Leading sports figures are uniting to combat racism in French soccer and want harsher punishments.
UEFA president Michel Platini, French Sports Minister Bernard Laporte and French league president Frederic Thiriez all spoke out after racism tarnished the image of French soccer once again last weekend.
"The fight against racism is the dossier I want to work the most on, as it is something intolerable," Platini said on Thursday.
PHOTO: AFP
Thiriez wants the government to crackdown on a far-right group of fans from first division club Metz calling themselves "The Faction" -- which includes the even more extreme "Identity Youth" group.
"It is without doubt the time to announce such a dissolution for the first time," Thiriez said, adding that he has submitted the matter to the interior ministry.
About 10 members of "Youth Identity" made Nazi salutes at the end of last week's match at French leaders Lyon, in response to Metz players throwing T-shirts into the crowd emblazoned with an anti-racism logo.
PHOTO: AFP
Metz stewards present at Stade Gerland last Saturday are working with police to identify the culprits, who could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 15,000 euros (US$22,600).
In a separate incident, a Metz fan has been banned from attending matches for three months for making racist remarks to Valenciennes captain Abdeslam Ouaddou, who is Moroccan, on Feb. 16.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier