welcoming to people from all walks of life. But are you, really? What brings this question to mind is the recent announcement of Working Mother magazine's annual Best Companies for Multicultural Women . The list of what winners Cisco, Deloitte, General Mills, IBM and Procter & Gamble do to encourage a welcoming atmosphere is extensive. Key policies include mentoring programs, job-shadowing opportunities, career counseling and guidance from top executives, diversity groups, charitable donations to diversity-promoting organizations and inclusion goals that are built-in to managers' performance objectives. Obviously, this is big-company stuff. But there is plenty small companies can do to make sure they're welcoming to all employees, too. Here are five ideas: Acknowledge what you don't know. If you have a worker who's from a culture or religion you don't know much about, let ...

British tour operators Thomson and First Choice sent 10 planes to evacuate tourists from Tunisia on Saturday after 39 people including at least five Britons were killed in the resort of Sousse in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The British government said it expected the number of British casualties to rise after the attack on Friday at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Sousse, 140km south of the capital Tunis. Other casualties included German and Belgian tourists. "I expect it [the number of British casualties] to increase," British Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, told the BBC. "Most of the people were British and there were a large number of British caught up in the shooting." A gunman disguised as a tourist opened fire on tourists as they lounged on the beach at the hotel, with a rifle he had hidden in an umbrella. Terror attack Thomson and First Choice said several of the people killed and injured were their customers and that they were working closely wit...

FIFA says President Sepp Blatter has not made a U-turn on his plans to leave office. FIFA responded to The Associated Press after a Swiss newspaper reported comments made by Blatter late Thursday to construction workers at FIFA's new museum in Zurich. Blatter told the workers that he technically had not resigned on June 2 but had pledged to lay down his mandate when an election congress could be called. In his speech on June 2, Blatter also pledged he would not be a candidate at the next election. FIFA says Friday that Blatter sticks by his June 2 speech.

President of the Nigeria Football Federation Amaju Pinnick will be in Canada for the 6th FIFA Women’s Football Symposium taking place in Vancouver between Friday, July 3 and Sunday, July 5, the Glass House have confirmed. The NFF boss, who was in Canada for the Super Falcons’ opening match of the 7th FIFA Women’s World Cup finals against Sweden, which ended 3-3 in Winnipeg on June 8, will arrive in Vancouver on Thursday, July 2. The 6th FIFA Women’s Football Symposium will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Vancouver, and delegates will also have the opportunity to watch the final match of the 7th FIFA Women’s World Cup, scheduled for the BC Place, Vancouver on Sunday, July 5. Nigeria’s Super Falcons, champions of Africa, lost out of the tournament at group stage following a 3-3 draw with Sweden and 2-0 and 1-0 defeats against Australia and USA respectively. However, Nigeria remains the strongest women football -playing nation on the African continent, having won seven of nin...

Soul singer Asa has announced her album tour will continue in London in August. The international singer is touring for the promotion of her 3rd studio album, Bed Of Stone. The ‘Fire on the Mountain’ singer will be making her first stop in London on August 1, 2015 with her band. The concert holds at the London Convent Garden in continuation of her tour across Europe having performed in cities including Hamburg, Paris and Barcelona.

Tippeligaen club Rosenborg have no intention of offering a contract to Nigeria Under - 20 captain Musa Mohammed. Rosenborg's chief scout traveled all the way to Senegal to run the rule over the right - back during the African Youth Championship but did not recommend to his superiors that the defender should be signed. Though Musa Mohammed's performance impressed the observer, Rosenborg are aware he will be surplus to requirements due to the form of the young 'experienced' fullback Jonas Svensson, who has lasted the full distance in every single game contested by RBK this season in the league. A Rosenborg insider told news24.com ''Rosenborg don't have much money now to pay 500,000 Euros for Musa Mohammed. ''The scout was in Senegal to watch Musa and they thought he was good but they have a right - back playing well for them. ''Right - back is not a position they are looking to strengthen, they have not made an offer for Musa Mohammed....

When Daymond John was in elementary school in Queens, N.Y., he had to read books four times over to retain what they said. Now, at 46, he says he still has to reread them several times -- often two to three times each -- for the information to really sink in. The sharp-dressed Shark Tank star and veteran investor/entrepreneur doesn’t habitually reread books as a result of being too busy or distracted the first go-round. He chalks it up to being dyslexic, something he only discovered as an adult with the onset of texting and social media. “Because I’m dyslexic, I’ve had to read books many times,” he says. “That’s why I focus on reading ones that are high-impact and incredibly useful, full of important lessons that I can apply to my life and business.” Related: Shark Tank's Daymond John: 3 Ways to Build a Loyal Social Media Following Despite how challenging reading is for the multi-millionaire celebrity business mentor, he forces hi...

John Heitinga is heading home to add some experience to Ajax's young defense.The Amsterdam club announced Thursday it has signed the veteran defender for one season with an option for a second year. Heitinga was out of contract after playing last season in the Bundesliga for Hertha Berlin. Heitinga is a product of Ajax's storied youth development program and played 215 matches for the first team before heading overseas where he has played for Atletico Madrid, Everton and Fulham. He has made 87 international appearances for the Netherlands, including the ill-tempered 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg, in which he was sent off as the Dutch lost 1-0 to Spain.

Cholera has killed at least 18 people in Juba, capital of South Sudan, in the last three weeks and the government will step up measures to counter the spread of the disease, the health minister Riek Gai Kok said on Tuesday. Juba has seen more than 171 suspected cholera cases so far in this outbreak, the health ministry said. Last year, 167 people died in South Sudan in a cholera outbreak, the health ministry and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said. The WHO representative in South Sudan, Tarande Manzila, said cholera treatment centres had been set up at Juba's teaching hospital and at a clinic at the UN site housing civilians. The WHO and other organisations are conducting oral cholera vaccinations in vulnerable areas of Juba and the oil hub of Bentiu in Unity state, targeting nearly 107 000 people, to prevent a large-scale outbreak, Manzila said. South Sudan's civil war pits forces loyal to President Salva Kiir against rebels allied with former vice president Ri...

Guinea will put four villages under a 21-day quarantine as part of a robust strategy to stamp out a lingering Ebola epidemic after new cases of the disease were discovered there. The worst Ebola epidemic on record has killed more than 11 000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea over the last year and a half. Liberia became Ebola-free in May, but neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea are still struggling to get to zero cases despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. According to a health ministry document seen by Reuters on Wednesday, the quarantine will apply to Sikhourou Koloteya in the Forecariah prefecture southeast of the capital Conakry along with Tanéné and Bamba in Dubreka prefecture.The village of Tamarasy in the Boké mining region will also be subject to the new measures. "In practice, a hooping system will be organised resulting in a ban on movement by inhabitants in the affected locations," the document stated. Twenty-one days is the standard observat...

Europa League holders Sevilla are looking to strengthen their defence for next season's Champions League by signing AC Milan's French centre back Adil Rami, sporting director Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo said on Thursday. Rami joined Milan on loan in January 2014 after falling out of favour at Sevilla's La Liga rivals Valencia and the move was later made permanent. A tough-tackling defender who is strong in the air, the 29-year-old was last selected for France in June 2013. "It won't be easy, firstly because he is at a big club like Milan, but also because he has a lot of options," Rodriguez Verdejo, who is known as Monchi, said at the presentation of Sevilla's new Denmark midfielder Michael Krohn-Dehli. Valencia opened disciplinary proceedings against Rami after he criticised then-coach Miroslav Djukic and his team mates in an interview with Spanish radio and he was suspended for a week without pay. Sevilla's victory over Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in las...

Marco Simone, the former AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco striker, has been named the new coach of French second-tier club Tours.The former Italy international had been linked with becoming the assistant coach at Ligue 1 side Rennes but has decided to take up the challenge at the modest club where the likes of Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny spent time earlier in their careers. Simone, 46, coached Monaco when they were in Ligue 2 in the 2011-12 season before going on to work at Swiss outfit Lausanne. - AFP

Covenant University, Ota, Ogun, will during its 10th Convocation Ceremony graduate a total number of 1,315 students. It was learnt that 104 of these students will be bagging first class. This was made known by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Charles Ayo during a press briefing ahead of the convocation ceremony. According to him, 610 others would be graduating in the Second Class Upper Division, 510 will be graduating in the Second Class Lower Division while a total of 91 others would be graduating in the Third Class Division. He further stated that the institution will also be graduating about 135 postgraduate students.

The senate on Wednesday summoned the management of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to explain the state of the nation’s refineries as well as all structures under its supervision. In a prayer, Olusola Adeyeye (Osun-central) argued that the senate should go beyond urging the government to act, and instead hold its ministries, agencies and departments to account. He prayed that the senate “‎summon the NNPC as soon as possible to give account of the state of the refineries and other structures under its control”. He also urged the senate to advise the government to revamp the existing refineries and encourage the establishment of private ones. Bukola Saraki, senate president, put the prayer to a voice vote, after which the senate agre‎ed to summon the NNPC “as soon as the relevant committee was set up”. The senate also called on the federal government to revamp the rail system‎ to ease the pressure on the roads. Earlier, Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East) moved a motion askin...

Five students from various secondary schools in Anambra will represent Nigeria in the 27th World Schools Debating Championship scheduled for Singapore between June 27 and July 3. The students are: Adachukwu Onyekwena (Girls Secondary School, Amaenyi, Awka), Nnamdi Udoji (Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha) and Chinemerem Oguaba (Awada Secondary School, Obosi). Other s are: Chukwuebuka Obichi (Army Day Secondary School, Onitsha) and Nneka Chigozie(Mater Ammabillis, Secondary School, Umuoji). The state’s Commissioner for Education, Prof. Kate Omenugha, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Awka on Wednesday that the students had qualified for the world competition. She said that after coming tops in the various national debate competitions at the secondary schools level, the five students were now set to slug it out with their mates at the international level. The commissioner congratulated them for being outstanding among their peers and urged them to be good ...

The economy of Nigeria is growing rapidly’, according to Arun Kumar, the United States’s assistant secretary of commerce for global markets. Kumar who confirmed this to journalists via a telephone interview, also disclosed that the US is ready to work with the new government. According to him, Nigeria’s growth rate averaged about seven per cent over the last decade, which qualifies her as one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Kumar also explained that the commercial service of the US within Nigeria is geared towards participating and supporting president Buhari’s initiative under the Doing Business in Africa Campaign. He further commended the relationship between the two countries and boasted that in 2013, US goods exports were about $6.5 billion to Nigeria. He said,” We imported about $11.7 billion making for about a total trade of $18 billion between the US and Nigeria.” However, he advised the government to enact policies that will boost the relationship between ...

The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Wednesday revealed that 1.2 million metric tons (MT) of frozen chicken valued at N660 billion was imported into the country in 2014. This, according to the association, was four times higher than what was produced locally, and exceeding the current industry capacity. The National President of PAN, Dr. Ayo Oduntan gave the revelation at a workshop in Abuja, on,"The Health and Economic Implications of Smuggled Poultry Products on Nigeria Economy," stressing that Nigeria presently consumes 1.5 million MT of frozen chicken annually. According to him, the risks inherent in consumption of products that are not thoroughly scrutinised are enormous, noting that the efforts of local producers however, continue to face the daunting obstacles posed by the activities of smugglers of poultry meat into the Nigerian market. Oduntan explained that while locally farmed poultry meat is sold without preservation, the smuggled ones are preserved wit...

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara on Tuesday said it would implement a legislative agenda aimed at improving the living conditions of Nigerians. Dogara said this in his presentation of a draft of the legislative agenda of the 8th House of Representatives in Abuja. The speaker said the agenda outlined steps and prioritised legislative actions required to achieve set goals and objectives. According to him, the legislative agenda takes lessons from the experiences of the 7th House of Representatives and seeks to consolidate the gains and achievements thereof. "The House recognizes that there remains widespread citizens’ distrust of public institutions and government generally. "It is also recognized that there is a lot of public misconceptions and misperceptions about the functions and contributions of the legislature to Nigeria’s overall socioeconomic and political development. "Yet, the legislature’s contributions to Nigeria’s democracy remain crit...