Shelly Sterling says she wants to maintain ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, even though the league is seeking to oust her husband from the team he has owned since 1981.
Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that she believes she has a legal right to run the team and that the sanctions leveled against her husband, Donald Sterling, do not apply to her.
Shelly Sterling also said she has hired a lawyer to help her with the control bid. The Clippers are held in a family trust that Shelly Sterling shares 50-50 with her husband, the Times said. In the event one dies, the surviving spouse gets the other share.
Donald Sterling has owned the team for 33 years and in that time its value has skyrocketed from the US$12.5 million he initially paid for it. Some experts say the team might be worth up to US$1 billion now.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling, the longest-tenured NBA team owner, for life after racist remarks he made in a private conversation with a girlfriend were made public.
The comments, first released by celebrity Web site TMZ, included Sterling saying he did not want his girlfriend bringing black people to Clippers games or posting photographs of herself on social media with black people.
A firestorm of outrage followed, leading the Clippers players to wear their uniforms inside out in a pregame warmup, before Silver banned Donald Sterling and fined the 80-year-old real-estate mogul US$2.5 million dollars, the maximum allowed under league rules.
NBA owners also started the process of setting up a vote to strip the team from Sterling, a move that could push him to sell the Clippers. Donald Sterling has yet to comment on the leaked tapes, but some are expecting him to try and take the NBA to court in a legal fight that could be bitter and lengthy.
Shelly Sterling’s continued presence in the organization could prove problematic for the league because, like her husband, she has been accused of making racists comments in earlier lawsuits connected to the family’s real-estate business, the Times said.
One former Sterling property manager accused Shelly Sterling in a deposition about a decade ago of instructing her not to rent to people that belonged to specific racial groups.
Meanwhile, NBA officials met on Wednesday to discuss the league’s bid to strip Donald Sterling of his team, but have not settled on a timeline for action.
A statement by NBA executive vice president Mike Bass said members of the league’s Advisory/Finance Committee had spoken again in a conference call.
“The committee reviewed the status of the search for a new CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers, was updated on meetings held this week between NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum and Clippers employees and addressed the process and timing regarding the termination of Mr Sterling’s ownership of the team,” Bass said.
A further meeting is scheduled for next week.
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