■ENGLAND
Blues release Cole, Ballack
Joe Cole and Michael Ballack will leave Chelsea when their contracts expire at the end of the month, the Premier League champions said yesterday. Cole, 28, who is with England at the World Cup, has been at the London club since 2003. Germany captain Ballack, ruled out of this month’s tournament in South Africa by an ankle injury, arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2006. The Premier League and FA Cup winners thanked both players for their contributions and said in a statement on their web site that the pair would become free agents on July 1. Cole has endured an erratic season in and out of Chelsea’s double-winning side. A move away from Stamford Bridge, with a fistful of top clubs likely to be jostling for his signature, is sure to revive his career. Chelsea said 33-year-old Ballack would stay with them for treatment at their Cobham training ground until his injury is healed.
■SAIN
Guardiola receives big fine
Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola was on Tuesday ordered to pay a fine of 15,000 euros (US$18,000) to the Spanish soccer federation for accusing a referee of lying, his club announced. “The competition committee of the Spanish football federation have fined Pep Guardiola 15,000 euros for the declarations in which he said the referee Clos Gomez had lied,” Barcelona revealed on their Web site. Guardiola was sent to the stands for dissent during his side’s Spanish league match at Almeria on March 6. A week later he accused referee Carlos Clos Gomez and his assistant Jose Luis Gallego Galdino of “lying” in their match report. The coach and the club have 10 days to launch an appeal against the punishment.
■ENGLAND
Senderos joins Cottagers
Fulham have signed Arsenal and Switzerland defender Philippe Senderos for an undisclosed fee, the Premier League club said on Tuesday. “Philippe is a player that I have admired for a very long time since he captained Switzerland to the UEFA Under-17 Championship in 2002,” Fulham manager Roy Hodgson told the club Web site. “He is a strong defender who has great aerial presence at both ends of the field and has a superb work ethic which is a vital component for any team’s success. I am very much looking forward to working with Philippe next season.” The 25-year-old, who joined Arsenal in 2003 and has had loan spells at AC Milan and Everton, is part of Switzerland’s squad for World Cup finals. Senderos, who has agreed a three-year deal, has won 38 caps for his country.
■SCOTLAND
Celtic appoint Lennon
Celtic appointed former captain Neil Lennon as manager yesterday. Lennon, 38, had been in temporary charge of the Glasgow club since they parted company with Tony Mowbray in March. “Celtic is my home. I’ve spent the last 10 years of my working life here and I look forward to bringing back the success our great club deserves,” the former Northern Ireland midfielder told the team’s Web site. Celtic, Scottish champions 42 times, have had a disappointing season and finished six points behind rivals Rangers. Although they won their last eight games under Lennon, the team also suffered a major upset when they were dumped out of the Scottish Cup by first division Ross County. “Neil has Celtic in his blood, he knows the club inside out and is someone who has all the qualities to achieve great things,” chairman John Reid said. “We have been thorough and professional and have made, I am very confident, a decision which will be proved to be a winning one.”
■HONDURAS
Workers given time off
The Honduran government has approved a work schedule that allows 200,000 public employees time off to watch the national team play in the World Cup. The government has also urged private enterprises to do the same. Africo Madrid, the government minister in charge of the changes, said on Tuesday that employees would not have to begin work until 10am local time next Wednesday when Honduras play Chile. The match begins early in the morning. Honduras face Spain on June 21 and Switzerland on June 25. Matches those days begin in the early afternoon. Employees will be released at 11:30am. Honduras are playing in only their second World Cup. In 1982, they failed to win a match.
■BRAZIL
President defends squad
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has defended the World Cup squad picked by coach Dunga, but he did single out one player who might have been included — Ronaldinho. Silva said on Tuesday in a radio interview that Ronaldinho “deserved another chance.” A free-kick specialist and slick dribbler, Ronaldinho was not called up for the 2007 Copa America squad after saying he was tired. His relationship with the national team faded from that moment. Silva said Ronaldinho was aware that if he were playing to his full potential with club team AC Milan, he would not have been left out of the final 23-man Brazil squad. “There’s only one player who deserved another chance, Ronaldinho Gaucho. Someone at his level, the star that he is, knows that if he were playing as well as he can, nobody would leave him off the team,” Silva said on Radio Jangadeira. Dunga has been criticized for selecting a team of “workers” rather than players with flair.
■PARAGUAY
FIFA criticized over gestures
Almost 2,000 members of Paraguay’s Association of Evangelical Priests on Tuesday complained about what they see as FIFA’s opposition to World Cup players making religious gestures. In a statement, the association said it was reacting “with all due respect and having no axe to grind with the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter” as such gestures “are not designed to inspire violence.” “Quite the reverse. Prayer is about underpinnnig friendship, brotherhood, unity, tolerance, peace, solidarity, justice, humility, freedom, cooperation, happiness, concord, mutual respect,” the association said. FIFA is clamping down on players showing any manifestation of religious faith, either in the form of gestures or slogans worn on T-shirts under their regular kit. Brazilian midfield star Kaka could be affected by the measure as, after the 2002 World Cup win, he was one of several players to wear T-shirts with Christian slogans.
■GERMANY
Mobile phones don’t work
The Germany team arrived in South Africa on Monday and Joachim Loew’s players have each been issued with a brand-new mobile phone, with their teammates numbers already loaded, so the squad can stay in touch. While the phones work fine for calls back to family in Germany, the team, however, are having problems reaching each other — even in the grounds of their luxury five-star hotel. “We have been all kitted out with mobiles and tried to phone each other, but they don’t work,” said centerback Arne Friedrich, with Germany set to open their World Cup campaign against Australia in Durban on Sunday. “We have tried to call each other for fun, but the phones don’t work so well. I can phone my girlfriend back in Berlin, but not my teammates down here.”
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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