■ENGLAND
Cameron backs England bid
New British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday threw his weight behind England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018. Cameron, who took office following close-fought elections, said he had spoken to FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Thursday, on the eve of England’s bid presentation in Zurich. Cameron “stressed the new government was absolutely behind England’s 2018 bid. He reminded Mr Blatter that football was the national sport and people in England were extremely passionate about football,” his office said. Blatter confirmed he received a call from Cameron on Thursday, saying the prime minister “not only expressed his determination to be behind the bid, but also to be behind the World Cup 2010.”
■ITALY
Mourinho makes fan’s day
Inter coach Jose Mourinho made one lucky fan’s day by saving him a night camped out in the rain by giving him a ticket to the Champions League final against Bayern Munich in Madrid next Saturday. Hundreds of Inter fans had set up camp since Thursday morning to make sure they could snap up one of 5,000 Champions League final tickets scheduled to go on sale in Milan yesterday. Paolo Sacco, a 23-year-old from Milan who was first in the queue, struck gold when Mourinho gave him a ticket worth 225 euros and saved him a second night out in the open. Mourinho insisted, however, that his gift to the fan was not a financial one. “This is my applause to all the fans. However, the lad must demonstrate that he has given the money he’s saved to charity.”
■ENGLAND
Preston in financial trouble
Preston North End, who were English soccer’s first league champions in 1889, on Friday became the latest club to be plunged into financial trouble. The second-tier Championship side were hit with a winding up petition from tax authorities, a day after borrowing £550,000 (US$813,000) from leisure tycoon Trevor Hemmings’ investment vehicle, Guild Ventures, to “meet the cost of players’ wages due this month.” Despite the cash injection, which took Hemmings’ investment in the Deepdale club to £13.82 million including interest, the winding up petition was issued on Friday.
■TALY
Leonardo leaves AC Milan
AC Milan are likely to continue with their frugal spending policies despite the gamble in appointing rookie coach Leonardo failing to pay off. The Brazilian was leaving by mutual consent following yesterday’s final game of the season against Juventus after an average campaign where the Rossoneri finished third in Serie A and went out at the round-of-16 stage of the Champions League. He had never coached before and his appointment to replace Chelsea-bound Carlo Ancelotti in May last year was another indication of cost cutting by owner Silvio Berlusconi.
■CHINA
N Korea recruiting fans
Few North Koreans will be able to cheer on their team at the World Cup in South Africa, so the country is recruiting Chinese fans. Xinhua news agency reported that the Beijing office of the North Korean Sports Committee is giving out 1,000 tickets to the tournament. Xinhua says the fans will attend North Korea’s games against Brazil and Portugal. The Chinese fans who will support North Korea include a number of celebrities who have led similar groups to cheer for Chinese teams in the past.
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