SPAIN
Real remain top of rich list
Real Madrid have become the first club in any sport to generate more than 500 million euros (US$665.6 million) in revenue in a single year, according to the business advisory firm Deloitte. The company’s Football Money League, published for the 16th time yesterday, sees the Spanish champions retain their hold on first place ahead of perennial rivals Barcelona. In an unchanged top six, Manchester United remain third, Bayern Munich fourth, European champions Chelsea fifth and Arsenal sixth, but English champions Manchester City soar five places to seventh. AC Milan fall one place to eighth, with Liverpool remaining ninth and Italian champions Juventus rising three places to complete the top 10. Real Madrid’s revenue rose by 7 percent to 512.6 million euros in the 2011-2012 season. It enabled the nine-time European champions to hold onto top spot in the ranking for an eighth successive year, matching United’s record from 1996-1997 to 2003-2004. Overall, the combined revenue of the world’s 20 highest-earning clubs grew by 10 percent year-on-year to reach 4.8 billion euros.
ITALY
Roma edge Inter in Coppa
AS Roma beat Inter 2-1 in the first leg of their Coppa Italia semi-final on Wednesday. Alessandro Florenzi gave Roma the lead when he headed Ivan Piris’ cross into the top-left corner in the 13th minute. Roma were dominating and Mattia Destro doubled their advantage 20 minutes later, getting in between two Inter defenders to head home another Piris cross. The capital club had further chances to extend their lead, before a howler allowed Inter to get back in the game a minute from halftime. Roma’s Nicolas Burdisso was caught napping, allowing Rodrigo Palacio to rush in completely unmarked and slot home Esteban Cambiasso’s free-kick. It was Palacio’s second goal against Roma in a week, after he scored in Sunday’s 1-1 draw in Serie A. The second leg was meant to be played next week, but has been moved due to a Six Nations rugby union match and will take place in April.
SPAIN
Abidal back in hospital
Barcelona defender Eric Abidal will be hospitalized for up to four days for checks on his liver transplant, the Spanish club said on Wednesday. “Eric Abidal will spend between three and four days at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona for examinations of the development of the transplant that he underwent last April,” the team said in a statement. “By express wish of the player, the club is asking for the utmost respect for his privacy and confidentiality.” The 33-year-old player returned to training with his Barcelona teammates last month after getting the all-clear from doctors. He had a liver transplant operation on April 10 last year, just over a year after a tumor was removed from the organ.
ITALY
Baggio quits technical post
Roberto Baggio quit his technical post with the Italian soccer federation on Wednesday, claiming he was deliberately prevented from carrying out his job. “They didn’t let me do the job I wanted to do. I am not of a mind to continue,” the 45-year-old, who had been hired as president of the technical sector, told Rai 1 television. “My 900-page program, presented in November 2011, has become a dead letter, but this is not a goodbye to football.” Baggio, nicknamed the Divine Ponytail during his playing days and a World Cup runner-up in 1994, took on the post in 2010 with the job of better coordinating young players in the national setup.
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