start road to fa sport cup history face off

Saturday, January 9, 2016Rabia I 29, 1437 AH

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Classic looms as Nadal takes on Djokovic intoday’s Qatar final

FACEOFF

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Early-seasonhonours at stake as Djoko, Nadal clash

When Novak greeted fans in Arabic

Car simulator attractsvisitors and players atQatar ExxonMobil Open

Spanish duo Feliciano and Marc win doubles

QATAR EXXONMOBIL OPEN DIARY

FUN AND GAMES

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By Sahan BidappaDoha

It’s happening right here — a Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal fi nal.

In 2015, Djokovic and Nadal fell in the quarter-fi nals and fi rst round re-

spectively. Cut to today, two of the sport’s greatest stars in history will face-off in an enticing clash at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open.

Last night at the Khalifa Complex, both Djokovic and Nadal were in their ele-ments in their respective semi-fi nals.

Djokovic’s encounter was the toughest one, as he faced last year’s Doha fi nalist and third seed Tomas Bedych. The top seed Serb was down 1-3 in the fi rst set, but recovered to post a 6-3, 7-6 (3) win over the Czech, a victory that was a testi-mony to both Djokovic’s mental strength and his ability with the racquet.

Second seed Nadal was up against a much easier opponent, but Illya March-enko was the giant-killer of the tourna-ment. The 14-time champion, however, dismantled Marchenko, who had knocked out two seeds in previous matches, in-cluding defending champion David Ferrer in the fi rst round. Nadal took an hour and 17 minutes to win 6-3, 6-4.

“I guess it’s an important match to-

morrow,” world No. 1 Djokovic said of his 47th meeting with Nadal. “Let’s see what happens. We’ve played each other so many times, it will be an interesting one. I hope we put on a good show and fans will enjoy it.”

Djokovic and Nadal have split equal number of victories in their head-to-head contest — 23 each — and today’s encounter will decide who takes the lead and a mental edge as they head to Aus-tralian Open, the year’s fi rst Grand Slam beginning on January 18.

They hold the record for most meet-ings between two players in the Open Era, eclipsing the mark previously held by Lendl and John McEnroe. Djokovic has an 8-1 record against Nadal since the 2013 US Open. He is 13-10 in tour-level fi nals and 16-7 on hard courts.

After their victories last night, Djoko-vic has now gone into his 16th straight ATP fi nal, third longest run in the Open era behind Ivan Lendl (18) and Roger Fe-derer (17). While Nadal, who triumphed here in 2014, will play his 99th tour-level fi nal (67-31 record).

Moreover, the Spaniard is chasing his fi rst ATP World Tour hard-court title in

two years and he couldn’t have asked for a tougher test to end the drought.

For, Djokovic is set to be hitting peak form, the kind that won him three Slams and six Masters titles last year. There were doubts whether he would play in the semis last night as the news spread that he had cut short his pre-match practice after injuring his arm.

But he was on court right after Nadal had won his match. Djokovic started poorly though, as he was broken in the very fi rst game, slipping and falling on the ground while going for a forehand. Berdych sped to a 3-1 lead and it appeared that the pre-match rumours on Djoko-vic’s injury were true.

The World No.1, however, raised his game and took fi ve successive games to close out the set, as Berdych typically lost his game and nerves. The second went on serve till the tie-breaker, before Djokovic burst through taking a 4-0 advantage. It was no looking back thereafter as he went 19-0 in hard courts against the sixth-ranked Berdych.

In the fi rst semifi nal, Nadal, well aware of Marchenko’s recent good run, started aggressively not giving the Ukrainian the momentum that he had played with all along during the tournament.

The Mallorcan played with much more vigour, opening up a 3-0 lead in the fi rst

set, before closing it out in just 35 min-utes. The 94th-ranked Marchenko was immediately down 15-40 in fi rst game of the second set, before he pulled things back. But Nadal made the break by love in the fi fth game to take a 3-2 advantage and held onto his serves to make it to his second fi nal in Doha.

“It was not a perfect win. But I did a few good things and I’m happy with re-sult,” said Nadal. “Being in the fi rst fi nal of the season in the fi rst offi cial tourna-ment is great, and I am very happy for that. For sure, it is important for me for my confi dence, (to) confi rm that the end of 2015 season had been something re-alistic and the beginning of 2016 I am still playing well. I have already won four matches here and I am in the fi nal. That means I have confi dence, and rhythm. So everything’s positive,” the 29-year-old added.

RESULTSSingles semi-finals1-Novak Djokovic (Serbia) bt 3-Tomas Bedych (Czech Republic) 6-3, 7-6 (3)2-Rafael Nadal (Spain) bt Illya Marchenko (Ukraine) 6-3, 6-4Doubles final3-Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez (Spain) bt Philipp Petzschner (Germany) and Alexander Peya (Austria) 6–4, 6–3

Djokovic and Nadal have a 23-all record against each other going into today’s final

TENNIS

Gulf Times Saturday, January 9, 20162

By Sahan BidappaDoha

Among many things that Novak Djokovic can do, the World No 1 can speak in fi ve languag-

es – Serbian, English, German, Italian and French. The Serb studied English and German at primary school, and learned Ital-ian when he worked with coach Riccardo Piati.

Soon enough, one may have to add Arabic to the list. The 10-time Grand Slam champion is quite popular on the tour with fans and has a fun demeanour to go with his brilliance on court.

At the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Djokovic, after his victory in the quarter-fi nals, addressed the fans in Arabic. He put on an impressive accent, as he said in Arabic: “Hello, I am happy to be in Qatar. Thank you.”

So he was asked, is learning Arabic on his list next? “Yeah, why not? (Smiles) I have been coming to Dubai and Abu Dhabi for many years and now here in Doha, as well, so I have more than enough reason to upgrade my knowledge of Arabic language. It’s a beginning. You know, now I know a couple of phrases, cou-ple of words. It’s not easy. I think writing will not happen yet any time soon (smiling) but at least am learning certain phrases,” the ever-jovial Djokovic said.

Djokovic is not the only top star, who is a master at speaking lan-guages. Roger Federer, the 17-time Grand Slam champion, also speaks four languages fl uently – his na-tive Swiss German along with French, English and German.

One of the greats of the game, Federer is known for his ability to switch eff ortlessly between lan-guages in interviews and press conferences.

MARCHENKO TALKS ROI

The surprise package of the Qa-tar Open, Illya Marchenko has come into the season having ‘in-vested’ in something.

For a player ranked 94th in the world, it’s hard to travel with a big team, which has coaches, fi t-ness trainer, physio and a man-ager. Nothing comes cheap in an

expensive sport like tennis.When Marchenko started to

train under Tibor Toth, he re-located to Bratislava, Slovakia, since his hometown in Donetsk, Ukraine, was at war. At the end of last season, as part of his prepa-rations, he went to the moun-tains to train under his fi tness coach. “It was like a bit of invest-ment for me,” said Marchenko.

And the ‘investment’ has brought the Ukrainian quick dividends, at least in Doha as he made it to the semifi nals, his third at the ATP level and fi rst since 2010. Reaching the last four meant that he has earned $57,380 – that is more than a quarter of what he made all year last season. “I’m really happy it’s paying back that quick,” said Marchenko.

DJOKO BACKS ITF PREZ ON DAVIS CUP FORMAT

If new International Tennis Fed-eration president David Hag-gerty has his way, then the Davis Cup format is set for a revamp.

Haggerty has revealed a pro-posal that would see both semifi -nals and fi nal played over a single week each November at a neutral venue. At the moment, Davis Cup is played annually and competed by 16 nations in World Group, with each round played on speci-fi ed weekends throughout the year, with one team hosting the other. There is also a proposal to hand the defending champions a bye in the opening round.

Haggerty found an early sup-porter for his idea in Djokovic, with the World No 1 believing the existing one had become stale. “I think the format has to change, there is no doubt. I’m glad that they are at least considering, talking about it,” said the Serb.

He added: “The problem in tennis is that you have several governing bodies. You have, well, players belonging to ATP, Fed-erations belonging to ITF, Grand Slams are independent. So it’s a bit complicated. In the last fi ve-ten years, you don’t have many top players playing Davis Cup throughout the entire year be-cause it’s just a terrible schedule. I mean, you can’t expect, you know, top players to participate in every Davis Cup match when it comes after every Grand Slam.”

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (left) and Spain’s Rafael Nadal (right) beat Tomas Berdych and Illya Marchenko in their respective semi-final matches yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma

By Sports ReporterDoha

Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez won the Qatar ExxonMobil Open doubles title defeating Philipp Petzschner and Alexander Peya

6–4, 6–3 in the fi nal yesterday.Last year, Spaniard Rafael Nadal and

Argentine Juan Monaco had emerged tri-umphant in doubles.

At the Khalifa Complex, Feliciano and Marc, the third seeds, never looked in doubt of wrapping up the title, as they completely dominated Germany’s Petzschner and Peya of Austria in a match that lasted one hour and six minutes.

The Qatar Open was their first tour-nament together since 2012 Miami Masters, where they fell in the second round. Feliciano and Marc came back together this year, with an eye on rep-resenting Spain at the Rio Olympics in August.

And they seemed to have gotten along well instantly, winning their fi rst ATP ti-tle together. It was also Marc’s third dou-bles title in Doha, having won previously with Nadal in 2009 and 2011.

Yesterday, the pair won purely on the strength of their service game, with neither dropping a game. On the other hand, Petzschner and Peya were bro-ken once in the first set and twice in the second.

“First of all, I want to thank everybody for their support,” Feliciano said after the vic-tory. “It is a pleasure to play with him. Marc has become the champion for the third time.

Next week we will be in Sydney,” he added.“We were together in 2012 years ago.

Yes, it has been a long time,” Marc said. “He was playing with Rafa (Nadal) and

they have been very successful together. For me it is a diffi cult task to replace a great player like Rafa. I don’t think I will be able to replace Rafa,” he added.

QTF president Nasser al-Khelaifi with the doubles winners Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez, and the runner-up dup of Philipp Petzschner and Alexander Peya yesterday. PICTURES: Noushad Thekkayil


The race car simulator is back by popular demand at this year’s Qatar Exx-onMobil Open. Housed

at the ExxonMobil Qatar stand in the tournament’s Public Village, the simulator has been a high-light of a number of past tourna-ments, providing visitors with an interactive and realistic racing experience based on a full-size specifi cation racing car.

This year’s simulator has all the features of a racing car, in-cluding an authentic, padded cockpit headrest, four-point racing harness, gear lever pad-dles, and a quick release carbon fi bre steering wheel. The simula-tor allows drivers to experience the unique movement of the car under realistic acceleration, braking and cornering condi-tions. A built-in 5.1 surround sound system also provides users with a full sensory experience.

The simulator isn’t just for tournament-goers, with many of this year’s line-up of tennis players having visited the Exx-onMobil Qatar stand to test their

driving skills, including Jer-emy Chardy, Horia Tecau, Lukas Lacko, Jan Hernych and Sergiy Stakhovsky.

ExxonMobil Qatar has been the title sponsor of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open for 22 years, in partnership with the Qatar Ten-nis Federation. Since the start of their collaboration, the Exxon-Mobil Qatar stand has been one of the highlights of the tourna-ment and a much sought-after spot at its Public Village. Each year, the stand is carefully and creatively designed so that it is appealing to visitors of all ages.

In line with the Qatar Na-tional Vision 2030, ExxonMobil is committed to providing the State of Qatar with the energy to drive human potential; to sup-port research, safety, health and the environment; and to nurture its thriving society. Through a variety of partnerships with lo-cal organizations such as QTF, the company invests in programs that support education, profes-sional workforce development, and active and healthy lifestyles within Qatar’s community – critical to building a skilled and productive workforce that can sustain Qatar’s future.

Final at 6pm today

SPORT3Gulf Times

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Federer battles past Dimitrov, Azarenka sails into fi nal

Peugeot’s Peterhansel takes stage and lead; al-Attiyah remains fourth overall

Australia Green pip Great Britain to Hopman Cup fi nal

Ali al-Muhannadi takes 50m Rifl e Prone event

TENNIS / BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL

DAKAR 2016

SPOTLIGHT

SHOOTING

‘It was tough. Grigor’s a great shotmaker, the future’s ahead of him in the game’


Ali Rashid al-Muhannadi won the men’s 50m Ri-fl e Prone event in the Qatar Cup at the Losail

Shooting Range yesterday. Vi-ascheslav Skoromnov fi nished second ahead of Mohammed Sadd al-Mubarak in the event.

In the girls’ section, Mehbubeh Akhlaghi took the gold followed by Bahiya Mansour al-Hamad and Matara Fahad al-Assieri, in second and third place respectively.

In the other competition yes-terday, Ivan Bidniak topped in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol for men. Bidniak shot down 26 tar-gets while Oleg Engachov hit the right spot in 20 to fi nish second ahead of Maltsev Konstantin.

AFPSalta, Argentina

Dakar Rally legend Stephane Pe-terhansel proved too strong for his Peugeot teammates Carlos Sainz and Sebastien Loeb in

yesterday’s sixth stage around the largest salt fl ats in the world in Bolivia.

Success for the veteran Frenchman pow-ered him into the overall lead to give him a massive boost in his quest for a 12th success in motorsport’s toughest challenge.

The 50-year-old from Alsace lined up for the 542 kilometre timed run in Uy-uni, the longest stage of the rally, eight minutes adrift of nine-time world rally champion Loeb.

But already the winner of Wednesday’s fourth stage he now goes into today’s drive from Uyuni to Salta in Argentina at the head of the pack.

He leads Dakar debutant Loeb by 27sec with Sainz in third at 5min 55sec.

After a stunning drive in Uyuni, Pe-terhansel timed 5hrs 1min 7sec to cross the line 17sec ahead of Sainz with Saudi driver Yazeed al-Rajhi, in a Toyota, spoil-ing another Peugeot sweep at the top fi n-ishing over seven minutes adrift.

Loeb was over eight minutes adrift for

a fourth place, while Qatar’s Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah brought in the fastest Mini in at fi fth. Al-Attiyah is fi fth in overall standings.

Peterhansel competed in his fi rst Dakar in 1988, winning the fi rst of his six overall victories on two wheels back in 1991 and taking his 11th victory behind the wheel of a Mini in 2013.

In the bikes category, Toby Price took the day’s honours on a KTM.

The Australian beat Paulo Goncalves by 1min 12sec but despite losing out the Portuguese Honda rider retained the overall lead.

Radwanska receives ranking boost with Shenzhen win

Pakistan-China Davis Cup tie moved to Sri Lanka over security concerns

Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska will move to fourth in the world rankings after beating Germany’s Anna-Lena Friedsam to reach the final of the Shenzhen Open in China yesterday. The Pole, currently ranked fifth, prevailed 6-2 6-4 to set up a Saturday showdown with American Alison Riske, who beat Hun-gary’s Timea Babos by the same scoreline in the other semi-final between two unseeded players. The ranking boost takes Radwanska above Russia’s Maria Shara-pova ahead of the Australian Open, which gets underway on January 18 in Melbourne. “Reaching the final here is great preparation for the Australian Open, and that’s a good projection too,” Radwanska said of the new ranking which will be confirmed on Monday. “First I’ll focus on winning here in Shenzhen, and then I’ll just try to play the same tennis in Sydney and in Melbourne.”

Pakistan will host its Asia Oceania Group I Davis Cup tennis tie in Sri Lanka after opponents China refused to visit the violence-hit country over security fears, off icials said yesterday. The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) said they had hoped that the country’s strong economic links with China would help con-vince off icials to bring the competition to Lahore. “It’s disappointing to note that International Tennis Federation has rejected our appeal of playing the tie in Pakistan and we are now forced to host it in Sri Lanka,” PTF secretary Khalid Rehmani told AFP. The tie will be played from March 4-6. The PTF had invoked the foreign ministry’s aid in the bid to hold the match at home but to no avail, said Rehmani. Pakistan have not hosted a home tie since 2005. Pakistan are back in Group I for the tournament for the first time since 2006, while China clung onto their place with a relegation play-off win over Thailand in September last year. This will be the sixth head-to-head meeting between the two teams, with China winning their last one 5-0 back in 2006. The winner will face seeded Uzbekistan for a chance to reach the World Group play-off s.

Peugeot’s Stephane Peterhansel won the sixth stage of Dakar 2016. (Reuters)

Qatar’s Nasser al-Attiyah is fourth in the overall standings. (Reuters)

Ali Rashid al-Muhannadi (second from right) won the men’s 50m Rifle Prone event in the Qatar Cup at the Losail Shooting Range yesterday.

In the girls’ section, Mehbubeh Akhlaghi (centre) won the gold.

ReutersBrisbane

Roger Federer quelled Grigor Dimitrov’s challenge in three sets in the Brisbane Internation-al quarter-fi nals and Victoria

Azarenka blew away Samantha Crawford to reach the fi nal in the women’s draw yesterday.

Azarenka ended American qualifi er Crawford’s dream run with a 6-0 6-3 win to set up a decider with Germany’s An-gelique Kerber, who also cruised through to the fi nal with a 6-2 6-3 win over Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

Defending champion Federer, battling a fl u bug according to the local media, was made to work hard by his Bulgarian oppo-nent before the Swiss master prevailed 6-4 6-7(4) 6-4 at the Pat Rafter Arena.

“It was tough. Grigor’s a great shot-maker, the future’s ahead of him in the game,” Federer said after setting up a semi-fi nal against Austrian youngster Dominic Thiem.

Federer broke Dimitrov in the 10th game to claim the fi rst set but the Bulgar-ian refused to throw in the towel.

For the fi rst time in his four meetings with the world number three, Dimitrov managed to win a set via a tiebreak to force the decider but could not pull off an upset.

“The third was close and thankfully I started to serve a little bit better,” Fed-erer said. “Maybe he didn’t have his best fi nish of the match today, but I enjoyed it anyway.”

Eighth seed Thiem made it through to the semis by beating former US Open

champion Marin Cilic 2-6 7-6(4) 6-4, while home hope Bernard Tomic contin-ued his promising form by overcoming Kei Nishikori.

Tomic prevailed 6-3 1-6 6-3 against 2014 U.S. Open runner-up Nishikori.

“Obviously this win is huge,” the world number 18 said after taking out the sec-ond seeded Japanese to set up a semi-

fi nal against big-serving Canadian Milos Raonic.

“Now I’m at the level the last few months of being in the top 20 and playing these players that have been consistently in the top 10, fi ve in the world.”

“Being in the top 10. It’s near. If I keep playing the way I’m playing there is a chance.”

The Australian, who has been criti-cised for poor behaviour in the past, went from 78th in the world to his current career-high last year when he claimed a third tour title in Colombia.

Raonic will provide another stern ex-amination of those top-10 credentials after the Canadian easily took down France’s Lucas Pouille 6-4 6-4.

Victoria Azarenka hits a return against Samantha Crawford during their Brisbane International semi-final yesterday. (AFP)

AFPPerth

Australia Green won a thrill-ing mixed doubles match against France at the Hop-man Cup yesterday to secure

a place in the fi nal against Ukraine, snatching the spot from Great Britain. Nick Kyrgios and Daria Gavrilovapropelled Australia into their fi rst Hopman Cup fi nal since 2003, beating French pairing Kenny de Schepper and Caroline Garcia in a tense decider, 6-4, 2-6, 11-9.

The home side—one of two Austral-ian combinations in the mixed teams event—looked set to cruise into the fi -nal when they took the fi rst set, but the

French duo rallied and forced a match to a three set tiebreak.

Kyrgios managed to keep his unbeat-en record intact by winning his ear-lier singles match against de Schepper, 6-4, 6-4, while Gavrilova lost to Garcia 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).

The win by the host nation side—who have not won the tournament since 1999 -- denied Great Britain a spot in the fi nal.

Great Britain had temporarily kept their Hopman Cup fi nal hopes alive with a 3-0 win over Germany.

Any Murray and Heather Watson won their respective singles matches against Alexander Zverev and Sabine Lisicki, but they needed Australia Green to lose in or-der to make the last two.

Kyrgios, 20, said taking the tourna-

ment title would be a perfect start to the year, as he looks to move on from the controversies of 2015.

“It’s pretty special,” he said. “Hope-fully we can bring it home.”

Kyrgios, ranked 30th in the world, will face world number 36 Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, after the coun-try’s team secured their place in the fi -nal on Thursday.

“It is going to be tough,” Kyrgios said. “He has been playing really well and

is a tricky customer. “He’s very unorthodox and has been

around the tour for a long time now, so he’s not going to be easy at all.”

Ukraine’s previous appearance at the Hopman Cup was back in 1995, when siblings Andrei Medvedev and Natalia Medvedeva reached the fi nal.

Murray said the Hopman Cup had provided an ideal launching pad for his upcoming Australian Open campaign in Melbourne later this month.

Murray was too good for the emerg-ing Zverev, despite being broken when he initially served for the second set, winning 6-3, 6-4 for two victories from his three singles matches in Perth.

His one defeat was to Kyrgios. “I obviously have things to prac-

tice on and try to improve, I am fairly pleased with how I played,” Murray said. “The serve was good, that is a good start to build from.

“I gave up maybe fi ve or six break points total in the three matches, and some of them could have been avoided as well, so that was very good.

“The rest of my game there is a few

things I can still work on, the move-ment can get a bit sharper and hit the ball a bit cleaner from the back of the court, but I think that will come.”

Watson showed she would be a dan-gerous opponent in Melbourne with her second win in succession against Lisicki.

Former Wimbledon fi nalist Lisicki is on the comeback trail after being sidelined by injury for the second half of 2015 and had her chances against Watson, but could not match her oppo-nent’s consistency.

Ranked 32 in the world, the German had three break points at 0-40 when Watson served for the match in the second set, but the world number 55 claimed the fi nal fi ve points in succes-sion to complete a 6-3, 6-4 win.

S Africa unchanged for remaining two England Tests

ReutersCape Town

South Africa have named an unchanged squad for the re-maining two Tests against England as AB de Villiers pre-

pares to lead the fi ve-day team for the fi rst time in Johannesburg on Thurs-day.

De Villiers takes over the captaincy from Hashim Amla, who resigned after the drawn second Test in Cape Town with his side 1-0 down in the four-game series that sees further fi xtures at the Wanderers (January 14-18) and Centurion Park in Pretoria (January 22-26).

Premier fast bowler Dale Steyn has been retained in the squad but will undergo a fi tness test on Monday as he seeks to return from a shoulder injury, while there is also place for middle-order batsman JP Duminy.

Duminy was dropped from the team that drew the second Test this week, but scored an unbeaten 153 for his province in a domestic four-day fi x-ture on Thursday.

After losing the fi rst Test in Dur-ban, South Africa had England under pressure on day fi ve in Cape Town af-ter both teams had scored over 600 in their fi rst innings, a fi ght-back that has emboldened the selectors.

“We were highly encouraged by the performance put up by the Proteas at Newlands,” Cricket South Africa se-

lection convener Linda Zondi said in a statement yesterday.

“The very fact that they were nearly able to force a win after conceding 600 runs on the fi rst innings speaks volumes for the character of this group of players.

“We feel we have all our bases cov-ered and also the options that will en-able the team to exploit whatever con-ditions they encounter.”

The selectors have also named a 14-man One Day International squad for a fi ve-match home series against England that starts on February 3.

The only change from the squad that won 3-2 in India in October sees spinner Aaron Phangiso drop out. Batsman Rilee Rossouw, an original selection for that series but forced to withdraw through injury, is fi t to take his place again.

The ODI side will also be captained by De Villiers.

Test squad: AB de Villiers (cap-tain), Kyle Abbott, Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Dean Elgar, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Dane Piedt, Kagiso Rabada, Rilee Rossouw, Dale Steyn, Stiaan van Zyl, Hardus Viljoen.

ODI squad: AB de Villiers (cap-tain), Kyle Abbott, Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Imran Ta-hir, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada, Rilee Ros-souw, Dale Steyn.

ANNOUNCEMENT

‘We were highly encouraged by the performance put up by the Proteas at Newlands’

IANSDubai

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday confi rmed that 16 teams will battle it out in the

U-19 World Cup starting later this month.

The 11th edition of the tour-nament will be held across eight venues in four Bangladesh cities from January 27 to February 14, and will feature nine Test play-ing countries as well as seven associate and affi liate members, namely Afghanistan, Canada, Fiji, Ireland, Namibia, Nepal and Scotland.

The tournament will open with the match between defend-ing champions South Africa and hosts Bangladesh at the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium (ZACS) in Chittagong.

The fi nal will be held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadi-um in Mirpur.

All matches will be day fi x-tures and the semi-fi nals and fi nal will have reserve days.

The squad list reveals that as many as 18 cricketers will take part in their second successive U-19 World Cup.

Hosts Bangladesh have named fi ve players who played in the previous event in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the side fi nished ninth. These play-ers are Mehidy Hassan Miraz, who has been retained as cap-

tain, Najmul Hossain Chanto, Joyraj Sheik Imon, Zakir Hasan and Saeed Sarker.

Afghanistan have retained four players from the 2014 tour-nament where the Asian side fi nished seventh. The four play-ers are Ihsanullah Janat, captain for this month’s event, Muslim Musa, Waheed Shafaq and Zia-ur-Rehman Akbar.

India, who have won the tour-nament thrice, have named three players to the squad that fi nished fi fth in the last edition in the UAE. These are Sarfraz Khan, Ricky Bhui and Avesh Khan.

However, defending champi-ons South Africa — like England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimba-bwe — will be appearing with a completely fresh set of players, though Dayyaan Galiem who will appear in this edition, was named in South Africa’s original squad for the 2014 event but was later withdrawn.

Both Ireland and Nepal are re-turning to the event after miss-ing out in 2014. For both, tt will be their seventh appearance. Coincidentally, both sides have retained 12 players each from the U-19 World Cup qualifi ers, which was won by Nepal with Ireland fi nishing second.

Fiji will be making their maid-en appearance in the tournament after winning the East Asia-Pacifi c U-19 Cricket Trophy in Blenheim. They have retained 13 players from that successful campaign.

CRICKET


The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is considering holding back Mustafizur Rahman from playing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) to keep the young pacer’s bowling technique a secret.The board may choose to compensate him in order to keep him from going to Paki-stan, a source in the BCB told bdnews24.com on Thursday.PSL franchise Lahore Qaland-ars picked Mustafizur from the gold category. He is supposed to be paid a fee of $50,000 there.Mustafizur’s crafty bowling had played a crucial role in Bangladesh’s success in the series against India and South Africa last year. Batsmen had a tough time reading his cutters.Keeping the World Twenty20 in mind, Bangladesh limited-overs captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza does not want bats-men to find a way to deal with Mustafizur’s variations, the source confirmed.The skipper is sure other teams will eventually learn to play Mustafizur by analys-ing his action with the help of modern technology, but he does not want to risk giving away the secret before the T20 world event.Possibilities of Mustafizur picking up an injury, too, has crossed Mashrafe’s mind.On the back of some minor in-juries, the 20-year old seamer, who is yet to have a fully matured physique, had not been able to execute his cutter perfectly in the latter stages of the BPL.Mashrafe himself suff ered be-

cause of an overuse of his legs in the early part of his career. He does not want the same to happen to Mustafizur.The likelihood of Mustafizur picking up an injury is some-thing the board, too, is taking seriously.“He (Mustafizur) is still very young. Taking so much pres-sure at this age will not be right for him, his body might revolt,” said BCB Media Com-mittee Chairman Jalal Yunus on Thursday.“Taking everything into ac-count, we’re thinking whether it would be right to send him to the PSL. But a final decision is yet to be made.”The source said Mashrafe had already spoken to BCB Presi-dent Nazmul Hassan. The 31-year old went as far to advise the board to off er Mustafizur a restitution, if necessary.But Yunus denied having any knowledge of that.“I don’t really know anything about any compensation. But it will surely be considered if the situation calls for it.”Mashrafe has also shared his thought with coach Chandika Hathurusingha, who agreed in principle, the source added.Although the coach’s opinion will be crucial, the board will have the final say.

BCB ponders over Mustafizur’s participation in PSL

IANSHobart

Australia veteran all-rounder Shane Watson has said he won’t be disappointed if fl am-

boyant batsman Chris Gayle is denied a return to the Big Bash League (BBL), and added that the West Indian’s controversial post-match interview hardly came as a shock as the behaviour was fairly expected.

Watson made it clear he thought Gayle had overstepped the mark with Channel 10 re-porter Mel McLaughlin, and supported Cricket Australia’s plans to ban Gayle from BBL.

The Aussie all-rounder’s comments could spark some fi ery scenes in the middle of Spotless Stadium on Monday

when Watson’s Sydney Thunder hosts Gayle’s Melbourne Ren-egades.

“There is no doubt people have always loved coming along and watching him (Gayle) play because of the entertainment he can certainly provide. But there is always a line outside the game of cricket as well,” Watson was quoted as saying by Daily Tel-egraph on Thursday.

“In the end the people love the entertainment part of cricket, but there’s also a respect, that part of playing the game on and off the fi eld in the right spirit. In the end there are people who will be making decisions either way (about Gayle’s return). It’s not just what you bring on the fi eld, it’s what you bring off the fi eld as well, which is as important,” he said.

The incident drew fl ak from

social media and Gayle was fi ned 10,000 Australian dollars (Rs.4,68,111) for making the dat-ing proposal live.

The 36-year-old Carib-bean star released a statement on Thursday which said that he along with his lawyer would “immediately commence defa-mation proceedings against Fairfax Media” after it published reports which claimed that he exposed himself to a woman in Sydney while training for the World Cup last year.

“I have played against Chris for a long time, since I started re-ally, and that behaviour is fairly expected.

“People who know Chris Gayle will know those are the sort of things he can do at times, and at an inappropriate time, obviously it gets him into a fair bit of trouble,” Watson said.

Gayle’s behaviour fairly expected: WatsonFOCUS

DALE STEYN

ICC confi rms 16 teams for U-19 World Cup

SPOTLIGHT

JP DUMINY

CHRIS GAYLESHANE WATSON

Amla did the honourable thing by jettisoning his burden By Mike Selvey The Guardian

It may be unusual to change captains at the midpoint of a series but Hashim Amla has chosen a good moment to concede his position and drop back into the ranks. A

resignation after the massive defeat in Durban would have represented capitulation even if he had been contemplating it for a while.

Now though he has done so on the back of a stirring fi ghtback from the side he led, and an emphatic return not so much to form (he had not looked out of touch in the second innings in Durban) as to relentless run-gathering. It is a little too strong to describe the outcome of a Test that had yet to complete its third innings as a “winning draw” for South Africa. With the conditions fi nally giving the bowlers some lateral movement on the fi nal day, we can only surmise what the England bowlers might have managed had they been defending, say, 200 and their colleagues rediscovered the art of catching but at least we know there will be an almighty scrap now up on the highveld.

Sometimes it is only in the aftermath of such a decision that the extent of the burden is revealed. Those who were there in the dining room at Edgbaston remember the red eyes of Nasser Hussain, that most passionate of Eng-land captains. There were Michael Vaughan’s tears at the ECB centre of excellence at Lough-borough. Such is the responsibility, beyond simply a job, that comes with captaining one’s country or even just playing.

It is only around nine months since Jonathan Trott, a man whose implacable demeanour hid inner turmoil, was lbw in what was to prove his fi nal innings for England. He positively skipped from the fi eld and sprinted up the pavilion steps, a man clearly content it was fi nally over. So there should be no surprise that in Amla’s case, he conducted a press conference that was a long way from the soul-searching of others and simply that of a man happy in the decision at which he had arrived and itching to get on with the job at which he truly excels.

There is absolutely no question of Amla be-ing coerced into applying for the job in the fi rst place on account of his ethnicity. With Graeme Smith’s retirement, he, as a senior player, put his name forward with others, including AB de Villiers. He did so because he believed he could make a diff erence, and after due process, was installed. It would also be wrong though to as-sume that, all things being equal, this was not the choice that would be made, convenient for South African cricket that he had applied.

It would also be erroneous to deduce that after the strong rumours in Durban that things were in some disarray on and off the fi eld that he had been pushed out of the job. There was some fi erce external criticism, most promi-nently from Smith in his role as media pundit, to which the response of Cricket South Africa

was to invite him into the camp. But Smith’s re-marks, while trenchant, would surely have been taken on board by Amla, a trusted colleague in Smith’s teams: there is a diff erence between be-ing pushed and being encouraged.

A decade ago, when England were in India, I went to stay with their then coach Greg Chap-pell, and conducted an interview with him, which in part resonates now with the situation in which Amla found himself.

At the time, Chappell had been dividing opinion in the country because of his fractious relationship with the former captain Sourav Ganguly, who had been struggling desperately for batting form with one Test hundred, in Bu-lawayo, in two-and-a-half years. He had been replaced as the captain by Rahul Dravid and the coach was portrayed as the man who sacked

him, which was far from the truth. “We clashed,” Chappell told me, “because

his needs as a struggling player and captain and those of the team were diff erent. I’m not the hard-nosed control freak that I have been por-trayed. I’m thorough, a realist, a pragmatist and I’m honest. Much has been written and said, a lot of it misleading, but in essence I told Sourav that if he wanted to save his career he should consider giving up the captaincy.

He was just hanging in there. Modest innings were draining him. He had no energy to give to the team, which was helping neither him nor us. It was in his own interest to give himself mind space to work on his batting so that it could be resurrected.”

Here we have in Ganguly and Amla two cap-tains at opposite ends of the spectrum: the one

desperate to hang on to his position at all costs; the other understanding his leadership may not be in the best interests either of the side or him-self. Serene and understated, Amla had taken over a side who were in inevitable transition after the loss of some of the greatest players the game has seen. So a downturn in performance was not entirely unexpected. But he has none-theless presided over the longest winless streak, eight matches, in South Africa’s Test history, mitigation coming only in the state of the Bang-ladesh weather and the pitches in India. Cer-tainly in this, Amla has seen the broader picture.

Where they share a common theme is the impact, as Chappell said of Ganguly, that it was having on his batting and the team. Until his re-demptive double hundred in Cape Town , Am-la’s previous 13 matches as captain had brought

him an average of 40.76 against a career aver-age 10 points or so higher. Since the start of the tour of India that preceded the current series, nine innings had brought him fi ve single fi gure scores and a top score of 43.

Whether, like Ganguly, his tribulations with the bat were impacting on the team in a manner other than simply the lack of runs is doubtful. If the captaincy itself, and all that it entailed, was aff ecting the capacity to do the job at which he truly excelled, then Amla is understanding enough to be able to arrive at the conclusion he has. It is an honourable thing to have done, which may well be to the detriment of England. That he has been able to do so on the back of a momentous innings, played perhaps with the release that comes with already having made a decision, merely serves to highlight it.

SPOTLIGHT

AFPMelbourne

Australia’s upcoming one-day campaign against India should be as feisty as ever, coach

Darren Lehmann said Friday, adding the dynamic would be a good challenge for his young squad.

Asked about the mood of the fi ve-match ODI series, which gets under way at Perth’s WACA ground on Tuesday, Lehmann said he expected it would be “the same” as previous ones.

“They (India) are playing an aggressive brand of cricket as well so I don’t see that changing over the next fi ve games,” he told reporters in Perth.

“India play the same way, so it’s going to be an exciting se-ries.”

Matches in the past have seen tempers fl are, with umpires in-tervening in Adelaide in 2014 as players exchanged terse words and pointed fi ngers at each other.

The Perth game will be the fi rst time top-ranked Australia have faced India since beating them in the semi-fi nal of the ICC Cricket World Cup in Syd-ney last March.

Lehmann said he was sure his 13-man squad—including un-capped fast bowlers Scott Boland and Joel Paris—would handle the situation well given their expe-rience with big crowds and the pressures of domestic T20 cricket.

“So they’ll be used to that now, which is a good thing for us,” he said.

“International cricket is an-other step up for them, but

I’m sure they’ll handle it well. It will be a good challenge for them.”

Lehmann said he was hoping for “a good, fast, bouncy track”

in Perth ahead of matches in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney.

“They (India) are a good one-day side, they made the semis of

the World Cup—they’re a quality side,” the coach said.

“So from our point of view, we’ve got to play well and start well against them.”

Australia coach predicts fi esty India ODI seriesFOCUS

CRICKET5Gulf Times


Smith says challenge for Australia is to win abroadAustralia captain Steven Smith believes the real challenge for his team is to win a series abroad and they will have to master the swinging ball if they are to succeed in their tour of New Zealand next month. Smith and his men ruthlessly dominated the three-Test home series against West Indies, winning it 2-0 after the rain-hit final match ended in a draw in Sydney on Thursday. “We’ve always played quite well at home but the challenge for us is to make sure we’re winning series away from home, and that starts with a tough series for us in New Zealand,” Smith said. After this month’s limited over home series against India, Australia tour New Zealand and Smith warned the conditions would be diff er-ence across the Tasman. “Hopefully we can adapt to the conditions we’re going to face in New Zealand,” Smith said. “I daresay they’re going to have a bit of grass on them and are going to swing a bit. So we have to be better than we have been previously on those sort of wickets and hopefully we can adapt well and have a successful tour there.” Victory in New Zealand, provided England translate their 1-0 lead in the ongoing four-match series in South Africa into series victory, will see Australia return to the top of the test rankings. Smith had no doubt his team mates would adapt to the conditions to achieve top rankings. “I’ve had a few chats about it to some of the boys. When you’re under pressure you go back to the way you know and that can hurt you a little bit away from home. “I think you almost have to find an-other way to do things. Whether that be playing in England or New Zealand making sure you play under your eyes. Here you can play out in front of you a little bit more but that will get you into trouble in England and New Zealand.”Meanwhile West Indies captain Jason Holder has said he rejected a proposal from his opposite number Australia’s Steve Smith to open up the third and final Test with a dramatic last-day run chase, because he did not believe such a scenario was in the best interest of the team’s development.“He came to us and made an off er. I just went back to the team and we thought at this stage of our development, it wasn’t the best thing for us,” Holder told a media conference following the drawn contest on Thursday.

India captain MS Dhoni with his teammates during the T20 match against a Western Australian XI in Perth yesterday. India won by 74 runs. (AFP)

There was no soul-searching by the South Africa captain - he was a man happy with his decision and itching to get on with the job at which he truly excels

SPORT6 Gulf Times


Kings hold off Bryant’s Lakers

NBA

Bryant returned from a three-game absence nursing a sore shoulder and scored 28 points—including a two-handed dunk that coach Scott called a ‘young man moment’

AFPLos Angeles

The Sacramento Kings squandered a 27-point lead but dug deep late for a 118-115 NBA victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Kobe Bry-

ant’s last game in the California capital. Kings guard Rajon Rondo made a run-

ning basket to put Sacramento up by one with 21 seconds left and then forced a Lakers turnover as a contest that looked like a certain blowout came down to the wire.

Sacramento center DeMarcus Cousins then made two free throws and Lakers guard Louis Williams missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.

Bryant, the Lakers superstar who will retire at the end of this season, scored 28 points in his 34th and fi nal regular season appearance in Sacramento.

Bryant returned from a three-game absence nursing a sore shoulder and scored 28 points—including a highlight-reel two-handed dunk that Lakers coach Byron Scott called a “young man mo-ment.”

Bryant, who led the Lakers to three playoff series victories over the Kings, made 10 of 18 shots from the fi eld and six of eight free throws, and became the third player in NBA history—and at 37 the youngest ever—to score 33,000 points in his career.

He took his tally to 33,010, but was on the bench for the night by the time the Lakers charged back into contention.

Rookie D’Angelo Russell scored 11 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter for Los Angeles.

Although the Lakers fell to 8-29 -- the second-worst record in the league—Bry-ant said the heart his young teammates showed late was encouraging.

“They played so well, they worked re-ally, really hard,” Bryant said.

“It’s important for them to fi gure out how to close those games out without me on the fl oor.”

The Chicago Bulls consolidated their second spot in the Eastern Conference with a sixth straight victory, downing the Boston Celtics 101-92.

Down 43-33 late in the second quarter, the Bulls out-scored Boston 15-4 in the fi nal four minutes of the frame to lead 48-47 at halftime.

They rolled from there, continuing an impressive streak that has seen them score at least 100 points in their last nine games.

That’s a feat the Bulls hadn’t accom-plished since the 1995-96 season when Michael Jordan led the team.

Shooting guard Jimmy Butler said the Bulls’ off ensive output was rooted in im-proved defense.

“That’s what really won us the game,” Butler said.

“We were out there guarding, we re-bounded, and we got a lot of easy baskets. When we’re playing like that, we look re-ally good out there.”

Six Chicago players scored in double fi gures. Butler had a double-double of 19 points and 10 assists, Derrick Rose scored 18 and center Pau Gasol had his 19th dou-

ble-double of the season with 17 points and 18 rebounds.

The in-tune Bulls had an appreciative audience in Spanish tenor Placido Do-mingo, a friend of Gasol’s who attended the game.

“He’s a basketball fan,” Gasol said. Down by fi ve to Utah on their home

fl oor at halftime, the Houston Rockets picked up the pace in the second half to beat the Jazz for the second time in four days.

Rockets guard James Harden scored 33 points in the 103-94 victory as Houston overcame the absence of center Dwight Howard, who sat out with tightness in his back.

Houston, who defeated the Jazz 93-91 in Salt Lake City on Monday, scored 64 points in the second half, connecting on 65.7 percent of their shots from the fl oor.

After the break, they produced 12 fast-break points, including 10 in the third quarter.

“I think we were playing for the most part pretty well defensively. Off ensively we were too slow,” Harden said of the fi rst half.

“We wanted to put an emphasis on pushing the basketball, getting stops and just running out.”

Elder Griff ey supports shunned dopers for Cooperstown

BOTTOMLINE

ReutersNew York

Former major leaguer Ken Griff ey Sr. said yesterday his son earned induction into the Base-

ball Hall of Fame the “right way” but still feels bad for stars of the so-called Steroids Era who have been denied entry.

Speaking to Reuters a day after Ken Griff ey Jr. was elected to the Hall of Fame in record fashion, the elder Griff ey said that some who have been overlooked by voting members of the baseball writers’ association belong in Cooperstown.

Griff ey Sr., a former outfi elder who won two World Series titles with the Cincinnati Reds, said performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) infl ated some records, but gave credit to the likes of

former sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for their feats.

“They made contact, they played hard, just like we did, and they still had to hit the ball. They still did it,” he said after his son and Mike Piazza, the other member of the Class of 2016, donned their Cooperstown jer-

seys at a news conference. “It’s an opinion thing,” the

65-year-old Griff ey said, ac-knowledging that many view them as cheaters. “But my look at it, they put up the stats, the numbers. I think they should be in the Hall of Fame.”

McGwire smashed 70 homers in 1998, while Sosa belted 66 in an enthralling duel that captured a nation and shattered the single season home run mark of 61 set by Roger Maris in 1961.

The duo staged another power show the next season, and may have spurred on others, includ-ing Barry Bonds, to muscle up.

McGwire, who has admitted using PEDs, was named on 12.3 percent of ballots while Sosa was on 7 percent, both well shy of the 75 percent needed for election.

The duo put on their home run derby four years after a players-owners labor confl ict led to can-

cellation of the 1994 postseason and helped revitalize fan interest.

“If it wasn’t for Mark and Sammy, those two years that they were going for all those home runs, baseball would nev-er have brought fans back,” the elder Griff ey said.

“Now they blame them for something. That’s the tough thing. During the time they were doing it, everyone loved that. And all of a sudden they found out he was doing steroids, what-ever ... now they want to turn against them. I thought that was wrong.”

Bonds, a seven-time National League MVP who in 2001 raised the home run record to 73 and retired as the all-time home run leader, received 44.3 percent in his fourth year on the ballot.

Seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens, linked to PED use, was named on 45.2 percent.

Both Bonds and Clemens gained more than seven percent from last year’s voting.

Suspicion by some that Piazza may have used PEDs might have kept the slugging catcher from winning election until his fourth year as a candidate.

No such doubts were ever harbored about Griff ey Jr., the brilliant all-round talent, whose fl owing swing produced 630 ca-reer home runs to go with 184 stolen bases and 10 Gold Glove awards for sensational defensive skills in center fi eld.

In his fi rst year of eligibility, Griff ey Jr. got a record 99.3 per-cent of the vote, eclipsing the previous mark of 98.84 percent set by Tom Seaver in 1992.

“He did it the right way,” his proud papa said. “He didn’t like being pumped. He didn’t like to pump up when he lifted weights, so he wouldn’t lift the weight.”

AFPGreen Bay

Former Green Bay Packers great Brett Favre heads the list of 15 Modern-Era Finalists who will be

considered for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.

Favre is one of three fi rst-year eligible nominees, along with wide receiver Terrell Owens and guard Alan Faneca.

The selection committee will meet in San Francisco on the eve of Super Bowl 50 next month to elect the Class of 2016.

No more than fi ve modern-era fi nalists can be inducted in a given year.

This is the fi rst year Favre is eligible, having retired fi ve years ago with virtually every major NFL career passing record.

His marks for touchdown passes and passing yards have since been surpassed by Peyton Manning.

In 2015 Favre was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame and became the sixth player in Packers history to have his jersey number retired.

Named the NFL Most Valu-able Player three straight times from 1995-97, Favre started in fi ve NFC championship games and led the Packers to a victory in Super Bowl 31 after the 1996 season.

Favre, 46, was a second-round pick of the Atlanta Falcons in the 1991 NFL Draft. A year later, Fa-vre was traded to the Packers. He stayed in Green Bay until 2007 before playing one season with the New York Jets and two with the Minnesota Vikings before retiring. Owens played for fi ve teams in 16 NFL seasons, reach-ing the Super Bowl with the 2004 Philadelphia Eagles.

He ranks second in yards re-ceiving with 15,934 and third in touchdown receptions with 153.

Favre heads Hall of Fame list

SPOTLIGHT

Lawson suspended for driving under the infl uenceHouston: Houston Rockets guard Ty Lawson was suspended for three games by the NBA on Thursday for a California drunk-driving incident. Lawson’s latest suspension is for a driving under the influence charge in July and begins with Thursday’s game against the Utah Jazz. It’s the second driving under the influence-related suspension in two months for Lawson, who was also suspended for two games last month after a similar charge in Denver in January of 2015. At that time Lawson was playing for the Nuggets. In November, Lawson pleaded guilty to driving while impaired in the Den-ver case, and additional charges of speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol and careless driving were dropped. Lawson is averaging 6.4 points and 4.3 assists per game this season.

ResultsAtlanta 126 PHILADELPHIA 98

CHICAGO 101 Boston 92

HOUSTON 103 Utah 94

SACRAMENTO 118 LA Lakers 115

“That’s just disrespectful, not just to a basketball player, anybody ... It’s not my call, I’m just try-

ing not to get blind.” - Houston Rockets star James Harden on the spectator who shined a laser in his eyes as he attempted free throws in a game at the Utah Jazz. The NBA has reportedly

banned the fan for a year.

“I signed the paper without really noticing it.” - Port-land Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts on the

lineup card mix-up that left CJ McCollum—who is averaging 21 points a game—accidentally inactive for Wednesday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.

“He just continues to add new elements to his game. He was in here at 8 o’clock this morning getting shots

up. And he’s never satisfi ed, and I think that’s the true sign of a superstar when you continue to work when you have success.” - Chicago Bulls coach Fred Hoi-berg on shooting guard Jimmy Butler, whose recent hot streak included a 40-point half against Toronto that eclipsed Michael Jordan’s club record for points

in a half.

“It’s a magnet, but I’ll be all right. It’s just frustrating and annoying and all of the other adjectives that you

want to throw in there.” - Golden State star Stephen Curry, on

missing action after repeated knocks to his left bruised shin.

“He gets on everybody coaches, players. He doesn’t care who it is because he wants all of us to be better.

If that’s what it takes for us to be better then I’m down for it.” - New Orleans Pelicans star An-thony Davis after coach Alvin Gentry chastised him for lack of eff ort in rebounding in a win

against Dallas.

“He’s got to grow up, sim-ple as that ... I’m going to take him out of other games that he doesn’t

like.” - Los Angeles Lak-ers coach Byron Scott on 21-year-old power forward Ju-lius Randle’s petulant reaction at being taken out of the Lak-ers’ blowout win over Phoenix, with the coach unhappy with

his defensive effort.

“It was a poor decision on my end to definitely dis-respect the game, poor decision of mine to mis-

represent the Bucks, myself, my family, obviously my team-mates.” - Contrite Milwaukee Bucks guard O.J. Mayo, who was eventually fined $25,000 for “aggressively pursuing” a game official when he was ejected from Milwaukee’s win over Minnesota on Saturday. Mayo had to be restrained by Bucks coaches and escorted to the locker room by security

staff.

Quotes from the NBA

TALK SHOP

Jordan Clarkson (L) of the Los Angeles Lakers goes up for a shot against Quincy Acy of the Sacramento Kings at Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento on Thursday. PICTURE: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images/AFP

Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) drives past Utah Jazz forward Chris John-son (23) and guard Raul Neto (25) in the second half of their game onThursday. The Rockets won 103 to 94. PICTURE: Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports

Coe ‘could have pushed for IAAF reform years ago’

SPOTLIGHT

‘They had an opportunity a long time ago to address issues of governance, and you saw from the International Olympic Committee what happens if you don’t do that’

By Curtis PashelkaContra Costa Times

The Sharks’ frustrations at SAP Center this sea-son reached new heights with Thursday’s 2-1 loss

to the Detroit Red Wings.The Sharks put 36 shots on the

Detroit net and received a rela-tively solid performance from goalie Martin Jones. But they failed to capitalise on consecu-tive scoring chances in the third period and gave up the eventual winning goal to the Red Wings’ Justin Abdelkader with 6:52 left in the third.

“That’s the way things are go-ing right now,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “We have to be re-silient and know that if we play that way over the long term, that we’ll be all right.”

Unlike other losses on this homestand to Colorado where

they gave up four power-play goals, and to Winnipeg, where they simply didn’t compete hard enough, the Sharks did a lot of the things they sought out to do against the Red Wings.

It still wasn’t enough to pre-vent a third loss in four games, as the Sharks fell to an inexplicable 5-12-0 at home this season. Al-though the Sharks have games in hand on every team they’re chasing in the Pacifi c Division, they remain in sixth place, six points back of the second-place Arizona Coyotes.

Little wonder, then, that Joe Thornton picked up a double mi-nor for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct for getting in a cou-ple haymakers on the Red Wings’ Luke Glendening after time ex-pired in the third period.

“A little frustration,” DeBoer said of the postgame get-togeth-er. “You expect that. Guys are (ticked) off . They deserved bet-

ter tonight. We didn’t get it, and that’s just the rut we’re in right now. We have to keep pushing until we get out of it.”

The Sharks had two solid scor-ing chances before Abdelkad-

er’s goal. Tomas Hertl created a turnover behind the Red Wings’ net and passed to Joonas Don-skoi, whose quick shot from in close went off the goal post.

Roughly a minute later in-

side the Detroit zone, Patrick Marleau tipped a puck to Joel Ward, who tried a forehand-to-backhand deke. But Red Wings goalie Petr Mrazek reached back to make a magnifi cent save.

Detroit went ahead shortly after, as a Jones rebound came right to Abdelkader, whose slap shot got past the Sharks goalie for a 2-1 Wings lead.

“That one hurt,” Sharks cen-tre Logan Couture said of the Abdelkader goal. “I hate to say that’s the way it’s going right now, but that’s the way it’s go-ing. They make a big save, get the puck out to one of their guys who’s walking into a slap shot. He makes a good shot, so it’s frustrating.”

The Sharks fi nish their fi ve-game homestand today against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Since February 2015, the Sharks were 0-17-1, and 0-11 this season, when they allowed the fi rst goal at

home. So it wasn’t a good sign for San Jose when a wrist shot from Danny DeKeyser on an odd-man rush beat Jones high on the glove hand side for a 1-0 Red Wings lead 9:16 into the fi rst period.

The Sharks got that goal back 1:41 later, as Ward redirected a shot from the point by Brent Burns past Mrazek. The play was set up after Couture won a faceoff with Henrik Zetterberg.

Jones was otherwise solid for three periods, as he fi nished with 23 saves, including 11 in the fi rst period.

The Sharks were coming off one of their longest breaks of the season, as they had been idle since their 4-1 loss to the Jets on Satur-day in what was easily one of their worst performances of the season. The Sharks felt they had a produc-tive three days of practice since that loss, the last time this season they’ll have that much practice time between games.

nGoalie Alex Stalock was re-called from the AHL after two impressive games with the Barra-cuda and will likely be used by the Sharks on a more regular basis as they enter a busy portion of their schedule.

Stalock, 28, went 2-0 with a 1.96 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage in two games with the Barracuda. The Sharks play 10 more games before their All-Star break begins Jan. 26, including back-to-back games Monday and Tuesday against Cal-gary and Winnipeg. They also play on consecutive nights Jan. 23-24 against Minnesota and Los An-geles. ResultsWashington ........4 NY ISLANDERS .1 Florida .......................3 OTTAWA .................2 Philadelphia .......4 MINNESOTA 3 (OT) DALLAS ...................2 Winnipeg ....1 (SO) Arizona ....................2 CALGARY .................1 LOS ANGELES 2 Toronto.......................1 Detroit .......................2 SAN JOSE ................1

Jones eff ort in vain as Sharks lose to Wings 2-1

ReutersNew York

The National Football League is planning to live-stream all three games scheduled to be

played in London next season, and Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc subsidiary Google are among the technology companies in talks to buy the rights to conduct the streams, said two sources famil-iar with the situation.

Last year, the NFL partnered with Yahoo Inc to live-stream a London game, the fi rst time a technology company has streamed a game for free to viewers. Live-streaming is be-coming increasingly popular as more consumers cancel their cable subscriptions, a practice known as cord-cutting. Win-ning a partnership with the NFL to live-stream one or all three games would be a big victory for a technology company.

Apple owns Apple TV and Google owns YouTube. If Ap-ple or Google win the rights to stream one or more games, it would be a fi rst for either com-pany.

The NFL wants to live-stream more London games after last year’s streaming experiment was deemed a success, according to the sources, who asked to remain anonymous because they are not permitted to speak to the media.

It is unclear if the NFL seeks to sell the rights to stream all three games as a package or individu-ally, or how much the league is asking for the rights.

Representatives for the NFL, Apple and Google declined to comment.

About 15.2 million viewers worldwide watched at least part of the live-streamed game in Oc-tober, which was broadcast dur-ing early-morning hours in the United States, therefore drawing a smaller audience than regular NFL games. In some cases, the stream of the game automatical-ly started playing on Yahoo web-sites and consumers who clicked on those websites were counted as viewers if the streams played for more than 3 seconds.

An average of 2.36 million viewers were watching at any given time, according to data

released by Yahoo and the NFL. About one-third of the view-ership came from outside the United States.

Nationwide broadcasts of Thursday night games on CBS and NBC’s Sunday night games average more than 20 million U.S. viewers per minute, accord-ing to Nielsen TV data.

In the months leading up to London game live-streamed by Yahoo, Yahoo dropped its asking price for commercials during the game from $200,000 to less than $100,000, buyers said. Ad slots were sold out.

Still, media buyers said the game’s overall viewership and the participation of more than 30 advertisers signaled a success at the time.

Given the big push by Google, Apple and other tech companies to build their presence in the media world, it is no surprise they would want to partner with the NFL, said Tom Richardson, a sports media professor at Co-lumbia University in New York City.

“Professional sports content is among the most premium content you can fi nd,” said Ri-chardson, who is also president of consulting fi rm Convergence Sports & Media. “If it happened in Hollywood, why wouldn’t it happen with professional sports?”

Separately, the NFL has put its Thursday night football package, which will include live-stream-ing rights, out to bid and is ex-pected to announce a decision by the Super Bowl in February, according to one of the sources.

For the past two years, CBS has won the one-year deals for broadcast rights for Thursday night football, and the network is bidding again, CBS CEO Les Moonves told attendees of the UBS Global Media and Com-munications Conference last month. Fox Sports, a division of Twenty-First Century Fox, is also among the bidders, a Fox spokesman confi rmed.

The three games scheduled to be played in London are the In-dianapolis Colts versus the Jack-sonville Jaguars on Oct. 2, the New York Giants against the St Louis Rams on Oct. 23, and the Washington Redskins versus the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 30.

SPORT7Gulf Times


NFL to live-stream all London games, in talks with Apple and Google

FOCUS

ReutersLondon

The head of an investigation that found high-level cor-ruption in international athletics has accused Se-

bastian Coe, leader of the sport’s world governing body, of missing opportunities to push reform “a long time ago” when he was vice-president.

Dick Pound authored a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)independent commission report that exposed a state-sponsored culture of doping in Russia and shook the athletics world. The second part of the report, due next Thursday, is expected to focus on the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that Coe heads.

Coe was not immediately avail-able for comment on Pound’s ac-cusation, but a Dutch IAAF Coun-cil member said he had played a major part in exposing the prob-lems faced by the sport.

Pound accused Coe, succes-sor to Lamine Diack who is now under French police investigation on suspicion of corruption, and then-fellow vice-president Sergey Bubka of worsening the situation at IAAF by failing to take prompt action.

“Coe and Bubka were there (as vice-presidents to Diack),” Pound told the British Times newspaper. “It’s easy enough if you want to get a governance review. They had a (19th-century) constitution in a 21st-century organisation.

“They had an opportunity a long time ago to address issues of governance, and you saw from the International Olympic Commit-tee what happens if you don’t do that,” he told the Times.

The International Olympic Committee was embroiled in a corruption scandal in the 1990s involving, among other things, infl uence-peddling and gifts by cities bidding for the Games.

Two top Russian athletics of-fi cials and the son of Diack were banned from athletics for life on Thursday for covering up an elite Russian athlete’s positive dope

test and blackmailing her over it. Offi cials have said the scandal may spread to other countries and other sports.

The IAAF corruption inquiry, focusing on the suppression of positive doping results in return for payments by athletes, coin-cides with a corruption scandal in world soccer body FIFA.

Dutch IAAF Council member Sylvia Barlag defended Coe’s role.

“Seb championed the establish-ment of the Ethics Commission and Code on the IAAF Council,” she said. “Without the independ-ent commission the IAAF would not have had the mechanisms in place to investigate these matters which resulted in the sanctions which were delivered yesterday.”

Coe has said his vice-president role was minimal and for a long period took a back seat to organis-ing the 2012 Olympics.

“I was aware we had a problem, but the specifi c numbers, I did not,” he told a British Parliamen-tary Committee last month.

Earlier this week Coe published his “road map” for the future of athletics which included a radi-cal overhaul of the IAAF’s inter-nal operations which he promised would result in greater account-ability, transparency and commu-nications.

Coe said when the doping scan-dal broke with a German television report of misconduct within IAAF that the investigation could stir a witch-hunt that could ensnare clean athletes. Pound rejected this suggestion.

“If the IAAF does not acknowl-edge it had a problem, then it will be hard to put in place the changes they need to make,” Pound said.

“With very few exceptions, I have not seen international sports federation presidents so involved in corruption, as opposed to mov-ing money around like the FIFA boys.

“In a sense, this is worse. This gets down to aff ecting the out-come on the fi eld of play. It’s about the integrity of competition.”

The doping scandal has thrown doubt over the award of some medals in international competi-tion in recent years.

‘With very few exceptions, I have not seen international sports federation presidents so involved in corruption, as opposed to moving money around like the FIFA boys’

NHL

Sharks goalie Martin Jones.

Manning back in the saddle for Broncos

Peyton Manning will return as starting quarterback when the Denver Broncos launch their postseason campaign later this month, head coach Gary Ku-biak confirmed Thursday. The five-time MVP has not started a game for the Broncos since mid-November, with injury and poor form prompting Denver to rely on the talents of back-up Brock Osweiler. However Manning made a tell-ing contribution after coming on from the bench in Sunday’s win over the San Diego Charg-ers and will start when the Bron-cos open their playoff campaign on January 17.

Osweiler had a respectable 5-2 record after replacing Man-ning as starter during the latter stages of the regular season. Kubiak paid tribute to Osweiler’s talents on Thursday as he spoke to reporters to explain the decision. “We think the world of Brock,” Kubiak said. “He’s done a hell of a job. He’s played extremely well in some tough situations, very tough kid. He knows exactly what we think of him.” The Broncos finished the season as the number one-ranked team in the AFC playoff s, meaning they will enjoy home field advantage through the postseason.

Golfers in action on the second day of the Qatar Open Amateur Golf Championship at the Doha Golf Club. About 126 golfers are taking part in the three-day event. PICTURES: Jayaram

QATAR OPEN GOLF

American Tyler Alexander, who helped Bruce McLaren found the McLaren Formula One team in the 1960s and remained a part of it for more than 40 years, died on Thursday at the age of 75. “Tyler Alexander was one of the first pillars of our company,” said McLaren Group head Ron Dennis in a tribute on the McLaren website. “Bruce couldn’t have asked for a sturdier pair of shoulders upon which to help build the team’s reputation. “Tyler was one of the finest of the old school: hardy, humble and wise, leaving a reputation and a legacy that will remain indelible in the history of international motorsport,” added Dennis. Raised in Hingham, Massachusetts, Alexander befriended Pennsyl-vania lawyer Teddy Mayer, who was involved in motorsport with his racing driver brother Timmy, and then met New Zealander McLaren in England. After starting out as chief mechanic with McLaren in 1963, Alexander filled a number of roles at the team and ultimately became a director. Although he left in 1983 to run an IndyCar outfit with Teddy Meyer, who had taken over as F1 team principal after McLaren’s death in 1970 and relinquished control to Dennis in 1980, he returned in 1989. Alexander then worked for the team until 2008 when he retired af-ter attending every race in a season that ended with Britain’s Lewis Hamilton taking his first career title with McLaren. “Quite simply, Tyler lived and breathed McLaren,” said Dennis.

McLaren stalwart Alexander dies at 75

SPORT


Reed pips Spieth for Hawaii lead AFPLahaina, Hawaii

Defending champion Patrick Reed eagled the 18th hole on Thursday to pip world

number one Jordan Spieth for the fi rst-round lead at the US PGA Tour Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

Reed, who has six top-10 fi n-ishes in his last six tournaments around the world, played his last six holes in six-under par to seize the lead with an eight-un-der par total of 65 on the par-73 Plantation Course at Kapalua.

Spieth, off to a solid start in his mission to carry his scin-tillating 2015 form seamlessly into the new year, birdied the last to cap a 66. Both were part of a fi ve-way tie for the lead as they arrived at the par-fi ve 18th, where Reed fi red his second shot to 16 feet and made the putt.

New Zealand’s Danny Lee fi nished tied with Americans Brandt Snedeker and J.B. Hol-mes on 67, with Argentina’s Fa-bian Gomez alone in sixth on 68.

Spieth, whose stellar 2015 campaign included fi ve vic-tories, two of them majors, drained a 30-foot birdie putt at the second hole to get his 2016 on track.

“It’s just a day to get into a rhythm, kind of see where eve-rything’s at,” said Spieth, the Masters and US Open cham-pion. “Everything feels pretty good. I just need to tighten the gap a little, maybe have a couple better looks at birdie. But I can’t complain.”

“If I do what I did today each day, we’re in good business,” added Spieth, who had seven

birdies in his bogey-free round.

‘Brings out the best’ Reed picked up just two bird-

ies on his outward run and said the second, at the par-fi ve ninth, was a turning point.

“From there I just hit the ball a little closer and hit better putts,” he said.

Australia’s Jason Day, whose fi ve victories in 2015 included a major breakthrough at the PGA Championship, opened with a three-under par 70.

Reigning British Open cham-pion Zach Johnson was well off the pace on two-over 75. The

2015-16 US PGA Tour season has been underway since Oc-tober, but the fi rst event of the calendar year is a highlight fea-turing only last season’s tour-nament winners, with 32 tak-ing part. They were greeted by benign conditions, with little wind on a course softened by pre-tournament rain.

“I would call it as easy as the course could play,” said Spieth. “You can attack some pins if the wind isn’t blowing out here.”

He and Reed will play togeth-er again on Friday, continuing a rivalry that has already seen the twenty-somethings duel in two

PGA Tour playoff s. Reed came out on top at the

2013 Wyndham Championship, and Spieth avenging that defeat at the Valspar Championship last March in a playoff that also included Sean O’Hair.

“Maybe we want to beat each other so bad it brings the best out in us,” Spieth said.

LEADING FIRST-ROUND SCORES 65-Patrick Reed 66-Jordan Spieth 67-Brandt Snedeker, J.B. Hol-mes, Danny Lee (NZL) 68-Fabian Gomez (ARG)

69-Brooks Koepka, Steven Bowditch (ARG), Kevin Kisner, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler 70-Smylie Kaufman, Padraig Harrington (IRL), Matt Every, Chris Kirk, Justin Thomas, Jimmy Walker, Jason Day (AUS) 71-Peter Malnati, Emiliano Grillo (ARG), David Lingmerth (SWE), Russell Knox (SCO), Bill Haas, Scott Piercy 72-Alex Cejka (GER) 73-Dustin Johnson 75-Graeme McDowell (NIR), Davis Love, Troy Merritt, Zach Johnson 76-James Hahn 77-J.J. Henry.

GOLF

‘It’s just a day to get into a rhythm, kind of see where everything’s at’

By Paul Weaver The Guardian

There were groans all round as we escapees from a British winter arrived in Abu Dhabi on

Wednesday. The clouds might have been painted by John Con-stable in one of his gloomier moods, and there was wind and rain in the desert air.

“This is a bit off ,” observed one Formula One mechanic. “The racing might be boring here but at least you can usually get a bit of sun before Christmas.” He spoke for many. This is the sun-shine banker on the F1 schedule and the good weather at least puts everyone in a good mood before a generally anticlimatic race weekend.

The Yas Marina Circuit, which will stage the final round of the 2015 season here on Sun-day, is surrounded by opulence.

The place reeks of money. So it’s a pity the circuit, made up mostly of medium and low-speed corners, is essentially uninteresting.

The season is usually wrapped up by now too, which it is in-deed on this occasion, though of course last season’s ridiculous double points race at least pro-vided some drama.

And there was excitement too in 2010, the second race here, when Fernando Alonso, the Red Bull pair of Sebastian

Vettel and Mark Webber and even — mathematically — Lewis Hamilton all had chances of win-ning the title. In the end Vettel prevailed to become the young-est champion and claim the fi rst of his four consecutive titles.

Apart from that, though, there is little to remember from the six races that have been staged here.

So to jog our memory, Sut-ton Images put on an exhibi-tion of special photographs here

on Wednesday evening to mark those half-dozen races, in aid of the World Childhood Founda-tion . There is also a new F1 pub-lication being launched here; Rev Grand Prix Journal. In F1 nothing stands still. Unless it’s a McLaren, of course.

But even though the action on Sunday might be less than compelling, there will be plenty of stuff going on in the paddock. There won’t be another race un-til Melbourne in March but a lot will have happened by then and a great deal of it will be discussed this weekend.

At the middle of everything is Renault, which is why everyone

is pestering their chief executive Carlos Ghosn right now.

There are suggestions he has an much-improved budget for next year. Lotus are still waiting for confi rmation that Renault will take over the team for 2016.

Meanwhile Red Bull, who have looked in vain to Mercedes and Ferrari to give them a new power unit, and who were blocked by McLaren from turning to Honda, may be forced to mend their rift with the French company with whom they once had such a good relationship .

Engine talk will dominate the weekend, following the decision by the F1 Commission earlier in the week to reject the idea of a cheaper, alternative engine for next year.

That represents a victory for the two strongest teams, Mer-cedes and Ferrari, and a defeat for the sport’s chief executive Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt, president of the FIA, which gov-

erns the sport. Forget what’s happening on the track - this power struggle has been the real contest in recent months.

The idea from Ecclestone and Todt was to run a cheaper power unit alongside the very expen-sive turbo hybrids.

But if this ends up with the manufacturers lowering their engine prices most people will be happy.

Nobody really wants a two-tier championship. The manu-facturers, along with the FIA, will present a proposal by 15 January.

There might not be too much going on come race day, al-though Nico Rosberg’s upgraded challenge to Hamilton , with fi ve poles and two wins recently, is worth watching, as is anything Max Verstappen does.

But the politics are as compel-ling as ever. And the good news on Thursday morning was that the sun was shining once more.

Amazing Grace surges into joint lead at rain-hit SA Open ReutersJohannesburg

South African Branden Grace sunk birdies in consecutive holes to storm into a share of the

lead at the South African Open before the threat of lightning and rain brought a premature end to the second round yesterday.

Grace, who had completed the 11th hole when play was sus-pended and later called off , was level with clubhouse leader and compatriot Keith Horne on eight under par.

Having sunk successive bird-ies between the second and fi fth holes, Grace added two more on 10 and 11, his only blemish a bo-gey at the par-three sixth.

He carded an erratic 69 in Thursday’s opening round as he seeks a fi rst victory in his home Open championship to go with six previous European Tour wins.

Horne went bogey-free as three birdies completed a steady 69 in windy conditions earlier in the day. He and Grace share a one-shot lead over South Afri-can Jbe Kruger, who shot 70 in his second round.

Overnight leader Jaco van Zyl suff ered a horror 11 holes before the players were called off the course, including three bogeys and a double-bogey on the par-four 10th. He is three under par for the tournament with seven holes to play in his second round.

South Africans Brandon Stone (67) and Justin Walters (70), as well as Englishman Ross McGowan (70), were two shots off the leaders at six under par having completed their rounds.

Englishman Andy Sullivan, the defending champion, is in danger of missing the weekend after a 72 gave him a total of three over par, one shot outside the projected cut.

Seventy-eight players must complete their second rounds early on Saturday morning.

LEADING COMPLETED SEC-OND ROUND SCORES 136 -Keith Horne (RSA) 67 69 137 -Jbe Kruger (RSA) 67 70 138 -Brandon Stone (RSA) 71 67, Justin Walters (RSA) 68 70, Ross McGowan 68 70 139 -Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA) 70 69 140 -Dean Burmester (RSA) 70 70, Retief Goosen (RSA) 68 72, Cameron Moralee (RSA) 69 71 141 -Nicolo Ravano (ITA) 69 72 142 -Craig Lee 72 70, Thomas Linard (FRA) 68 74, Graeme Storm 72 70 143 -Jason Scrivener (AUS) 72 71, Hennie Otto (RSA) 76 67, Daniel Im (USA) 73 70, Vaughn Groenewald (RSA) 72 71, Lee Slattery 75 68 144 -Ben Evans 71 73, Romain Wattel (FRA) 74 70, Dominic Foos (GER) 74 70, Richard McEvoy 75 69, Erik Van Rooyen (RSA) 73 71, Trevor Fisher Jnr (RSA) 71 73 145 -Tjaart Van Der Walt (RSA) 74 71, David Drysdale 69 76, Jamie McLeary 72 73, Lasse Jensen (DEN) 73 72, Lyle Rowe (RSA) 73 72, Wallie Coetsee (RSA) 70 75, Stuart Manley 72 73 146-Alex Haindl (RSA) 71 75 147-Andy Sullivan 75 72, Peter Karmis (RSA) 74 73, Darren Fichardt (RSA) 73 74, Callum Mowat (RSA) 75 72, Louis Calitz (RSA) 77 70, Daniel Gavins 70 77, Lindani Ndwandwe (RSA) 74 73

SPOTLIGHT

Engine talk revs up in Abu Dhabi with F1 teams looking to the future FOCUS

Engine talk will dominate the weekend, following the decision by the F1 Commission earlier in the week to reject the idea of a cheaper, alternative engine for next year

Patrick Reed plays his shot from the second tee during round one of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Getty Images/AFP)

BRANDEN GRACE

FEATURES9Gulf Times


Russian doping scandal: a complex corruption trail that led to the very top

SPOTLIGHT

One man’s decision to speak out over Liliya Shobukhova blackmail case exposed athletics’ rottencore and led to the suspensions handed down by the IAAF’s ethics commission on Wednesday

By Sean Ingle The Guardian

The biggest scandal in athletics history started to slowly un-furl over drinks at a crowded Japanese hotel bar in February

2014. It was the night before the To-kyo Marathon but the Russian sports agent Andrey Baranov was troubled by something much deeper than his ath-letes’ chances. When Sean Wallace-Jones, a senior IAAF offi cial he knew and trusted, sat next to him, he ush-ered him into a quiet corner and told him: “I need your help.”

Tentatively, Baranov began to reveal fragments of an extraordinary story involving doping, extortion and cor-ruption. As he explained to a shocked Wallace-Jones, his athlete Liliya Shobukhova — the second fastest fe-male marathon runner in history and a winner of the London Marathon in 2010 — had given €450,000 (£335,000) to senior Russian offi cials in exchange for covering up violations in her athlete biological passport.

That decision to speak out — at con-siderable risk to Baranov’s safety — led directly to the decision on Thursday by the International Association of Athletics Federations’ ethics commis-sion to hand life bans to Papa Mas-sata Diack, a former IAAF marketing executive and the son of the former president Lamine, along with Valentin Balakhnichev, the former president of the Russian athletics federation and IAAF treasurer, and Alexei Melnikov, the former chief coach for Russian en-durance athletes. Meanwhile Gabriel Dollé, the most senior anti-doping of-fi cial in track and fi eld until 2014, was given a fi ve-year ban.

The commission’s verdict was direct and damning. It found the four men had “acted dishonestly and corruptly and did unprecedented damage to the sport of track and fi eld ... [having] conspired to extort what were in substance bribes from the athlete by acts of blackmail”.

But without the persistence of Wal-lace-Jones the deep rottenness at the heart of the sport may never have been exposed. Immediately after meeting Baranov in Tokyo, he phoned Dollé to ask him for clarifi cation. Dollé was hesitant and suggested they should chat when they were both back at the IAAF’s headquarters in Monaco. When they did so over lunch a few days later, Dollé was guarded. But Wallace-Jones kept digging. He alerted several other senior fi gures to Baranov’s story, in-cluding the IAAF’s deputy general sec-retary Nick Davies, and tried to arrange a meeting with the president of the IAAF, Lamine Diack. But it was slow going.

Another month, another meeting, another bar. On 28 March, Baranov and Wallace-Jones again found themselves drinking in a hotel — this time, the Marriott in Copenhagen — on the eve of the world half-marathon champion-ships. Now, though, they were joined

by Dave Bedford, the legendary former 10,000m world record holder and chairman of the IAAF’s road running commission. After hearing Baranov’s story, he urged the pair to report what they knew to the IAAF’s newly estab-lished independent ethics commission. Bedford trusted its head Michael Beloff QC, one of the world’s leading sports lawyers, to fi nd the truth.

At that meeting Baranov made a second stunning revelation: that some IAAF offi cials were involved in extorting money. As he explained, Shobukhova had been asked to accept a suspension in exchange for getting a €300,000 refund. The money was transferred to her husband’s bank ac-count from a company in Singapore called Black Tidings, which was linked to Papa Massata Diack. Baranov also insisted that Balakhnichev, the IAAF treasurer and Russian Athletics presi-dent, had knowledge of the arrange-ment.

Two days later, on 30 March, Wal-lace-Jones fi nally got to hear from Di-

ack directly. But the meeting left him frustrated. As Wallace-Jones told the ethics commission, Diack “immedi-ately told me that the accusations were untrue and that if there was any truth then they would be investigated.”

Wallace-Jones was unconvinced. “I told him that I believed that there was considerable circumstantial evidence and that investigation was certainly called for,” he says. “He then proceeded to tell me about his relationship with his son Papa Massata, saying how dif-fi cult it had been and how they had not spoken for many years and that there had been a lot of resentment from his son as he was rarely at home due to his political and sporting commitments.”

Baranov and Wallace-Jones continued to talk, both in person and on Facebook, piecing together what they knew like detectives. Finally it was time to act. On 12 April 2014, the day before the London Marathon, the men signed a sworn dep-osition and sent it by courier to Beloff ’s offi ce alleging corruption at the highest level of athletics’ governing body.

Corruption is not new in interna-tional sport, of course. But this went beyond fi nancial embezzlement and bribes and directly on to the fi eld of play. The actions of senior IAAF and Russian offi cials meant that Shobukho-va was allowed to compete when she should have been banned because of huge anomalies in her biological pass-port.

As Beloff started quietly to go about his business, Shobukhova de-cided she wasn’t going to pay any more bribes and was banned from athletics in the spring of 2014. For several months the story went quiet, then in December 2014 it exploded. First the German documentary mak-er Hajo Seppelt revealed widespread doping in Russian athletics. Then the French newspaper L’Équipe revealed that senior figures had extorted mon-ey from Shobukhova, which led Papa Massata Diack and Balakhnichev to step down from their IAAF positions. Then the Guardian revealed that Dol-lé had left his post as the medical and

anti-doping director because of the Shobukhova case.

Initially when we put this to the IAAF, we were told that Dollé had “re-tired after more than 20 years with the IAAF - he is 73 years old and the normal retirement age in Monaco is 65 so he was actually overdue to step down”. It was only when we insisted that sources had told us that Dollé had been ques-tioned by the ethics commission that it reluctantly confi rmed the news. On Thursday the IAAF’s ethics commis-sion banned Dollé for fi ve years for fail-ing to ensure action was taken to sus-pend Shobukhova.

Most of the juiciest pieces of the re-port were already in the public domain. But buried in the appendices were in-teresting titbits and further potential time bombs - including a revelation that there was strong prima facie evi-dence Habib Cissé, Lamine Diack’s le-gal adviser is now being scrutinised by the ethics commission, along with Di-ack himself. The case against Dollé too, the report noted, might be reopened

depending on the results of a French police investigation into whether he took bribes.

Other details also raised eyebrows. The IAAF’s anti-doping department thought it “unusual and inappropri-ate” when Cissé was brought in to personally scrutinise Russian athletes’ biological passport cases “despite having never previously been involved in any case at the result management level” - yet did nothing about it. Huw Roberts tried to quit from his legal posi-tion because the IAAF sat on six cases of Russian biological passport violations, but stayed on because Diack refused to accept his resignation.

The report was particularly damn-ing about the behaviour of Russian and IAAF offi cials. Shobukhova’s sig-nature was forged onto an “acceptance of sanction” form just before Russian Athletics imposed a ban on her. And while her story was “entirely consist-ent”, Balakhnichev and Melnikov’s ac-count was “riddled with implausibili-ties, inconsistencies, transparent lies and dubious documents”, and Papa Massata Diack’s version was considered to be “lacking in any plausibility”.

Many in track and fi eld continue to doubt Baranov and Shobhukhova’s mo-tives in coming forward, given that his roster of athletes contains several with chequered pasts while she is a con-fi rmed drugs cheat. But Baranov insists she deserves great credit for coming forward to the ethics commission and helping the World Anti-Doping Agency. As he told the Guardian: “Shobukhova was a “product of a system which was exposed by Wada” where athletes were encouraged to dope - or frozen out. “Liliya was also brave to speak out. Not many people know what she did or what she went through.”

Baranov also admitted to the Guard-ian that he still fears the repercussions from speaking out. “Of course I am worried but what are you going to do?” he says. “It had to be done for the fu-ture.”

And the Russians have a staunch ally in Dave Bedford, a strong anti-doping campaigner during nearly half a centu-ry as an athlete and administrator. “As horrible and sordid as this case is, our sport is in a better position now know-ing this is happened than if it had been pushed under the carpet,” says Bedford. “And as a sport we have to give credit to Baranov, Shobukhova, and Wallace-Jones who bought this to the ethics commission.”

But there is no hiding the fact that Thursday was another desperate day for track and fi eld. And athletics’ repu-tation is likely to suff er an even greater battering next Thursday when Dick Pound publishes a follow-up report into IAAF corruption, which he says will contain a “a wow factor”. Given a French police investigation into several former IAAF fi gures is also ongoing, those still left on athletics’ rickety ship must yearn for a moment when they are not being buff eted by wretched storms and scandals.

Italian female football team play on in face of mafi a-style intimidation BOTTOMLINE

By Rosie Scammell The Guardian

Weeks after its president received threats telling him to close the club, Sporting Locri is kicking off again after an outpouring of support from across Italy

One of Italy’s best female football teams will make a defi ant return to the pitch on Sunday, taking a stand against ma-fi a-style threats that sought to shut

down the club. Sporting Locri, which hails from the southern

Calabria region and competes in Italy’s top Serie A league, had announced its closure last month

after its president received intimidating messages relating to the club and his daughter, and had his car tyres slashed.

But, after an outpouring of indignant and emotional messages from other teams across the country, the fi ve-a-side squad said it would re-turn to the pitch at a match this weekend to be broadcast on national television and attended by the Italian FA’s president, Carlo Tavecchio, along with other sporting offi cials.

“To tell the truth, in order to continue in the championship it doesn’t make sense to stop. It will be good to continue ... Sunday will be a great day for sport,” said midfi elder Rosanna Rovito.

A criminal investigation is under way to fi nd out who was behind the threats, which began on 7 December when the club’s president, Ferdinando Armeni, received a message reading: “It’s time to close Sporting Locri. Leave!”. The team continued playing until just before Christmas, when Arme-ni’s tyres were slashed and the messages became more violent.

The president decided to take action when a note suggested his daughter would be the target. A post declaring “Game Over” on the club’s Fa-

cebook page announced it was heeding the warn-ings and would close.

Such intimidation is a technique commonly used by mafi a clans in Calabria, which is home to the notorious ‘Ndrangheta mafi a. It is not yet known whether the club suff ered intimidation specifi cally because it is a female side, or whether other factors were at play.

Although Italy’s national women’s side is ranked 13th in the world — above their male coun-terparts at 15th place — female football teams are relatively rare in a society where sexism remains common.

Massimo Achini, the national president of the Italian Sports Centre, said there were far fewer opportunities for women to play football than men. “There are places where playing football re-mains a dream for women. In Calabria, there are towns where there are no sports centres,” he said.

Sporting Locri is one of Italy’s most important female clubs and, following the threats, an “I go to play in Locri” initiative was launched to further raise its profi le. The scheme brought hundreds of people to the town on 6 January, a public holiday, for a community sports day.

“I’m happy that it went well. There were a lot

of people and it was a beautiful thing to see,” said Beita Fernandez, Sporting Locri’s captain. She is one of four Spanish players in the side and, threats aside, is focusing on winning their upcoming game against Lazio C5: “It’s a match that we must win, we must get more points and continue to play until the end,” she said.

While Italy’s response to the Sporting Locri threats has highlighted the ability of sport to bind communities together in the face of criminality, in Calabria football can be a profi table enterprise for the mafi a.

Arturo Bova, the president of the region’s anti-‘Ndrangheta commission, said the powerful ma-fi a group seeks to be involved in every sector of Calabrian society. “They arrive to do shady deal-ings, not to do good,” he said, remarking that dur-ing his career he has often had his car torched by criminal elements.

“A huge amount of money moves in Italian football … the ‘Ndrangheta use it for money-laundering or to control territory,” he explained. The Calabrian mafi a is one of the world’s most powerful criminal organisations and makes mil-lions of euros from the cocaine trade, laundering profi ts through legal businesses.

Bova said the ‘Ndrangheta typically keeps a low profi le and if it is found responsible for the Sport-ing Locri threats, it would be the fi rst time the mobsters have acted in such a direct way against a football club. “There’s a new type of mafi a, the young bosses are more brazen than the bosses of the past. Today’s young guys have a more arrogant mentality,” he said.

But despite the mafi a’s capacity to interfere in football, the president of the Italian Sports Cen-tre in Reggio Calabria, Paolo Cicciù, is convinced sport initiatives can off er young Italians an alter-native to criminality.

“Invest resources in sport, think of the initia-tives that we do in places such as Locri,” he said. “Sport is a choice for legality. If the government invests in this in Calabria, perhaps something can change.”

Despite the diffi culties facing clubs in Calabria, Cicciù credited Sporting Locri with helping to de-velop women’s football in Italy, a standing the team will not willingly give up. Sounding upbeat ahead of their next match, coach Luis Lapuente said the players had no problems and are ready for kickoff .

“As we have said from the beginning, we will continue to play … We will go ahead,” he said.

Liliya Shobukhova paid money to Russian off icials to cover up doping violations.

FOOTBALL10 Gulf Times


Will Messi win his fourth or is it Ronaldo for the treble?

SPOTLIGHT

Lionel Messi is favourite to win the Ballon d’Or on Monday after an impeccable 2015 but can Cristiano Ronaldo pip him to the post and get a hattrick? Another name in the mix is Neymar who is simply happy to be amongst the choices

DPAMadrid

Lionel Messi is the odds-on favourite to win the Ballon d’Or award Monday, after an impeccable 2015 which

saw him win almost every trophy he competed for.

Messi won the prestigious award in 2010, 2011 and 2012, when he was the elegant icing on the cake of Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Barce-lona side.

However, Guardiola left Barca in 2012 and the club underwent serious internal problems, which contrib-uted to Messi being edged out for the award by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013 and 2014.

But 2015 saw Barca return to glory in spectacular style, winning the Champions League, La Liga, the Spanish Cup, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup under Luis Enrique, with Messi scoring many of the crucial goals and setting up several others.

The only trophy to elude Barca was the Spanish Super Cup, in which they were surprisingly beaten by Athletic Bilbao.

Messi is the overwhelming fa-vourite to win what would be his fourth Ballon d’Or, despite being out injured with a sprained left knee from September to November - and despite the stress of an ongoing law-suit against him for tax evasion.

“It would be an absolute travesty if the award did not go to Messi,” Cata-lan radio station RAC1 commented.

“He has been far and away the most eff ective player in world foot-ball in 2015 - there can be no doubt whatsoever about that.”

Messi himself has tried to play down all the speculation about his return to top spot, saying recently in his habitual understated style: “It would be nice to win it (the Ballon d’Or) again, I can’t deny that.

“But the important thing is the trophies the team has won - and

there have been many of them, for-tunately.”

What has helped Messi to return to the top has been Barca signing Neymar, in 2013, then Luis Suarez a year later. Messi reportedly asked the club to sign both players, in order to remove the exclusive responsibility of scoring from him - and to allow him to drop back and play in a slight-ly more withdrawn role.

So the Messi the world saw in 2015 was a more mature one, playing “in the hole” behind the front two, and linking up devastatingly with them to form what is surely the most lethal forward line in contemporary world football.

“We have seen a new mature Mes-si this past year or so,” commented Catalan television channel TV3.

“At the age now of 28, he realizes he cannot reproduce the 40 or 50 metre sprints of a few years ago, so he has learned to play in a diff erent way - in a calmer and more thought-ful way, pacing himself through the 90 minutes.

The only frustration for Messi in 2015 has been his continued frustra-tions with Argentina.

He helped his beloved ‘Albiceleste’ to reach the fi nal in Chile - just as he guided them to the 2014 World Cup fi nal - and scored in the penalty shootout against Chile, only to see his team lose 4-1 to the hosts.

Messi then received some harsh criticism in the Argentine media, leading national manager Gerardo Martino among others to say they would completely understand if he decided to take a well-deserved break from national team duty for a year or so - something Messi refused to even consider.

DPAMadrid

Cristiano Ronaldo raised eye-brows across the world by undiplomatically whooping with delight when he won

the Ballon d’Or in 2013 and 2014, ahead of arch-rival Lionel Messi.

The question on everyone’s lips now is: can Ronaldo win it for a third straight time - as Messi did from 2010 to 2012 - or will Messi reclaim top spot on the podium?

Messi is the odds-on favourite to win this time, having guided Barca to fi ve major trophies in a fl ood of goals.

In contrast, Ronaldo has endured a diffi cult and trophyless year at Real Madrid, after the whites hit the hights in 2014.

However, former Germany goal-keeper Oliver Kahn has predicted another win for Ronaldo: “It’ll prob-

ably be another battle between Mes-si, who’s had a strong season, and Ronaldo, who has scored another hatful of goals.

“I think Ronaldo will win again, a man who calls himself the world’s best player - and who can blame him for that?”

Ronaldo’s alleged arrogance has not always endeared him to everyone in the football world.

In 2011, after being kicked from pillar to post by the defenders of Dy-namo Zagreb - to the delight of the most of the crowd in the Croatian capital - Ronaldo infamously de-clared: “They hate me because I’m handsome, rich and a great player.”

And last week he paraded his mas-sive ego once again by saying: “There are people who hate me, who say I’m vain, or arrogant, or this or that.

“That’s part of my success. I was born to be the best. That’s the way I am, and if all my achievements in football are down to that, then I wouldn’t change a thing. I go to bed every night with a clear conscience and sleep perfectly well.

“You can’t live obsessing about what other people think about you, if you did, you wouldn’t live. Not even God can please everyone.”

Ronaldo is often jeered by a vocal minority of the ‘madridista’ fans in the Estadio Bernabeu - despite all his goals - especially when he declines to pass to a better-placed team-mate or balloons a free-kick well over the crossbar.

The only trophy that he won in 2015 was the Spanish league top scorers award, well ahead of Messi and Neymar - the third candidate on the Ballon d’Or shortlist this year.

Despite Real’s lack of success in 2015, Ronaldo made it clear that he wanted coach Carlo Ancelotti to stay on - and was furious when the Italian was pushed aside for Rafa Benitez.

Moreover, Ronaldo was, accord-ing to media reports, absolutely livid when Benitez - in his fi rst week in the job - refused to accept that the Por-

tuguese hitman was the best in the world, instead merely saying “he is clearly among the best players.”

After Real’s 4-0 meltdown against Barcelona in November, Ronaldo re-portedly told Real president Floren-tino Perez that “we will never win anything with Benitez.”

Indeed, Ronaldo looked positively relieved earlier this week when Pe-rez replaced Benitez with Zinedine Zidane. Benitez’s idea seemed to be to take Ronaldo off the left wing and use him as a second striker, on the assumption that Ronaldo - who will be 31 in February - was no longer up to making 30 or 40-metre surges down the fl ank.

It remains to be seen what particu-lar role Zidane will assign to Ronaldo - or whether the Portuguese striker has more respect for the Frenchman than he had for Benitez.

DPAMadrid

When Neymar received the news that he was one of the three can-didates to win the 2015

Ballon d’Or award, he did a euphoric samba dance of delight.

“It is wonderful to be included next to two such accomplished stars as Leo (Messi) and Ronaldo,” Neymar beamed.

“I will be in very special company at the ceremony...I take this as a rec-ognition of how hard i have worked to improve my game in the last year or so.”

According to sources close to him, Neymar, 23, entertains very few hopes that he will be announced as the winner at Monday’s high-profi le ceremony in Zurich.

However, he is delighted just to be on the top three shortlist for the fi rst time in his brief career.

His presence in the top three is en-tirely due to his exhilarating form for Barcelona instead of his patchy form for Brazil.

Neymar bowed out of the 2014 World Cup at the quarter-fi nal stage with a back injury, then got himself sent off and suspended against Co-lombia in the group stage at the 2015 Copa America.

“It has not been a good year for me playing for Brazil,” he admitted re-cently. “But it has been a wonderful year at Barca, really wonderful.”

Neymar, playing as a false left-winger with freedom to roam, has linked up to devastating eff ect at Barca with fellow South Americans Messi and Luis Suarez, forming the much feared and admired ‘MSN’ strike trio.

“The three of us are great friends off the fi eld and this also helps on the fi eld. We are always looking to fi nd each other and help each other, we try not to be selfi sh. We seem to have a very good understanding of each other’s movements and intentions.”

This understanding has been so eff ective that Barca won fi ve out oof the six trophies they competed for in 2015: the Champions League, La Liga, the Spanish Cup, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup.

Neymar fi nished joint third in the Liga scoring chart last season with Antoine Griezmann of Atletico Ma-drid, behind Messi and Ronaldo.

In the Champions League, Ney-mar fi nished joint top with Messi and Ronaldo on 10 goals, thanks to hitting the fi nal goal in Barca’s 3-1 defeat of Juventus in the fi nal.

Neymar also scored in the fi nal of the Spanish Cup, a 3-1 defeat of Ath-letic Bilbao, played in Barca’s own Camp Nou.

However, that was the night when Neymar infuriated the Bilbao de-fenders when - with the score at 3-1 - he tried to fl ick the ball over them with an audacious back-heel called a ‘Lambretta’ in Spain.

The Basque defenders thought Neymar was disrespecting them, and promptly hacked him down. In-terestingly, Barca coach Luis Enrique - instead of backing up his player - said he understood the annoyance of the Basques and advised Neymar to give up on the party tricks.

Indeed, Neymar is not the most popular opponent among players and fans in Spain. He has frequently been accused of diving, and of trying to belittle defenders with his clever tricks.

“Football is entertainment, the crowd want to enjoy themselves,” he said recently.

“My fi rst priority is to help my team win, but I also want to entertain the fans and let them see something diff erent and unexpected.”

BALLON D’OR

Ronaldo goes more in hope than expectation

Messi looking to reclaim Ballon d’Or from Ronaldo

“It would be an absolute travesty if the award did not go to Messi,” Catalan radio station RAC1 said. “He has been far and away the most eff ective player in world football in 2015 - there can be no doubt whatsoever about that”

“I think Ronaldo will win again, a man who calls himself the world’s best player - and who can blame him for that?”

Neymar simply delighted to be in the top three

“It is wonderful to be included next to two such accomplished stars as Leo and Ronaldo. I will be in very special company at the ceremony...I take this as a recognition of how hard i have worked to improve my game in the last year or so”

FOOTBALL11Gulf Times


Holders Arsenal start road to FA Cup history

SPOTLIGHT

‘For every Englishman it is a memorable cup. It would be an amazing achievement (three consecutive titles) and I’m sure everyone will give everything to get there’

AFPLondon

Arsenal’s sights are set on the Premier League title but Gun-ners defender Calum Chambers says the possibility of becoming

the fi rst club in the modern era to lift the FA Cup for a third successive season will fi re their defence of the trophy.

Arsene Wenger’s side face Sunderland in the third round at the Emirates Sta-dium today eight months after their 4-0 victory over Aston Villa in last season’s fi nal.

And having ended the club’s nine-year wait for a trophy by beating Hull City 12 months earlier, the Gunners last suff ered defeat in the FA Cup way back in Febru-ary 2013.

The north Londoners sit top of the Premier League and beat struggling Sun-derland 3-1 in December, meaning they will face Sam Allardyce’s team confi dent of extending their impressive run.

With the Champions League due to resume next month, Arsenal’s chances of becoming the fi rst club since Black-burn Rovers in the 1880s to make it three FA Cup wins in a row will hinge on their

ability to manage the demands of com-peting on diff erent fronts.

But Chambers insists there will be no lack of incentive to deliver success in the main domestic cup competition.

The centre-back, who could be handed a rare starting opportunity if Wenger ro-tates his squad, said: “I think for every Englishman it is a very memorable cup. It gives that edge to it so you want to win it even more.

“It would be an amazing achievement (to win it for the third time in a row) and I’m sure everyone will be everything to get there.

“I wouldn’t say we are discussing it but we are thinking about it. Anything in the cup can happen, it is not always straight-forward.

“You have to have both short range and long-range goals. A long-range goal would be to break records, win trophies and do well, so I think everyone strives for that.”

Wenger has ruled out a return for Alex-is Sanchez who has a hamstring problem, while Santi Cazorla and Tomas Rosicky are still out.

“Will a young player or two start? I haven’t decided yet,” Wenger said.

“The thinking is to give absolutely eve-

rything to qualify. We are the holders of the cup and I know as well by experience that it is very important that you get in the competition and that you have a suc-cessful third round.”

Meanwhile, Black Cats boss Allardyce has criticised the scheduling of the next round of Premier League matches in the

mid-week following this weekend’s third round ties.

Allardyce claims it de-values the FA Cup and will force him into making sev-eral changes this weekend.

He says his priority is securing a 10th successive season of top fl ight football at the Stadium of Light, with his side facing a crucial visit to fellow strugglers Swan-sea four days after their trip to London.

Teenage defender Thomas Beadling and back-up goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, 21, are expected to be involved for the 1973 FA Cup winners.

Allardyce is unlikely to risk veteran defenders John O’Shea and Wes Brown, while nine-goal top scorer Jermain Defoe and key midfi elder Lee Cattermole are also set to be rested for Wednesday’s trip to South Wales.

Injuries to Younes Kaboul, Seb Lars-son and Jack Rodwell further lessen the options available to Allardyce, who said: “We’ve got a ridiculously short period of time to recover after the Arsenal cup match, so I will be making changes.

“That’s not me disrespecting the FA Cup, it’s me having to deal with the situa-tion caused by the diabolical way the games have been scheduled. The staff are working very hard to help the lads recover.”

United’s Van Gaal unfazed by impending Guardiola arrival

BOTTOMLINE

AFPManchester

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal said yesterday he would welcome

Pep Guardiola to the Premier League and does not fear the Bay-ern Munich coach will take his job.

Guardiola this week expressed his interest in managing in Eng-land when he leaves the Bundes-liga champions at the end of the season.

While he is widely expected to take over at Manchester City, Guardiola has also been linked with a move to Old Traff ord, but Van Gaal sees no problem in the timing of his former Barcelona captain’s announcement.

“You have to set always your goals, as a manager also,” Van Gaal told journalists at his week-ly press conference. “He wants to sniff the culture of England and I wanted that also.

“I think that it is very good he wants to do that and I don’t think it will have an impact on his club. Every manager has that right to announce that.

“It’s not for sure he will be the manager of a Premier League club. The Premier League club are also part of a contract.

“I’m at the end of my career, so for me it’s not so interesting. For me it’s interesting how I take

care of Manchester United and after this season, I still have one year to go.

“I have received a contract of three years and these are the same goals as when I came here.”

Van Gaal’s main goal is to win a trophy, with United having not claimed any silverware since Alex Ferguson led them to the Premier League title ahead of his retirement in 2013.

United kick off their FA Cup campaign with a third-round tie at home to Sheffi eld United on Saturday on the back of a fi rst win in nine games against Swan-sea City last weekend.

Van Gaal is expected to name a strong side for the visit of the third-tier club, but will not in-clude Adnan Januzaj.

The winger, 20, has returned to Old Traff ord after cutting short an unsuccessful loan spell at Borus-sia Dortmund, where he started just three games after moving to Germany at the end of August.

But with the Belgium inter-national set to play for United’s under-21 side at Reading on Monday, provided the relevant paperwork is completed in time, he will not return to the fi rst-team squad immediately.

Van Gaal, however, intends to give Januzaj a chance to re-es-tablish himself at Old Traff ord, where he has been since 2011.

“It’s more or less the same thing we have done with Will

Keane,” explained Van Gaal, who has also brought striker Keane, 22, back following a loan spell at Championship side Preston North End.

“They are coming to us to ask for a second chance. Manchester United is a club that takes care of all our players and I think it’s a very good habit to have.

“I believe in the talent of Ad-nan Januzaj. I said it would be very diffi cult to play matches in Dortmund and unfortunately I was right.

“When he doesn’t play there too much, he can be better train-ing with us and maybe he can show talent in the fi rst team.”

United, who have not won the FA Cup since 2004, are expected to have attacking midfi elder Jesse Lingard back from injury to face League One side Sheffi eld United.

But Phil Jones has joined fel-low defenders Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw and Antonio Valencia on the list of absentees after the recurrence of an ankle problem.

AFPMilan

Nigerian starlet Umar Sadiq is in no hurry to step into goal-shy Edin Dzeko’s boots despite

Roma hosting AC Milan today in a clash that could decide the fu-ture of both teams’ coaches.

Sadiq, 18, has found the net in each of his last two appearances for Roma, coming off the bench to head home in a 2-0 win over Genoa last month and giving the Giallorossi the lead in a 3-3 draw away to Chievo on Wednesday.

That result left Roma in fi fth place but Rudi Garcia’s men trail leaders Inter Milan by six points and the pressure is growing on the French coach—although he is not alone.

Milan handler Sinisa Mi-hajlovic could become the latest scapegoat for the long-standing malaise at the seven-time Eu-ropean champions following a 1-0 home defeat by Bologna in midweek, when Milan had 16 at-tempts on goal.

Sadiq, meanwhile, believes Roma can turn the corner with a win at the Stadio Olimpico but despite Dzeko struggling to fi nd the net—he has scored only three league goals so far—the Nigerian has given the Bosnian his backing.

Asked if Dzeko should be worried for his starting place, Sadiq told asroma.it: “It’s im-portant for a striker to score but I shouldn’t be looking at my goals or my games right now, I just need to keep working hard. I hope Edin will come back 100%.”

Promoted to Roma’s senior squad after scoring 14 times in 10 games for their youth team, Sadiq could earn his second start after Dzeko’s appeal to halve a two-match ban was rejected on Thursday.

Roma confi rmed, however, winger Mohamed Salah could be available despite the speedy

Egyptian hobbling off with a thigh knock against Chievo.

As Inter look to protect their one-point lead over Fiorentina and Napoli when they host Sas-suolo, Mihajlovic can only hope his misfi ring strikers improve in a stadium he is all too familiar with having spent six seasons with Roma’s bitter rivals Lazio.

After Milan’s sixth reverse of the season on Wednesday, Mi-hajlovic hit out: “We weren’t unlucky, when you miss fi ve one-on-one chances to beat the goalkeeper you risk conceding a goal at the end, and that’s what happened.

Fiorentina, who have scored a league-leading 36 goals thanks primarily to Nikola Kalinic (10) and Josip Ilicic (9), host a strug-gling Lazio on Saturday with the chance to go provisional top for the second time in a week.

Thanks to the league-leading tally of Gonzalo Higuain (16 goals) and a solid contribution from Lorenzo Insigne (8), Napoli are also just one point off the pace.

Maurizio Sarri’s men travel to Frosinone looking to avoid a re-peat of their scoreless draw with another promoted side, Carpi, earlier this season.

Juventus reinforced their bid for a record-equalling fi fth title with a 3-0 rout of winless Verona in midweek and the champions, only three points adrift in fourth, face Sampdoria away.

Roma seek AC Milan redemption

SERIE A

China dump Perrin aft er World Cup fl op

SACKED

AFPBeijing

China’s football body an-nounced the sacking of national coach Alain Perrin yesterday after a

disappointing run of results left their World Cup qualifying cam-paign hanging by a thread.

The Chinese Football Associa-tion (CFA) said the decision had been made “out of considera-tion for the performance of the Chinese national team” and “the needs of future team-building”.

After “sincere consultations” the two sides had decided Perrin “will no longer work as the head coach of China’s national team”, a statement on the CFA website said, adding that the search for a replacement would start im-mediately.

The news comes just a year after the ex-Lyon and Marseille boss led China to the quarter-fi nals of the Asian Cup in Aus-tralia, in their best performance in more than a decade.

But optimism has since faded, and the CFA made a public apol-ogy and announced a review into the Frenchman’s performance after a 0-0 World Cup qualifying draw with Hong Kong.

With two games to go in the second round of qualifying for Russia 2018, China are third in their group and teetering on the brink of elimination.

The way forward for China remains unclear, but they will be desperate to solve the rid-dle of creating a national team to match the country’s soaring football ambitions.

Spearheaded by football-lov-ing President Xi Jinping, China hopes to host and even win a

World Cup, and has ordered the game to be played more widely in schools.

The challenge of leading the world’s most populous and sec-ond-largest economy to foot-ball glory would intrigue many coaches—but China’s record in-vites caution.

China are currently languish-ing at 82nd in the rankings, be-low the likes of Equatorial Guin-ea and Libya, and have only ever reached one World Cup, in 2002.

The domestic game long suf-fered from endemic corruption, with a history of match-rigging and bribery, but authorities have sought to clean up the game in recent years.

Now their big-spending clubs are fi nding success, with Guangzhou Evergrande win-ning the AFC Champions League twice in the last three years.

Some Chinese fans said the CFA had questions to answer.

“No matter who you hire or dismiss, the national team per-formance doesn’t change. The key issue is not the coach, but the system of Chinese football,” posted one social media user.

“Without changing the sys-tem, it would be useless even if you hire an extraterrestrial to coach the team.”

File picture of AS Roma’s Umar Sadiq (L) celebrating after scoring.

Key Fixtures (GMT)

Today Wycombe Wanderers (IV) v Aston Villa (1245)Arsenal v Sunderland (1500)Birmingham City (II) v AFC Bourne-mouth (1500)Norwich City v Manchester City (1500) Watford v Newcastle United (1500)West Ham United v Wolverhampton Wanderers (II) (1500)Manchester United v Sheff ield United (III) (1730)

TomorrowChelsea v Scunthorpe United(III) (1400)Tottenham Hotspur v Leicester City (1600)

File picture of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

Fixtures (GMT)

Today Carpi vs Udinese (1400), Fiorentina vs Lazio (1700), Roma vs AC Milan (1945)

TomorrowInter vs Sassuolo (1130),Atalanta vs Genoa, Bologna vs Chievo, Frosinone vs Napoli, Verona vs Palermo, Torino vs Empoli (all 1400) Sampdoria vs Juventus (1945)


GULF TIMES FOOTBALL

Enthused Bernabeu awaits Zidane’s bow as coach of Real

SPOTLIGHT

‘I will be satisfied with winning everything. Our objective is to win, we have two titles that we can win and we are going to try until the end of the season’

AFPMadrid

French legend Zinedine Zidane takes charge of Real Madrid for the fi rst time when Deportivo la Coruna visit what is expected to

be a sold out Santiago Bernabeu today. The Madrid fans turned out in their

thousands to welcome Zidane at his fi rst training session on Tuesday, hours after he replaced the sacked Rafael Benitez, who paid the price for his unpopularity with the club’s stars and fans alike after just seven months in the job.

By contrast, Zidane is beloved at the Bernabeu for his fi ve years as a player in the Spanish capital, most notably scoring a sensational winning goal in the 2002 Champions League fi nal.

Yet, Deportivo’s visit will be his fi rst match in senior management having only previously coached Madrid’s feeder team Castilla for the past 18 months.

Zidane has a tough task if he is to de-liver only Madrid’s second league title in eight years with Real trailing league leaders Atletico Madrid by four points and Bar-

celona by two - having also played a game more than the European champions.

“This is a diffi cult but stimulating challenge, I want to take up the challenge and do my utmost to win titles,” said Zi-dane.

“I will be satisfi ed with winning eve-rything. Our objective is to win, we have two titles that we can win and we are go-ing to try until the end of the season.”

Zidane has signalled his intention to retain the star attacking trident of Cris-tiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema up front and will have a fully-fi t squad to choose from after captain Sergio Ramos returned to training on Thursday.

Despite their struggles under Benitez, Madrid have been lethal at home since suff ering a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Barcelona in November, scoring 25 goals in their last four games at the Bernabeu.

However, Deportivo’s resurgence un-der former Madrid midfi elder Victor Sanchez has been one of the revelations of the season.

The Galicians have only lost three times in the league this season and have already taken points off Barcelona and Atletico.

“Real Madrid are one of the best teams in the world with the best players. The sacking of the coach will make them go for it from the start with Zidane as the new coach,” said Deportivo striker Lucas Perez, who has scored 12 goals already.

“For Deportivo the fact it is the Bern-abeu, that Zidane is the coach, means there will be more cameras, but I think we have shown in the Camp Nou, at Va-lencia and other diffi cult places that we will play with the same mentality to win games wherever they are.”

Barca can return to the top of the table and open up a fi ve-point gap over Madrid when they host Granada earlier today.

The Catalans have drawn three of their last four La Liga games, but returned to goalscoring form thanks to an inspired Lionel Messi as the Argentine scored twice and created two more for Gerard Pique and Neymar in a bad-tempered 4-1 win over local rivals Espanyol in the Copa del Rey in midweek.

Luis Suarez could face up to a three-match ban for confronting the Espanyol players in the tunnel after the game, but any sanction would take eff ect in the Cup leaving him free to face Granada.

Atletico have the toughest challenge of the title contenders when they travel to fi fth-placed Celta Vigo tomorrow.

Augusto Fernandez could make his Liga debut for Diego Simeone’s men just days after leaving Celta, whilst the hosts are likely to again be without injured Spanish international Nolito.

Top-scorer Antoine Griezmann and Diego Godin will be among those to re-turn to the Atletico side after Simeone made 10 changes for the 1-1 draw at Rayo Vallecano in the Cup on Wednesday.

Seventh proposed stadium brings ‘design for legacy’ concept onto the world stage

2022 FIFA WORLD CUP QATAR


The Supreme Committee for Deliv-ery & Legacy (SC) has announced the seventh proposed host venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar

in December 2015. The seventh proposed stadium will bring the ‘design for legacy’ concept onto the world stage as one of the fi rst stadiums ever designed from the be-ginning with the ability to transform into a successful and dynamic mixed use urban neighbourhood after the tournament.

The Design Consultant for the venue is global architecture fi rm Populous. The venue will be located in Ras Abu Aboud, an exceptional waterfront location visible from West Bay.

The 40,000-seat venue was the sev-

enth proposed host venue for the World Cup to be announced and it will host matches up to the quarter fi nals. The 450,000 square meter site where the stadium will be located and will include 6,000 car parks during the tournament and 2,000 in legacy mode.

Speaking to www.sc.qa, Ghanim al-Kuwari, SC Competition Venues Execu-tive Director, talked about the important role the stadium will play in the develop-ment of the Doha skyline and waterfront. He said: “All our planning for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar keeps in mind the legacy use of the stadiums after the tour-nament has fi nished. This design aims to create a unique and memorable addition to the cityscape. With this project we want to achieve a successful conversion from a sports venue into an appealing non-sport legacy concept.”

Meanwhile, Christopher Lee, Sen-ior Principal, Populous, said: “We have a long-standing tradition of designing venues with a genuine legacy including the London, Sydney and Sochi Olympic stadiums. The SC challenged us to go fur-ther again and the design for the venue at Ras bu Aboud is going to be a game-changer. We are creating a whole new neighbourhood in a fantastic waterfront location overlooking West Bay and, at the same time, an incredible world-class sta-dium for 40,000 fans.”

Chuck Baldwin, Project Director, TiME Qatar, the project management company for the stadium, concluded: “It is excit-ing to work as a partner with SC on such a high profi le programme, and particularly on a stadium which creates a new model for design and legacy use. We all want to help make the World Cup in Qatar a great event.”

AFPMadrid

Newly-appointed Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane warned yes-terday that star striker

Cristiano Ronaldo would not be leaving the club under his tenure.

“Cristiano is more than un-transferable, he’s the soul of this Madrid. As long as I’m here he won’t leave, that’s for sure,” the Frenchman told a press confer-ence ahead of his fi rst game in charge today.

“Cristiano will play along the wing and he’ll play whatever happens. I’m going to give few instructions to Cristiano, his record talks for itself. The only thing I want is that he feels hap-py, at ease.”

Real Madrid’s all-time leading scorer, who turns 31 next month, reportedly felt ill at ease with

Zidane’s predecessor Rafael Be-nitez.

And the world player of the year fueled speculation concern-ing his future by stating several times that he was uncertain what he would do next season.

Zidane, who took over from Benitez last Monday, said that he would not be making trans-fer requests during the transfer window.

“Possible departures, I don’t think and I don’t want. Signings neither, I have a big squad and am satisfi ed with it.”

Ten years after his last offi cial appearance on the pitch of the Santiago-Bernabeu Stadium, former playmaker Zidane will have a baptism of fi re on Satur-day against Deportivo La Coruna in La Liga.

Real Madrid are third in La Liga four points behind Atletico Madrid, with Deportivo in sev-enth position.

Ronaldo is more than untransferable, warns Zidane

FOCUS

Real Madrid’s new French coach Zinedine Zidane (C) looks at his players during a training session at the Valdebebas training ground in Madrid.

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane (L) and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Fixtures (all times GMT)

Today Barcelona vs Granada (1500), Getafe vs Real Betis, Sevilla vs Athletic Bilbao (1715), Real Madrid vs Deportivo la Coruna (1930), Levante vs Rayo Val-lecano (2105) Tomorrow Villarreal vs Sporting Gijon (1100), Real Sociedad vs Valencia (1500), Eibar vs Espanyol, Las Palmas vs Malaga (1715), Celta Vigo vs Atletico Madrid (1930)

FIFA presidential candidate Gianni Infantino says he respects and understands Michel Platini’s decision to abandon his bid to head foot-ball’s world governing body. Platini meanwhile blamed FIFA’s outgoing president Joseph Blatter for develop-ments which led to them both being banned from football for eight years. The formal decision to with-draw by UEFA president Platini means 45-year-old Infantino is now the confirmed candidate of the European football body UEFA to succeed Blatter at FIFA’s helm. Platini and Blatter were last month banned from all football-related activity by FIFA’s ethics committee for ethics breaches relating to a 2011 payment to Platini of 2 million Swiss francs (about 2 million dollars). In an interview published Friday by France’s L’Equipe daily, Platini accused Blatter of bringing him down. In a report headlined “Platini: Blatter wanted my skin” Platini

said: “He did not want me to go to FIFA. He has often said that I would be his last scalp, but he is fallen at the same time as me.” Both say they will fight their bans through the courts and also take their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. Infantino, who is UEFA secre-tary general and Platini’s right-hand man at the European federation, said: “I fully re-spect and understand Michel Platini’s decision to withdraw his candidacy for the FIFA presidential election in order to concentrate fully on the ongoing legal procedures. Infantino wished Platini “all the best in his eff orts to clear his name as soon as possible and I reiterate my support for his right to a due process.” When he first announced his candidacy for the FIFA presi-dency, former France captain Platini had been seen as the favourite to succeed Blatter. Now there does not appear to be a clear favourite in the February 26 election in Zurich.

Infantino has ‘respect’ for Platini as UEFA boss blames Blatter

Local schools in Doha welcome AFC mascot Najim

AFC U23 CHAMPIONSHIP


The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has launched its promotion-al activities of engaging

schoolchildren ahead of the AFC U23 Championship.

The high profi le event will be held in Qatar from January 12 to 30 at four venues. ‘Najim’, the offi cial event mascot, visited Pa-kistani, British, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan schools in Qatar.

Large crowds gathered dur-ing the LOC visits to the schools which saw schoolchildren min-

gling with football offi cials and having their photos taken with ‘Najim’. LOC offi cials said more schools are on the list in the coming days.

The offi cials also distributed literature detailing the event schedule and venues. Besides Qatar, teams from Syria, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, North Korea, Thailand, Iraq, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Yem-en, Jordan, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam are also taking part in the event.

The top three sides at the three-week tournament will qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games.

start road to fa sport cup history face off

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