Key events
Tom Garry
On the eve of the new WSL season, London City Lionesses have done their biggest deal to date…
The Women’s Super League club London City Lionesses’ new front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Nike is the largest in the women’s game, according to their American owner, Michele Kang.
It has been reported that the largest current front-of-shirt sponsorship deal for a women’s football team is an approximately $4m per year agreement reached by the new NWSL franchise in Atlanta – who will begin competing in 2028, but Kang told BBC Sport: “I can absolutely confirm that this is the largest women-only front-of-shirt deal. It is higher than the Atlanta number.
“I can absolutely also share that it is higher than some of the men’s Premier League front-of-shirt deals. It’s huge. That’s why it is landmark. There are so many other people who believe in the future of women’s football. They [Nike] didn’t make this decision lightly. They did not write a charity cheque. They believe in the future and they believe together we will invest and build this future together.”
More details:
Liverpool sign young St Etienne winger N’Guessan
Andy Hunter
Liverpool have signed St Etienne winger Djylian N’Guessan as part of their drive to add highly-rated young talent to their ranks.
The 18-year-old, who made his senior St Etienne debut at 16, has signed a pre-contract agreement that will see him officially become a Liverpool player in January. He has cost €5m and St Etienne secured a sell-on clause. N’Guessan will now spend the first half of the season on loan at Brest before Liverpool review his next step in January. N’Guessan’s signature follows the £30m deal for goalkeeper Lucca Brughmans to arrive from Genk next summer and other signings identified by Liverpool’s global talent team in the last 12 months – Armin Pecsi, Mor Talla Ndiaye, Ifeanyi Ndukwe and Samuel Martinez.
Allow Instagram content?
This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.
That’s the nonsense out of the way, here’s a transfer…
Barry Glendenning
More on Dean’s loose lips from Barry Glendenning in yesterday’s Football Daily:
Dean appears to blow the whistle on himself over in-match game claims
While Football Daily likes to think we have our finger on the cultural pulse, before this week we were oblivious to the fact that Jamie Vardy has his own podcast. Called Jamie Vardy’s Having a Party, it is a far more sedate affair than the name suggests, given the only episode we have seen features our t1tular hero and his sidekick the comedian Josh James listening to Mike Dean reminisce about his time as a referee. While Football Daily can’t think of any social gathering that wouldn’t be enhanced by the presence of a 61-year-old former match official from the Wirral on its guest list, this isn’t so much a party as an occasionally awkward conversation. Its claim to be “a hilarious look back at Mike’s career at the heart of English football” is as bold as it is false, but what the episode lacks in laughs it has more than made up for in controversy.
During the course of the chat, Dean revealed to his hosts that in the pre-VAR era he and his assistants used to keep themselves amused by playing little games within games of top-flight football. “We used to say: ‘Right, we’ll kick off now, right? See how long we can go without blowing a whistle’. Done that a few times in the Premier, before VAR obviously. Went 20-25 minutes without blowing a whistle a few times. Let it go, let it go, let it go.” Dean went on to tell his inquisitors that he also used to see how long he could go without leaving the centre-circle while games were being played around him, claiming that he once set up camp in one for almost 15 minutes. “That was just me joking about,” he honked, promptly eliciting not entirely convincing laughs from a clearly surprised Josh and Jamie.
Read the Football Daily in full:
I thought nonsense and transfers were over for a while, alas.
Dean claims he played secret games for a laugh while refereeing matches
The former Premier League referee Mike Dean claims he used to take part in secret challenges while officiating, including trying to stay in the centre circle for as long as possible, as he confessed to “just joking about” during matches. The remarks, made by one of the most well-known officials in the English game, have been met with bemusement by refereeing officials who say there is no evidence of any such behaviour having ever taken place.
Dean was a member of the select group of referees for more than two decades before he retired in 2022 and a brief spell as a video assistant referee followed. In an interview on Jamie Vardy’s podcast this week, Dean shared anecdotes from his time as a top-flight official in the pre-VAR era. “We used to say, ‘We’ll kick off now. Right, see how long we can go without blowing a whistle,’” he said. “I’ve done that a few times in the Premier League, before VAR obviously – [I] went 20, 25 minutes without blowing a whistle.
“I used to do another thing. I used to stand in the centre circle – see how long I could stay in the centre circle before I had to leave. That was just me joking about. I got about 15 minutes once.”
Officials within the refereeing organisation, Pro Ref, are understood to be puzzled by the claims, with the suggestion that a referee could stay in the centre circle for 15 minutes without someone noticing, for example, seen as highly improbable.
Full story here:
Preamble
Can we focus on the football now? That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? A full Premier League programme of fixtures, including five (yes, five!) in the Saturday 3pm slot. The Women’s Super League is back and next week we start talking about how much we hate the (not) new format of the Champions League. No more transfers for a few months, Enzo Fernández has a new club, time to focus on what matters, the game itself… wait! Mike Dean said what? Oh Jesus wept.
More on ‘Mike’ in a minute, plus all the latest from the Premier League press conferences and other news throughout the day.