German soccer will be glad to see the end to a year which broke the 2006 FIFA World Cup scandal and saw the world champions experience the Paris terror attacks first-hand.
After the high of winning last year’s World Cup came the low in October when Der Spiegel broke the cash-for-votes scandal surrounding the awarding of the 2006 World Cup hosted by Germany.
The magazine claimed that an unexplained 6.7 million euro (US$7.2 million) payment to FIFA was used to purchase the votes of four executive committee members in 2000 — days before Germany narrowly won the right to host the 2006 finals.
Photo: Reuters
The German Football Association (DFB) strenuously denied the claims, but Wolfgang Niersbach soon resigned as president, while police made a series of raids and FIFA launched an investigation.
Results of an independent audit of the 2006 bid, ordered by the DFB, are expected next month to hopefully shed light on what happened 15 years ago.
As politician Dagmar Freitag, who heads the Bundestag’s sports committee, put it: “The damage is done, but the question for me is: How big will this get?”
On the pitch, Germany finished top of their group to book their place at Euro 2016 in France, but with two defeats it was their worst campaign since finishing second to the Czech Republic in their Euro 2008 qualifying group.
The Republic of Ireland poached a 1-0 win over Germany in October, before Loew’s side held their nerve to beat Scotland 3-2 away, then were made to work for a 2-1 win at home to minnows Georgia.
Germany finished their international campaign on a low last month.
Their friendly against the Netherlands in Hannover was canceled due to a bomb threat, just four days after Loew’s squad spent the night at the Stade de France in the wake of the Paris terror attacks after a meaningless 2-0 defeat against the hosts.
Domestically, Bayern Munich again dominated the Bundesliga and are on course to become the first team to win the title four times in a row.
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