■ENGLAND
Richards quits board
Premier League chairman Dave Richards resigned from the board of the 2018 World Cup bid team on Tuesday following a recent restructuring. Richards wrote to bid chairman David Triesman to say he wanted to leave the board, but would continue to support England’s efforts to host the tournament for the first time since 1966. “With the recent changes to the England 2018 bid team structure, I feel I can now best support a successful bid without the necessity of sitting on the board,” Richards said. “My positions as Premier League chairman, FA board member and chairman of the FA’s international committee provide me with ample opportunities to bang the drum for English football.” England trimmed its bid team this month to replace some of the politicians and businessmen on the board with sporting figures including former Football Association chairman Geoff Thompson.
■ISRAEL
Police probe murder
Police said on Tuesday that they had opened a murder investigation into the death of a former soccer player who appeared to have been shot dead in a gangland settling of scores. “Last night in Beersheva, we found the body of Elie Uzan in a car which had smashed into a pylon and we think he was a murder victim,” the police commander for the southern Negev desert region, Yohanan Danino, told public radio. The body appeared to have sustained gunshot wounds but will undergo a postmortem, Danino added. Elie Uzan, 46, was one of the stars of the local Hapoel Beersheva team and played once for his country. He was arrested and questioned three years ago in a police investigation into a betting scam.
■COLOMBIA
Club officials charged
Eleven former officials of Independiente Medellin were charged on Tuesday with using it to launder drug money. Among those charged were Rodrigo Tamayo, club president from 1998 to 2000 and in 2004, Tamayo’s wife, Dolly Cardenas, and two other former presidents, Mario de J. Valderrama and Luis Fernando Jimenez. Conviction carries a prison term of six to 15 years. Prosecutor Cesar Velez, using estimates from the club’s former auditor Juan Bautista Avalos Salgar, estimated Tamayo laundered US$4.6 million during his terms as president. Avalos Salgar said one way of laundering money would be to sell a player for, say US$100, but enter the transaction on the books as US$1,000. This means the extra US$900 entered on the books was money gained allegedly through drug trafficking.
■ASIA
Endo, Steelers win awards
Japan’s Yasuhito Endo was voted Asian player of the year, while South Korean club Pohang Steelers and the country’s national team both picked up prizes at a colorful ceremony in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. The Asian stars were honored at the annual Asian Football Confederation awards amid a glittering showpiece of traditional dance and acrobatic performances. South Korea dominated the award ceremony, winning national team of the year, coach of the year for the country’s Huh Jung-moo and club of the year for the Ponhang Steelers. The country’s Ki Sung-yueng bagged the men’s young player of the year award, while Japan’s Mana Iwabuchi was named women’s young player. Japan won the fair play award, while Syria’s General Farouk Bouzo was given the lifetime achievement award.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB