NETHERLANDS
Vitesse thrash Feyenoord
Feyenoord suffered a setback in their ambition to clinch third place in the league as they suffered a 4-1 thrashing by Vitesse in their penultimate match of the season. Goals from Valeri Qazaishvili and Jan-Arie van der Heijden ha nded Vitesse a 2-0 lead by the half-hour mark. Jens Toornstra pulled one back in the 37th minute, but Vitesse were 3-1 up at the break after Rochdi Achenteh scored just before the interval from a free-kick. A last-minute goal from Zakaria Labyad ensured Vitesse moved to within two points of Feyenoord, who are ahead of fourth-placed AZ on goal-difference. All three clubs have a chance on Sunday to clinch third spot and a place in next season’s UEFA Europa League.
GERMANY
Boateng, Sam released
Schalke 04 released midfielders Kevin-Prince Boateng and Sidney Sam with immediate effect on Monday. The move came less than 24 hours after Schalke’s 2-0 loss in Cologne that threatened the team’s hopes of gaining a place in next season’s UEFA Europa League. Boateng was sent home by Ghana at last year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He was signed from AC Milan in 2013 and still had another season on his contract. He never became the leader Schalke expected him to develop into. Schalke director Horst Heldt said “mutual trust” had been broken and that there was “no way back.” Also, midfielder Marco Hoeger has been suspended until the end of the week. With two matches remaining, Schalke are two points ahead of seventh-placed Borussia Dortmund.
GERMANY
Technology to make debut
Goal-line technology is to make its debut in Germany for the DFB Pokal final in Berlin on May 30, the German Football Association (DFB) announced on Monday. Borussia Dortmund’s clash with VfL Wolfsburg at Berlin’s Olympiastadion is to be the first time the technology has been used in the land of the world champions. “Therefore this will be an historic game and the first time in a competitive match where the technology has been used here,” DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock said. The clubs in the top two divisions voted in December last year in favor of installing the technology in time for next season. Last year’s final was won 2-0 by Bayern Munich in extra-time against Dortmund, but only after officials failed to spot that a header from Borussia defender Mats Hummels which crossed the goal-line during the 90 minutes. “The technology can only improve things,” Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said. “That was a clear goal — if it had counted, we would have won the final.”
JAPAN
Muto to join FSV Mainz 05
In-form Japan international striker Yoshinori Muto is expected to join Germany’s FSV Mainz 05 after rejecting an offer from English Premier League champions Chelsea, newspapers said yesterday. The Bundesliga team and Muto’s current club, Tokyo, have reached a basic agreement on the 22-year-old’s transfer, the Sports Nippon daily said, quoting unnamed Mainz officials. Details of his salary were not made available, but the paper said Mainz are ready to offer 3 million euros (US$3.37 million) as a transfer fee. The reports came after Chelsea made a formal offer for Muto worth a reported US$5.9 million, which would have been a record transfer from the J-League to an overseas club, but with the team’s depth of talent and experience, particularly up front, there were concerns Muto would struggle to get playing time.
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