SOCCER
El Salvador offered cash
El Salvador players claimed they had been offered financial inducements to win, draw or avoid a heavy defeat in yesterday’s FIFA 2018 World Cup qualifier against Canada. A heavy defeat for El Salvador in the match in Vancouver could prevent their neighbors Honduras from progressing to the final stage of qualifying for the finals in Russia. Honduras are in pole position to progress, but Canada could pip them on goal-difference if they were to run up a big score against El Salvador and Honduras were to lose to Group 1 leaders Mexico. El Salvador captain Nelson Bonilla told reporters in a pre-match news conference in Vancouver on Monday that a Salvadoran businessman had approached the players with the offer at the weekend. Bonilla played a tape of the 10-minute conversation in which the man promised varying amounts of money depending on the result and the time played by each player, from US$30 a minute for a win to US$10 a minute for a 1-0 defeat.
SOCCER
Messi a doubt for opener
Lionel Messi’s availability for Barcelona’s UEFA Champions League opener with Celtic next week remains in doubt after tests confirmed the five-time World Player of the Year is suffering from a groin injury. Messi returned to Spain after aggravating the injury when he scored the winner against Uruguay on Thursday last week in his first match with Argentina since reversing his decision to retire from internationals. In a statement on Monday, Barcelona said tests had confirmed an injury to his left groin and that Messi would “lower the demands of his training sessions in the next few days.” The Spanish champions refused to state how long Messi would be sidelined for, but Barca are unlikely to take any risks for Deportivo Alaves’ trip to the Camp Nou on Saturday.
FOOTBALL
Miller sacked after arrest
The San Francisco 49ers on Monday sacked fullback Bruce Miller after he was arrested in connection with an assault on a 70-year-old man and his son. Miller, 29, was reportedly detained by police following an attack on the two men at a hotel in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf district late on Sunday. Reports said Miller became violent after attempting to check into the hotel, only to be told all the rooms were fully booked. Miller then began on knocking on doors in the hotel, rousing an elderly couple. When the couple’s 29-year-old son, staying in a neighboring room, came to their aid, Miller attacked. When the man’s 70-year-old father attempted to intervene, Miller punched him in the face and broke multiple bones.
RUGBY UNION
NZ coach Tietjens retires
Legendary New Zealand sevens coach Gordon Tietjens announced his retirement yesterday, just weeks after his side’s failure at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. During his 22 years in charge, Tietjens guided New Zealand to 12 Sevens World Series titles, four Commonwealth gold medals and two Sevens World Cup crowns. “It’s fair to say that no one else will ever rival this record in rugby in any form of the game,” New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew told reporters. Yet when sevens made its Olympic debut, Tietjens’ team were shocked 14-12 by Japan, before also losing to Britain and Fiji and finishing in fifth place.
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