This will be the second time that Didier Drogba leaves Chelsea but he hopes coming back on a different capacity. His game with Chelsea against Sunderland is his last with the team. He will not be retiring from football but he will be leaving Stamford Bridge in pursuit of his playing career.

He resumed to Chelsea last summer on a year’s deal and during his term, he has assisted in getting the club a 4^th Premier League title. Drogba believes that he needs to play for another more season but this would feel good for him if he played on a different team.

The 37-year old striker said that he has had dialogue with his manager and the board where they agreed to let him leave since it was up to him to enjoy the pitch more as he wishes. He is happy to know that the club wants him back and be part of the future team in Chelsea and he is pleased of the way they came up with the solution.

Previously, Drogba was in West London where he spent eight years from 2004 to 2012. He won 12 trophies and made one of the best scores against Bayern Munich in The Champions league of 2012.

Before he came back for the second time to Chelsea, he was playing in Turkey and China.

In a statement, Chelsea said that they are happy of Drogba’s participation and that they would always be pleased to have him back in Stamford Bridge.

Drogba first played for Chelsea in 2004 where he scored 157 goals in 341 appearances, prior to leaving in the dawn of the club’s Champions League victory. He collected 3 Premier League titles, 4 FA cups and 2 league cups in his first stint in London.

Drogba has played in 39 matched across all kinds of competitions in this term and has scored 7 times and helped his fellow team players in securing a Premier League and League Cup double.

CEO to Chelsea said that Drogba was a legend in Chelsea and that he will always be a part of the family. Ron Gourlay says that he will be leaving to higher grounds and that his big contribution to Chelsea’s success is huge and contributed a lot to the team’s success.

Sources have pointed out that Scott Skiles has emerged as a strong frontrunner in becoming the head coach of Orlando Magic. The general manager to the Magic has carried out discussions on some of the possible candidates but Skiles remains to be the most preferred candidate.

This far, Orlando Magic does not show much inclination into getting a new coach. Sources indicate that soon the team might advance to contract negotiations.

Skiles who is 51 years of age has been a preferred choice to Orlando and the bookies’ favourite. The team has been fond of him since he was playing with them in the 1990s. Skiles is a good fit for the candidacy profile that was privately outlined by Hennigan. They were looking for a coach who has had a successful head-coach experience and have the ability to upgrade Orlando’s defence and accountability.

Skiles has had a successful career with the Phoenix Suns, Milwaukee Bucks and Chicago Bulls. He has worn out his welcome and has only lasted about three seasons with each of these teams. While he coached these teams, he has a record of 443-433 (18-24 playoffs) all these in 13 seasons. Skiles is known in his abilities to assist in turning teams around. He transformed Bulls from a 19 win in 2004 to a 47 win in 2005 in his first of the two seasons he coached the team. During his time in the Bucks, he took the team from 34 wins in 2009 to 46 wins in 2010.

In case Skiles is hired for the job, James Borrego who acted as the interim coach for the team after Jacque Vaughn was fired might be asked to remain as a member of staff acting as an assistant coach. There was a notable improvement under Borrego even though the team finished on their fifth worst record of 25-57.

The Magic organization believes that the team needs to start showing progress in the upcoming season. The expected coaching hire will get the best of the most in Magic’s young members like Aaron Gordon, Nik Vicevic, Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton.

Comments from Ben Gordon who was coached by Skiles during his times in Chicago Bulls said that he was tough on young players but it was through this that he became a better player and won his 6^th man of the year award as a rookie.

On Wednesday there was a dinner hosted by GeekWire that was held to talk about sports and technology. In the dinner that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed his plans multimillion dollar partnership they had set with Real Madrid Football club there was more to his speech that touched on sports and technology.

He said that sport was one of the industries that was greatly receiving transformation with the advancement in technology as well as data digitalization. This was evident as in attendance to the dinner that was held in Seattle were sport personalities including an NFL linebacker, Olympic medalist, Veteran Journalist among other individuals relevant to sports. There was a lot on discussion during the event among the topics of discussion on how injuries had been prevented and performances of players improved by the use of wearable trackers. There were also talks on how by indulging fans using technology, the fan base would be improved both in and out of the arenas and Stadia.

Those who attended seem to have good and positive response after the diner. Adrian Hanauer, who is the owner of Seattle Sounders said that this had not been invested on and would greatly help on the fans on how they get to watch the game. This would go a long way in helping in the availability of the tickets to the fans and as well as influence greatly on those fans watching the game through TV.

From the player’s point of view, Kevin Pierre- Louis who is s linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks also shared his opinion on the matter. He said that he was excited on the use of technology to help improve player’s performance. He added that this was essential as it would help in prepping player’s body. Kevin said that many veterans had been in the past sidelined because of injury and with the technology this could be easily avoided. With the technology he added player’s performance could be easily monitored while on the field and thus predicting any ailment or injury in an early stage and thus treatment something that would have a great influence on an athlete’s trajectory.

Jennie Reed was the other sport personality that was interviewed after the dinner, and the 2012 silver medal winner and three-time Olympic cyclist showed her support from a financial perspective. She said that the data on sports was now available even to those countries that are not financially well off as the data can be obtained through devices that are cheap to acquire.

It appears that Sepp Blatter will have an easier time in his campaigns and elections for the FIFA presidential election which is set to be held in May the 20^th. Luis Figo joined Michael Praag in stepping down as candidates and potential opponents to Sepp who has been on the position for quite some time now.

The former Portugal midfielder pulled out the very day Van Praag 67 years of age. This now leaves Blatter with one opponent, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan. Blatter will be on the seat for his fifth term if he wins and Figo said that the election is just like any other. He however said that he declined the race on his personal terms as the process entitles absolute power to one man something that he was not comfortable with.

The election process involves the president of the federation being voted by 209 Fifa association members and after his withdrawal from the race Van Praag declared his support for Prince Ali. Van Praag holds the presidential position in the Dutch Football Association. Ali is seemingly having support from the English Football Association and this would therefore mean the Scottish F.A would have his back as well as they had declared support for Van Praag.

Van Praag assured his support for Prince Ali in a joint news conference that was held in Amsterdam on Thursday. He urged his supporters to back Prince Ali saying that Prince Ali had proved beyond doubt that he was the right man to take the seat and challenge Blatter who has been the President since 1998.

In his withdrawal statement Figo said it was important to embrace change in the presidency of the federation. He added that through his vast travelling and experience he had seen how the federation had done a lot but it was important for the leadership to change to clear the federation of all the corruption allegation linked to it by changing the presidential candidate.

Figo went ahead to question to Blatter’s candidacy saying that he had not yet presented his manifesto so as for the members to know what type of leadership they were voting in. He added that Blatter had not participated in any public debate and neither has any other candidate.

This withdrawals comes among others this year including Jerome Champagne from France who pulled out in February, David Ginola who also pulled out two weeks after he announced that he was ready to challenge Blatter.

Owners of the NFL teams just summed up a spring meeting that could be termed as hectic. Los Angeles was the main agenda; other agenda was future super bowls, altered extra points, deflated footballs and international games.

From the meeting discussions, looks like NFL will be heading to LA as soon as 2016. The question that lies is which teams will make it there and which of the two stadiums will be used. This plans seem to be far from now but one thing that the members in the meeting are sure about would be that there will be an NFL team in LA in a couple of years.

According to the NFL Vice President, team owners will approve of a franchise to Los Angeles before the year comes to an end of the year. For a chance to be the franchise owner applications are open from Jan 1^st but it might be moved to late in the upcoming season. The 32 owners from the meeting will later vote on the relocating team. The VP also added that discussions are underway on moving one or two team if there are no acceptable projects that will come together in the present markets. Currently, in Carson, California, Oakland and Diego are on a project while Rams’ have their project in Inglewood.

For the team that ends up in LA, they will use one of the two already existing stadiums before a new one is built. The NFL pointed out that if a stadium in Los Angeles is built by 2018, they would potential candidates in being hosts of the super bowl. New contenders of the 2019 and 2020 games are South Florida, New Orleans, Atlanta and Tampa.

On the balls deflation saga, Goodell said that he looks forward to hearing on Tom Brady’s appeal which is expected to take place next week. Brady faces a four game suspension. Goodell pointed out that it’s his duty to see that the game’s integrity is protected, the game’s policies, as well as, the procedures.

Brady was suspended by the executive vice president to NFL citing that his lack of cooperation in sharing his phone records was rude thus the harsh punishment. Goodell says it would be a pleasure to see the records during the appeal and that they would play role in lowering the suspension for Brady.

On 18^th May, 2015, police in Italy made arrests of dozens of lower league footballers and officials of the clubs after a probe into being suspects of betting on matches that were linked to a crime group known as Ndrangheta. Mafia network’s prosecutors of Calabria gave out arrest warrants for the arrests of 50 people from different parts of Italy. 30 more are under investigation in an inquiry labelled Dirty Soccer.

This investigation is focused on matches in this season and has involved clubs in Lega Pro and Serie D; which are the third and fourth tiers of Italian football. This emerges as the latest in a series of betting and other scandals that have been used to demean the reputation of football in Italy. The worst thing is that it involves Italy’s biggest clubs and footballers.

The investigators also brought to light evidence of attempts or actual match fixing which was related to betting in 1980 and 1986. These two incidences are known to have been the main reasons for Paolo Rossi’s ban for three years. This ban was later lowered to two years after an appeal where Rossi resumed playing and he played a major role in taking Italy to the World Cup in 1982.

Another major investigation was carried out in 2006 and it saw Juventus relegated after the investigation revealed the corruption of referees. There was also a new scandal that was performed which focused on betting on minor details in matches and not on the results. This was an investigation done in 2011.

Let’s wait and see what these new investigations on dirty soccer will lead to.

Proper football betting tips

To avoid such incidences in about dirty soccer, you could use safe and legal betting strategies to earn you good returns.

• Have a bet target prior to placing the bet to know how much you will be expecting back
• Learn that betting is not a get rich quick venture
• Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed (SMART) bets
• Define your budget and do not go over what you have allocated to your betting
• Learn the different types of bets available in soccer betting and analyze the matches to bet on the one you find fit