■FRANCE
Curtain-raiser goes Canadian
The Trophee des Champions between the winners of Ligue 1 and the French Cup will be played in Montreal, Canada, on July 26, the French League said on Tuesday. It will be the first time the curtain-raiser to the season is to be played outside France. “Time has come for French soccer to capture new markets,” League chairman Frederic Thiriez said in a statement. “Montreal is the best gate to enter the North American market.” Ligue 2 side En Avant Guingamp won the French Cup on Saturday. Olympique Marseille and Girondins Bordeaux are level on points at the top of Ligue 1 with four games to play.
■ENGLAND
Coppell resigns after defeat
Steve Coppell has resigned as manager of Reading after the club he has coached for the last five-and-a-half years failed to secure a chance of returning to the Premier League. Reading were beaten 2-0 defeat at home by Burnley in the second leg of a Championship play-off semi-final on Tuesday, losing the tie 3-0 on aggregate. The Royals had been on track to clinch automatic promotion to the top flight following relegation last season but they wilted in the last three months of the campaign, largely because of wretched home form. “Following our exit from the play-offs, I feel it’s the best thing, for both the club and myself, for me to leave,” Coppell said in a statement released by the club yesterday. The former Manchester United and England winger took charge of Reading in 2003 and guided them to promotion to the Premier League three years later.
■SPAIN
Stars left with egg on faces
Real Betis on Tuesday criticized fans who threw eggs and shouted abuse at their own players as they left the club’s training ground in their cars on Monday. “There are many ways to show your unhappiness with the sporting situation we are experiencing,” Betis said on their Web site. “But violence is prohibited and unacceptable, and we should concentrate on standing together.” Betis have slipped to 16th in the Primera Liga after four consecutive defeats, and are three points above the relegation zone with three matches left to play.
■ENGLAND
Gerrard scoops award
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was named England’s Footballer of the Year yesterday by the Football Writers’ Association (FWA). The 28-year-old England midfielder won the FWA poll ahead of Manchester United pair Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney. Giggs was named the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) Player of the Year last month. The FWA award, the oldest of its type in Europe, has been running since 1948 and Gerrard is the first Liverpool player to win it since John Barnes in 1990, the last time the Anfield club won the top-flight title. Gerrard has scored 23 goals in all competitions for Liverpool this season, the best tally of his career with two Premier League matches remaining. FWA chairman Steve Bates said: “Steven’s performances this season have been of the highest quality. His drive and desire have underpinned Liverpool’s Premier League title challenge and ensured a tight finish to the season. Steven is clearly in his prime and quite rightly rated one of the finest midfield players of his generation and the FWA are delighted to honour his contribution to club and country.” He will receive his award at the FWA’s gala dinner in London on May 29, the day before his 29th birthday.
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