Team New Zealand received a multimillion dollar loan from its main rival, Alinghi syndicate head Ernesto Bertarelli, before agreeing to challenge for sailing's 2007 America's Cup, the New Zealand Herald reported Saturday. \nGrant Dalton, Team New Zealand's general manager, said the loan was interest free and had "no strings attached." \nDalton refused to disclose the amount involved, but said Bertarelli made the loan to ensure the most competitive syndicates challenged for the Cup off Valencia, Spain in three years. \nBertarelli's "motive was to ensure that Team New Zealand competes at Valencia because, in his view, the regatta would lose some of its appeal without us," Dalton was quoted saying. "It would be like holding the [soccer] World Cup without Brazil." \nBertarelli, an Italian-Swiss biotech billionaire who formed the Alinghi syndicate in 2000 and poached then Team New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts, is reportedly a close friend of Dalton. \nAlinghi dismissed Coutts last week, accusing him of violating his employment contract. The record-breaking skipper has expressed an interest in returning to Team New Zealand. \nAlinghi became the first European team to win the Cup in 152 years when it beat Team New Zealand 5-0 in the 31st Cup match in March last year. \nTeam New Zealand was wavering over its participation for 2007 before signing a substantial sponsorship deal with Dubai-based Emirates Airlines in June. The loan from Bertarelli was made just before the sponsorship deal was completed and allowed New Zealand to confirm funding for a challenge. \nDalton said the loan had been made by Bertarelli personally and had not come from Alinghi. \n"It's a no-strings-attached deal which means it's a money deal," Dalton told the Herald. Bertarelli, "has no involvement in any shape or form in Team New Zealand. It's a completely arms-length deal." \nDalton took charge of Team New Zealand last year, saying it would not take part in the 2007 Cup unless it could secure enough funding to be fully competitive. \nIt's participation at Valencia was in serious doubt until the Emirates deal, worth an estimated NZ$35 million (US$22.3 million) was struck. \nThe leading syndicates at the 2003 Cup had budgets of up to US$90 million.
The sight of Japanese fans at a World Cup bagging trash after a match — win or lose — always surprises non-Japanese. Japanese players are famous for doing the same in their team dressing room: hanging up towels, cleaning the floor and even leaving a thank-you note. The behavior is driving social media posts at the World Cup in Qatar, but it is nothing unusual for Japanese fans or players. They are simply doing what most people in Japan do — at home, at school, at work or on streets from Tokyo to Osaka, Shizuoka to Sapporo. “For Japanese people, this is
Portugal players idolize Cristiano Ronaldo, with many saying it is a “dream” to play with him, but young forward Goncalo Ramos on Saturday joked that he would not accept a piece of chewing gum from his compatriot. Ronaldo, who scored a penalty in Portugal’s 3-2 win over Ghana on Thursday, was pictured chewing gum he had pulled out of the front of his shorts during the game. The 37-year-old striker, without a club after an acrimonious split from Manchester United this week, became the first player ever to score at five World Cups. “Of course not,” laughed Ramos at a news conference, when
Normally, it would be horrible news to soccer fans anywhere that their team’s star player was injured. Yet even as they endured an anguished wait for a Neymar-less Brazil to score in their 1-0 win over Switzerland on Monday, some Brazilians found it hard to miss the injured superstar, who has promised to dedicate his first FIFA World Cup goal to far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Watching the match in a packed bar in central Rio de Janeiro, where fans decked out in yellow and green waited nervously for what turned out to be the lone goal — scored in the 83rd
Qatar’s top World Cup official on Tuesday said that more than 400 migrant workers died in labor accidents in the country in the years leading up to the tournament. Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatari Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, gave the figure of 400 to 500 in a British television interview when asked how many workers had died “doing work for the World Cup.” The organizing committee said his response referred to “national statistics covering the period of 2014-2020 for all work-related fatalities” in Qatar “covering all sectors and nationalities.” It said there were 414 worker deaths over the eight-year period. Migrant
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