ARGENTINA
Newell’s fans shot by rival
Two Newell’s Old Boys fans were shot dead by a supporter of rival club Rosario Central after a match, local police said on Monday. Besides the two male victims, aged 34 and 39, a 29-year-old woman and a nine-year-old girl traveling in the same vehicle were wounded in a hail of bullets fired from a motorcycle by the assailant, who was wearing a Rosario Central T-shirt. Before the shooting, the driver and the gunman had been arguing as they drove near Newell’s Estadio Marcelo Bielsa on Sunday night. Newell’s and Rosario Central are the two main clubs in Rosario, 300km from Buenos Aires. Fan violence at local matches has grown so dangerous that authorities have banned fans from rival teams from games.
UNITED STATES
Court clears Ronaldo hugger
A US prosecutor on Monday dropped charges against 20-year-old Canadian student Ronald Gjoka for running onto the field to hug Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo at an International Champions Cup match between Real and Chelsea in Miami in August. Gjoka faced disorderly conduct and trespassing charges after he sprinted onto the field and did a knee slide — imitating the striker’s goal-scoring celebration — and then embraced Ronaldo, who reacted calmly and chatted with Gjoka during a hug that lasted almost a minute and elicited wild cheers from the crowd. After learning of his fan’s legal predicament, Ronaldo wrote a letter to the prosecutor in the case appealing for the charges to be dropped. The student said he hoped to have a chance one day to thank the star personally. “My dream now is just to see him again to say thanks,” Gjoka said.
SPAIN
EU to probe Spanish clubs
Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Garcia-Margello on Monday said that the EU will open legal proceedings this week into financial support for Real Madrid, Barcelona and several other top clubs to see if it meets EU state aid standards. The minister said his “government is going to give battle until the end to defend Spanish clubs,” saying they are an essential part of “the Spanish brand.” Brussels has refused to comment on the case, but said EU Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia was to hold a news conference on unspecified issues yesterday. A financial probe could have major repercussions for several clubs since many of them are in financial difficulties. If such aid is deemed illegal the clubs would have to return the money. Garcia-Margello said other clubs were Valencia, Hercules, Elche, Athletic Bilbao and CA Osasuna. Garcia-Margello said the government had already prepared arguments in case Almunia sets the process in motion yesterday. The objections the EU is looking into center on how clubs and local authorities handled fiscal issues.
ENGLAND
Oldham player fired for fixing
Oldham Athletic have sacked forward Cristiano Montano for gross misconduct, the English third-tier club said on Monday, following his arrest in a spot-fixing investigation. The 22-year-old was one of six players arrested earlier this month by the British National Crime Agency following a newspaper expose. League One side Oldham suspended Montano without pay on Dec. 8. A statement on Oldham’s Web site from the club’s lawyers said that following a thorough investigation by the Latics into Montano’s conduct, the club’s board decided to sack him immediately. Born in Colombia, Montano moved to London as a child. He signed for Oldham in August last year.
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