Schalke 04 fans on Saturday staged a protest against chairman Clemens Tonnies before the 5-0 win over fourth-tier SV Drochtersen/Assel in the first round of the German Cup.
Club supporters suggested they no longer want him at the club as they held red cards and displayed a banner that read: “We’re showing Tonnies the red card.”
The 63-year-old Tonnies has been criticized since making comments described as racist at an Aug. 1 public meeting, at which he campaigned against tax increases to fight climate change by saying that it was better to fund power plants in Africa, “then the Africans would stop cutting down trees and they would stop making babies when it gets dark.”
Photo: AP
Tonnies, Schalke chairman since 2001, apologized for the remarks and decided to step down for three months.
In other games, Augsburg and FSV Mainz 05 were knocked out by lower-league opponents. Augsburg lost 2-1 to fourth-tier SV Verl and third-division Kaiserslautern surprised Mainz 2-0.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen progressed against fourth-tier Alemannia Aachen 4-1, while top-flight sides SC Freiburg and Fortuna Dusseldorf needed extra time to progress.
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim goalkeeper Oliver Baumann saved two penalties in a shootout victory over Wurzburger Kickers to get new coach Alfred Schreuder off to a winning start.
Peruvian Claudio Pizarro scored twice in Werder Bremen’s 6-1 rout of Atlas Delmenhorst.
LIGUE 1
AP, MARSEILLE, France
A change of coach has not yielded Olympique de Marseille instant dividends.
Lacking passion and grit, the side — now coached by Andre Villas-Boas — made a disappointing start on Saturday to the Ligue 1 by losing 2-0 to visitors Reims.
Striker Boulaye Dia scored the opening goal and also delivered an assist as Reims claimed their first win in more than five years at the Velodrome.
Villas-Boas got his first taste of French soccer and saw how much work needs to be done. He replaced Rudi Garcia after Marseille failed to qualify for the Europa League and his mission is to bring the kings of Europe from 1993 back into the Champions League.
Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda kept his side afloat in the first half with two good saves until Kevin Strootman volleyed against the bar in the 57th minute.
However, Mandanda could not stop Dia’s effort in the 58th minute, following Tristan Dingome’s assist. Dia then beat the offside trap and turned provider in the 90th minute with a fine pass to South Korean forward Suk Hyun-jun, who pounced to score.
“It’s a big disappointment given what we hoped for and what we had shown in our [pre-season] matches,” Mandanda said. “There is a long way to go to perform in this league.”
Unlike their rivals, 10-time champions AS Saint-Etienne were immediately up to speed, winning 2-1 against hosts Dijon FCO.
Saint-Etienne built a two-goal lead in 10 minutes thanks to Romain Hamouma and Jean-Eudes Aholou, before Julio Tavares converted on a penalty in the 34th minute.
Playing without injured but newly signed Teji Savanier, the best assist-provider last season during his time with Nimes, Montpellier were upset 1-0 at home by 10-man Rennes after Andy Delort missed a penalty.
Angers SCO defeated Girondins de Bordeaux 3-1, promoted Brest drew 1-1 with Toulouse and former Brazil defender Dante headed in the winner in stoppage time as OGC Nice beat Amiens 2-1.
Paris Saint-Germain yesterday started the defense of their title against Nimes Olympique at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
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