29, April 2022
Football: Klopp unsure if his own Liverpool deal will persuade Salah to stay 0
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he does not believe his new deal will be the deciding factor in whether star forwards Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane commit their long-term futures to the club.
Salah and Mane, along with fellow attacker Roberto Firmino and midfielder Naby Keita, have contracts that expire next year.
With Klopp now staying until 2026, there is a greater degree of security at the club, but the German is not convinced that will make a huge difference to individual players’ decisions.
“If it is a positive sign for the boys, great, but I don’t think this will be the one decisive thing for whatever decision they want to make,” he said on Friday.
“It is their own life but we just wanted to guarantee that everyone who wants to be here knows what he can expect.”
Egypt international Salah, whose negotiations have dragged on for several months, admitted last week it was not certain he would remain at Anfield, stressing the decision was not just about the money.
But Klopp said he did not make judgements about players’ loyalty based on whether they wanted to go elsewhere.
“If a player tells you early enough he wants to go then you have to deal with it,” Klopp said.
“I don’t judge people if they are loyal or not if they say during a contract ‘I want to go somewhere else and see what the weather is like or how the grass is there’.
“That’s not the case. I think you see loyalty in other areas.”
Salah was named the Football Writers’ Association player of the year on Friday.
Klopp takes his side to Newcastle for the early kick-off on Saturday, looking to put pressure on Premier League leaders Manchester City, who are playing later at Leeds, by opening up a two-point gap at the top.
With one foot in the Champions League final after a 2-0 win over Villarreal in the first leg of their semi-final and an FA Cup final against Chelsea next month, an unprecedented quadruple remains a possibility.
Klopp, whose side have already won the League Cup this season, said his new contract was the start of a new era at the club.
“We don’t think about changing the team in the next two or three years or whatever, but you have to prepare the little things so that you are ready for the future as well,” he said.
“That’s why I really think it’s a really good place to be or a good place to join, if not the perfect place.
“We cannot wait 10 years. We have to do it now. It’s no threat. This is only the start, to be honest. That’s the plan that we really, really go for it.”
Source: AFP
29, April 2022
Former tennis star Boris Becker sentenced to jail by UK court over bankruptcy 0
Former tennis star Boris Becker was on Friday jailed for two and a half years after being found guilty by a British court of charges relating to his 2017 bankruptcy.
The six-time Grand Slam champion, 54, will serve half of the term having been convicted at Southwark Crown Court in London over his transfer of huge amounts of money from his business account.
He also failed to declare a property in Germany and concealed 825,000 euros ($866,500) of debt and shares in a tech firm.
He was acquitted earlier this month of a further 20 charges, including nine counts of failing to hand over trophies and medals he won during his glittering tennis career.
Becker told jurors he did not know the whereabouts of the memorabilia, including two of his three Wimbledon men’s singles trophies.
Judge Deborah Taylor had released Becker – who won Wimbledon as an unseeded teenager – on conditional bail ahead of her sentencing decision on Friday.
He arrived early for the hearing, wearing a striped purple and green tie in the Wimbledon colours, a white shirt and a charcoal grey suit.
He held hands with his partner Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro as he walked into court past a bank of waiting reporters and cameras.
The former world number one told the jury how his $50 million (£40 million) career earnings were swallowed up by a costly divorce from his first wife Barbara Becker, child maintenance payments and “expensive lifestyle commitments”.
Becker said he was “shocked” and “embarrassed” when he was declared bankrupt in June 2017 over an unpaid loan of more than £3 million on his estate in Mallorca, Spain.
The German, who has lived in Britain since 2012, said he had cooperated with trustees trying to secure his assets, even offering his wedding ring, and relied on the advisers who managed his life away from tennis.
But the former player, who was supported in court by his partner and eldest son Noah, was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act.
‘Vast amount’
Giving evidence, Becker said he earned a “vast amount” of money during his career, paying cash for several properties.
But the German, who went on to coach current world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic, work as a TV sports commentator and act as a brand ambassador for firms including Puma, said his income “reduced dramatically” following his retirement in 1999.
Becker, who was resident in Monte Carlo and Switzerland before moving to the UK, said his financial commitments included his £22,000-a-month rented house in Wimbledon, south-west London.
He also owed the Swiss authorities five million francs (about $5.1 million) and separately just under one million euros in liabilities over a conviction for tax evasion and attempted tax evasion in Germany in 2002.
He said bad publicity had damaged “brand Becker”, meaning he struggled to make enough money to pay off his debts.
His lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw said at the time of his bankruptcy that Becker was too “trusting and reliant” on his advisers.
Becker, with a shock of strawberry-blond hair, shook up the tennis world in 1985 when he became Wimbledon’s youngest men’s singles champion at 17 and repeated the feat the following year.
Nicknamed “Boom Boom” Becker for his ferocious serve, he won Wimbledon for a third time in 1989.
He also won the Australian Open twice and the US Open during his glittering career, becoming the top-ranked player in the world in 1991.
Becker turned to commentary after his retirement, landing a high-profile role on the BBC, but he returned to the court in 2013 to guide Djokovic, helping the Serb win six more Grand Slam trophies before the pair parted ways in 2016.
Source: AFP