■ CYPRUS
Police arrest club president
The president of league side Anorthosis has been arrested in a probe into embezzlement allegations raised by fellow board members, police said yesterday. Andreas Panteli, 48, was arrested late on Friday to help investigators with their inquiries into financial mismanagement involving 1 million euros (US$1.3 million), a Cyprus police statement said. “Police are investigating a case of forgery, distribution of forged documents, theft, obtaining money under false pretenses and trying to cover it up,” the statement said, adding that police also searched the business premises of the high-profile soccer figure. Panteli was expected to appear in court later yesterday where authorities will request that the suspect remain in custody until detectives complete their investigation. The offenses are said to have taken place between August and this month.
■ GERMANY
Pantelic hits Hertha’s winner
Marko Pantelic came off the bench to score a late winner on Friday as Hertha Berlin beat promoted FC Cologne 2-1 to provisionally rise to second place in the Bundesliga. Pantelic, easily Berlin’s highest scorer in the past two seasons, had been relegated to the bench by coach Lucien Favre. With Hertha struggling against Cologne, Pantelic came on in the 69th minute and scored in the 86th minute after earlier having a goal disallowed for a dubious offside call. Gojko Kacar put Berlin ahead in the 24th minute following a pass from Andriy Voronin. But Milivoje Novakovic headed in the equalizer shortly before halftime for his ninth goal of the season.
■ PORTUGAL
Leixoes held by Naval
Leaders Leixoes were held 1-1 at home by Naval who scored a last-gasp equalizer through Michel Simplicio in the Portuguese Premier League on Friday. The northern side remain top with 23 points from 10 matches, but second-placed Benfica, who have 21 points, can grab top spot if they beat visitors Vitoria Setubal tomorrow. Leixoes took the lead when Ze Manel tapped home a cross from the right after 73 minutes, but Brazilian substitute Simplicio equalized with a deflected shot from outside the area in stoppage time. Naval are eighth with 12 points.
■ ARGENTINA
Three fans shot in Cordoba
Three supporters suffered gunshot wounds, one seriously, after violence erupted between fans at an Argentine second division game in Cordoba, 700km north of Buenos Aires, on Thursday, police said on Friday. The shootings took place during the second half of the match between Belgrano de Cordoba and Tiro Federal de Rosario. Last weekend, two fans were shot dead as trouble flared at a first division game between Santa Fe and Buenos Aires.
■ CHILE
Marcelo Salas retires
Former Chile and Lazio striker Marcelo Salas, who scored a record 37 goals for his country, has retired at the age of 33. “I had a meeting today with Marcelo and he said he had decided not to carry on playing,” Universidad de Chile director Federico Valdes said in a television interview on Friday. “Marcelo’s last professional match was against Cobreloa the other Sunday when he scored two goals.”Salas helped Chile qualify for the 1998 World Cup, their first appearance in the finals for 16 years, and netted four goals as they reached the last 16. He then moved to Lazio where he spent three seasons and helped the Italian team win Serie A.
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