■ENGLAND
Man City make Kaka bid
Manchester City have offered AC Milan £100 million (US$150 million) in cash in a bid to land former Ballon d’Or winner Kaka, newspaper reports said yesterday. A four-man delegation led by chief executive Garry Cook met top officials at Milan’s headquarters on Tuesday, where they offered to make the Brazilian player the highest paid in the world on £15 million a year after tax, the Daily Mail and the Sun reported. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Milan’s owner, has resisted previous attempts to lure Kaka away. But the player has said he is unhappy with his role in the AC Milan team and would love to play in the Premier League.
■ENGLAND
Becks ancestor ‘scavenger’
David Beckham’s great-great grandfather was a “scavenger,” or rubbish collector, according to British census data which went online on Tuesday, giving an eye-opening view of life a century ago. The Beckham family’s census form, completed in neat handwriting, lists the soccer icon’s great-great grandfather John as a “scavenger” who lived in Walworth, southeast London. Within 10 hours of going live on Tuesday, the census Web site had received 5.4 million page views, and had been used to carry out over 260,000 searches on Britain’s then 27 million-strong population, said a spokeswoman. Elaine Collins, the commercial director of the www.1911census.co.uk Web site, said it provides a unique glimpse into life in the early 20th century. “As well as helping people trace their ancestors, these records shed more light on our ancestors’ day-to-day lifestyles, providing a snapshot of a day in their lives,” she said.
■IRAN
Club ready to pay fine
An Iranian club is ready to pay the 3,000 euros (US$4,000) cash fine imposed on Sevilla striker Frederic Kanoute, the daily Iran Sports reported on Tuesday. The disciplinary committee of the Spanish soccer federation on Friday fined Kanoute for displaying a shirt in support of Palestine in the Gaza conflict with Israel. Kanoute — a French-born Muslim who plays for the Mali national team — showed the shirt after scoring for Sevilla in last week’s 2-1 King’s Cup defeat of Deportivo La Coruna. Saeid Azari, manager of Iran first division club Zob Ahan Isfahan, said the club was ready to pay the fine on behalf of the player. Azari told Iran Sports that Kanoute has been asked on his personal Web site where the money should be transferred to, and that Iran captain Javad Nekounam, who also plays in Spain for Osasuna, has been contacted to inform Kanoute accordingly.
■ENGLAND
Luton reach zero points
Fourth-tier strugglers Luton Town finally got to zero points after 24 matches this season following a 2-2 draw with Chester on Tuesday. Before the season started Luton — who back in 1988 were celebrating a memorable League Cup victory at Wembley over Arsenal — were deducted a huge 30 points for breaching financial rules. These are primarily designed to encourage clubs to stay in the black by ensuring they cannot just write off their debts by going into administration without any risk to their league position. English soccer chiefs argue that if such rules were not in place there would be a reduced incentive for teams to be put on a sound financial basis and that well-run sides would be at an unfair disadvantage.
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