Paris Saint-Germain’s beleaguered Italian manager, Carlo Ancelotti, says he is unaware of media reports that say the former Champions League winner could be out of a job by Christmas.
“I haven’t read the papers,” said the 53-year-old former Juventus, AC Milan and Chelsea boss.
“I don’t know what they are saying,” he added after a poor run of domestic form that has seen the team slip to fourth spot in the table and five points behind pacesetters Olympique Lyonnais following a 2-1 defeat away to OGC Nice on Saturday and a midweek League Cup elimination by AS Saint-Etienne.
The Qatari-backed club and their president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, are growing increasingly impatient with their management team led by director Leonardo Araujo, who is also in danger of dismissal after the Brazilian hand-picked his friend to take over on Dec. 31 last year.
Names mentioned as possible replacements are Real Madrid’s equally under-pressure manager Jose Mourinho, as well as former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola or Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.
Ancelotti can take comfort from the fact that he will be paid 11.3 million euros (US$14.7 million) if his contract is terminated with 19 months to run. Ancelotti insisted at the press conference ahead of yesterday’s Champions League match with Porto that the team can improve.
“Sometimes, criticism is deserved. Everyone at PSG are disappointed by our start to the season which hasn’t been good. We have lost three matches and we are five points behind Lyon. We’re all sorry, but everyone is convinced that things are going to change. When you build a new team, you are going to have problems. The championship is not finished and PSG will be very competitive but it’s true we have to improve,” he said.
On a brighter note, the capital club are already guaranteed a place in the knockout phase of the Champions League for the first time since 1995 when they beat Barcelona before going out 3-0 on aggregate against Fabio Capello’s AC Milan.
They can win Group A and guarantee a theoretically easier draw in the next round by defeating 2004 champions Porto — who lead them by a point.
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