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22 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2015 Sport FOOTBALL Virtù Ferries This week's winner is NIKITA ZAMMIT with her photograph of Koh Nang Yuan, Thailand. MaltaToday and Virtù Ferries have teamed up to take one lucky winner and a companion every week to Sicily, with two tickets to be won every week in our photography competition. Already been on holiday? Good: we're sending you back if your best photograph from your holidays and travels makes the cut. That's right: send us a good quality image of your holidays and we'll send the best one to the gateway of Italy with Virtù Ferries. Malta - Sicily Express Ferries For more information visit www.virtuferries.com or contact by telephone 23491000 RULES OF THE COMPETITION maltatoday Conditions apply: 1. Tickets for each week's competition can only be won by one person who submits one entry of a high-res image with description. Entrants with more than one entry WILL NOT be considered. Entrants must send a description of photo. 2. Winners will be informed before the end of the week, and then announced on maltatoday.com.mt and MaltaToday on Sunday. 3. By entering this offer, entrants consent to their photos being published and owned by Mediatoday Co Ltd. 4. The entrant with the best photograph will be awarded two (2) return tickets, valid for travel to any Virtù Ferries destination. Mediatoday's decision is final. 5. Tickets are issued free of charge, excluding port charges, and in accordance with Virtù Ferries' rules and regulations. All taxes and charges are to be paid accordingly by the winning entrant upon the issuance of tickets. 6. This offer is closed to employees and contributors of Mediatoday Co. Ltd and Virtù Ferries, or their family members. This week's theme: Travel SEND US PHOTOS FROM YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY PHOTO COMPETITION Photos should be a hi-res image (one per individual entry) with a sentence or two about what inspired you to take your photo. Entrants are kindly reminded not to send in personal family pictures that might be unrelated to theme subjects unless expressly requested. If sending a photo by post, address it to: 'MaltaToday photo competition', Mediatoday, Vjal ir- Rihan, San Gwann, SGN9016 Please supply your daytime telephone number, your name, your home address and an email address. Send the photo via email on info@mediatoday.com.mt [SUBJECT HEADING: MaltaToday photo competition] by next Friday at 9am. Themes may change from one week to the other FIFA and UEFA were kept in dark about Platini's Blatter deal - Johansson FORMER UEFA president Len- nart Johansson says that the European football body was never told about the payment of 2 million Swiss francs (1 mil- lion pounds) from Sepp Blatter to current UEFA boss Michel Platini. Both Platini and Blatter were suspended from football for 90 days by FIFA's Ethics Commit- tee last week with a 2011 pay- ment from FIFA to Blatter un- der scrutiny. Both men deny any wrongdoing. Platini has said the payment was for work he carried out un- der a contract for FIFA as an advisor to Blatter between 1999 and 2002. He said the nine year delay in payment was due to FIFA's financial situation. The Frenchman's bid to re- place Blatter at the helm of FIFA in February's election has been thrown into serious doubt by the affair and UEFA members gather in Nyon on Thursday to discuss the crisis. Swede Johansson, who was UEFA president from 1990 to 2007 says that the FIFA execu- tive committee, which he served on, was not told about Platini 's hiring by Blatter. "I was a member of the FIFA executive then and Blatter should have reported it to the executive but he never did. I never heard about this arrange- ment in FIFA. "This is quite a lot of money, not a small amount. I have only learnt through the media that Platini claims that he has a con- tract with FIFA," the 85-year-old told the website Inside World Football. By the time Platini received the payment in 2011 he had re- placed Johansson as UEFA pres- ident but the Swede continued to attend UEFA executive meet- ings as honorary president, and he says the payment was never disclosed. "I would have expected this payment to be reported to UEFA. Platini should have mentioned it to the executive. I would have done so. I would have said to the executive, 'I have a contract with Blatter which you may crit- icise. But this is the truth, this is the money I received and you should know about it.'" A spokesman for Platini said: "The president is cooperating fully with the ongoing investiga- tions and feels there is nothing more he wants to say publicly for the moment." The payments will be on the agenda at UEFA's crisis meeting in Nyon which Platini will un- able to attend due to his suspen- sion from all football activities. Former UEFA President Lennart Johansson Sam Allardyce in for the long haul SAM Allardyce has vowed to stay longer at Sunderland than he did with arch-rivals Newcastle as he be- gins his mission to drag the club out of trouble. The 60-year-old was sacked after just eight months at St James' Park in January 2008 when then new owner Mike Ashley decided the man he had inherited from former chairman Freddy Shepherd was not the right one for the job. However, Allardyce, who also had brief spells as a player and then as a coach under Peter Reid on Wear- side, is determined to hang around this time. He said: "Well, I want to be more successful than I have been in the past, that's for sure, and I want to stay a bit longer! "I didn't stay very long as a player, I didn't stay very long with Reidy because I got the Notts County job and I didn't stay very long at New- castle, so I hope I stay a lot longer than that." Allardyce rebuilt his career at Blackburn and then West Ham af- ter his bruising experience on Ty- neside, but he insists that the way he was treated by the Magpies, who will provide the opposition in his second game at the helm, no longer hurts. He said: "No, no. Newcastle is in the past, it's all over. I'm a man for the future, not to dwell on the past. It happened. "Like I said at the time, I thought it was the right club at the wrong time for me and that was it. It was a deci- sion made and you move forward. "Since then, I have done pretty well since I have moved on, and now I am back up in the north east to try to make Sunderland the best I pos- sibly can." Allardyce was coy when asked about the appointment of a number two, saying only that progress was being made, but refusing to name names. It is understood, though, it will not be Reid, with long-time as- sociate Neil McDonald and Steve Round among those also being touted for the position. Sam Allardyce is hoping for a lengthy stay at Sunderland