FRANCE
PSG sign Ezequiel Lavezzi
Paris Saint-Germain have completed the signing of Argentina international Ezequiel Lavezzi from Napoli on a four-year deal after he completed a medical on Monday, the French giants announced. No fee has been revealed, but reports say that PSG paid in the region of 30 million euros (US$38 million) for Lavezzi, making him the third most expensive player in their history behind Javier Pastore and Nicolas Anelka. “Paris are giving me the chance to develop as a player and I think that the club is going to become one of the most powerful,” Lavezzi said at a press conference at the Parc des Princes in Paris. “I have come because there is a real project in place and the possibility to win things. I am going to try and do here what I did with Napoli.” PSG sporting director Leonardo added: “We are always looking to improve the personality and mentality of the group. A player like him raises the level of those around him. This is the arrival of a very important player. I think he is going to go down in the history of this club.”
ITALY
Ferrara to manage Samp
National under-21 coach Ciro Ferrara is set to be the new Sampdoria manager, the Serie A club said on Monday. Speculation had grown in the media that Ferrara, a former Napoli and Juventus defender, was favorite to take the job after former Liverpool and Inter coach Rafa Benitez turned down an offer from the newly promoted Genoa club. “The news has been in the air for hours and now it is official: Ciro Ferrara will be the new coach of Sampdoria,” the club announced on its official Web site. “The agreement with the coach will be ratified over the next few days.” Capped 49 times for Italy, Ferrara won the Serie A title seven times as player, twice with Napoli and five times with Juventus, where he also won the UEFA Champions League. Having been part of the technical staff for the Italy national team, he endured a tough time in charge of Juventus and was sacked after less than a season in charge in 2010. Since then, he has enjoyed an impressive run with the under-21 side, unbeaten in qualifiers for next year’s European under-21 Championship.
ITALY
SS Lazio ink Ederson deal
Serie A side SS Lazio on Monday announced the signing of Brazilian midfielder Ederson from Olympique Lyonnais on a five-year deal. Ederson, 26, was out of contract at Lyon after spending four injury-hit seasons at the Stade de Gerland. The Brazil international had been signed by OL for 14 million euros from OGC Nice, but he made just 82 league appearances after his transfer, scoring 11 goals. Ederson, who left Juventude in his homeland for Nice at the age of 19, has won one cap for Brazil. At the end of last week, he gained Italian nationality, allowing him to move to Rome without taking up one of the limited squad places available to non-EU players.
ITALY
Juve snap up Asamoah, Isla
Juventus have signed Kwadwo Asamoah and Mauricio Isla from Udinese, with Cristian Pasquato moving the other way. Both Asamoah and Isla have joined Juve on co-ownership deals, with the Serie A champion paying 9 million euros for half of Asamoah’s rights and slightly more for Isla. Ghana midfielder Asamoah has spent four years at Udinese, while Chile defender Isla plied his trade at the Stadio Friuli for a season longer. Pasquato has progressed through the ranks at Juve, but he has spent most of his senior career on loan and has made only one appearance since 2008.
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