■SOCCER
West Ham signs Barrera
West Ham United have signed Mexico international Pablo Barrera for £4 million (US$6.14 million) from UNAM Pumas, the Premier League club said on Friday. The 23-year-old winger, who played three times for his country at the World Cup in South Africa, has signed a four-year contract with manager Avram Grant’s side. “I am very happy to sign for West Ham United and have been really taken by the reception I have received from the players and the manager,” Barrera told the club Web site. “I am very fast and can use both feet. I like the one-on-one situations and to take on my opponent and beat my rivals. I like to excite the supporters,” he said. Grant, who has already signed German midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger, said he hoped to announce two more signings at Upton Park soon.
■SOCCER
Italian teams blocked
Serie B side Ancona and 20 teams from the Italian lower divisions were blocked from competing in the coming season on Friday because of their financial problems. The Italian soccer federation said in a statement the decision had come after the country’s soccer finance watchdog deemed the clubs’ balance sheets too precarious. Italian soccer has been hit hard by the global economic crisis given smaller clubs were struggling even before the recession. Fifteen other semi-pro clubs in the lower divisions had already been dropped from their championships because of money woes. The federation board meeting that decided on the new measures was not attended by representatives of Serie A or Serie B in protest at the recent decision to allow clubs to only buy one non-EU player this season rather than the previous two. Clubs complained that the decision, made in the wake of Italy’s shock exit in the World Cup group stage, was too rash and could not be suddenly enforced in the middle of a transfer window.
■SOCCER
Japan vies to host Cup
Just a week after the din of celebratory vuvuzela horns died down in South Africa, fresh World Cup fever is gripping nine candidates battling to host the showpiece in 2018 or 2022. The sport’s world governing body FIFA tomorrow begins a two-month inspection tour of Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Netherlands-Belgium, Russia, England, Spain-Portugal, the US and Qatar in that order. The first stop, Japan, is counting on its impressive organizational, financial and technological power to win the 2022 event. It co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with South Korea after staging one summer and two winter Olympics. Japan has promised to treat soccer fans worldwide to ultra-realistic live 3D broadcasts of matches.
■SOCCER
Kiwi ditches China team
New Zealand striker Shane Smeltz has walked out on Chinese club Shandong Luneng after only one week and is on his way back to the A League, an Australian newspaper reported yesterday. The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that Smeltz had decided that it would be too difficult for his wife and two children to settle in Jinan, 400km south of Beijing, and will instead rejoin Gold Coast United. Smeltz was due back on the Gold Coast on Saturday and will be available to line-up for Gold Coast United in their A League season-opener against Brisbane Roar on Aug. 8. A Football Federation Australia official reportedly said that as Smeltz’s International Transfer Clearance form was never dispatched by United, he was free to rejoin the Gold Coast club.
■FOOTBALL
Johnny Jolly suspended
Green Bay Packers defensive end Johnny Jolly has been suspended indefinitely without pay for violating the NFL substance abuse policy, the league said on Friday. Jolly’s suspension begins immediately and will continue through at least this year’s season, the league said on its Web site. He will be eligible to apply for reinstatement following Super Bowl XLV in February. Jolly is facing a 2008 felony drug possession charge in Houston, Texas, Green Bay media reported. The Packers said in a statement: “Our thoughts are with him during this difficult personal time.”
■NASCAR
F1 driver aims at NASCAR
Former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve is heading back to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to try and qualify for NASCAR’s race next week. Villeneuve will attempt to qualify the Toyota for Braun Racing in NASCAR’s annual Cup visit to the 4km oval on July 25. Villeneuve drove for Braun Racing in the second-tier Nationwide Series race at Road America last month, qualifying second and leading three laps before an electrical problem late in the race relegated him to 25th. The 39-year-old Canadian won the Indianapolis 500 and the CART season championship in 1995 while driving for Team Green. He then moved on to F1, winning the points championship in 1997. Villeneuve hasn’t raced full-time on any circuit since 2005. He’s bounced around several NASCAR series for the last five years and has made two Cup starts, both in 2007.
■SOCCER
Man United beat Celtic
Dimitar Berbatov scored one goal and contributed to two more on Friday as English powerhouse Manchester United launched their North American Tour with a 3-1 friendly victory over Celtic in Toronto. Substitutes Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley also scored for Manchester United, while Georgios Samaras converted a penalty for Scottish Premier League club Celtic. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson fielded a strong lineup that included Berbatov, Edwin van der Sar, Paul Scholes, Darren Fletcher and Ryan Giggs — who received an especially warm welcome from Canadian fans.
■CYCLING
Noose tightens around Lance
Three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond has been served with a grand jury subpoena as part of a federal investigation of possible fraud and doping charges against Lance Armstrong and his associates, according to the New York Daily News. The newspaper reported on Friday on its Web site that a grand jury in the US District Court of the Central District of California issued the subpoena, which requests testimony and documents related to the four cycling teams Armstrong has led — US Postal Service, Discovery Channel, Astana and RadioShack. The letter also orders LeMond, 49, to appear at a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on July 30, the Daily News reporters. “We are overjoyed,” LeMond’s wife, Kathy, told the newspaper. “I hope the truth will come out.” The federal doping investigation was spurred by allegations made by US cyclist Floyd Landis in a series of e-mails sent to cycling and doping officials this spring. Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title for doping, said the use of banned substances was common on the US Postal team when he rode with seven-time Tour winner Armstrong.
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