■ Soccer
Critical director resigns
A Liverpool club director who criticized the leadership and transfer dealings of manager Rafa Benitez resigned from the club's board on Tuesday. Liverpool said Noel White resigned with immediate effect after 21 years on the board. He quit after admitting he was the anonymous director who had made criticisms of Benitez to a British newspaper last week. "The board considers that the statements made do not reflect its own views and that this is not the Liverpool way of doing business," Liverpool chairman David Moores said. "The proper place for debate is around the boardroom table."
■ Soccer
Lippi turns down Qaddafi
Italy's World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi turned down an offer from Lybian leader Muammar Qaddafi to manage the Libyan national team, and says he only wants a club job, excluding him from any interest by Mexico as well. "He [Qaddafi] wanted me, it's true," Lippi was quoted as saying on Tuesday by online newspaper quotidiano.net. "I received 10 or so offers after the World Cup from very important federations, but I declined the various proposals," he said.
■ Baseball
Agent accused of smuggling
A sports agent was indicted by the federal government on Tuesday in a scheme that allegedly involved smuggling elite Cuban baseball players to the US. Gus Dominguez, of Los Angeles-based Total Sports International, was indicted along with four others with organizing and financing the smuggling ring. Geoffrey Rodrigues, Robert Yosvany Hernandez, Ramon Batista, and Guillermo Valdez were charged along with Dominguez. Law enforcement officials accuse Total Sports of sneaking several baseball players off the communist island in August 2004. Some of the players are playing for minor league clubs. Federal prosecutors allege Dominguez and the others used speed boats to transport the players and civilians to Florida.
■ Soccer
Club linked to cocaine cartel
Colombian second-division soccer club Cortulua is a front company for one of the South American country's four most wanted cocaine kingpins, US officials assert. They are freezing any US assets that belong to the team. In a news release, the US Treasury Department identified Cortulua among 10 companies and seven individuals who allegedly operate on behalf of Carlos Alberto Renteria Mantilla, one of the four leaders of the Norte del Valle cartel, the country's biggest. The team is based in Tulua near the southern city of Cali, long a hotbed of Colombia's narcotics trade. Cortulua qualified for the Copa Libertadores in 2002, has played in the Colombian first division as recently as last year and appears ready to return to the top flight next season.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS