FIFA on Monday ordered Brazil and Argentina to replay a World Cup qualifying match halted in Sao Paulo in September over alleged Covid-19 quarantine breaches by the visitors.

Brazilian health officials stormed the pitch seven minutes into the clash on September 5 between the South American giants at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, stopping the match and triggering a melee involving team officials and players.

“After a thorough investigation of the various factual elements and in light of the applicable regulations, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee has decided that the match should be replayed on a date and at a location to be decided by FIFA,” said a statement from world soccer’s governing body on Monday.

The two nations are undefeated in South American qualifying and are sure to finish in the top two places in the 10-team group, although both have three games to play, including the rematch. The top four teams qualify automatically for the World Cup in Qatar.

Hours before the on-pitch drama in September, Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) said four Argentine players based at English clubs at the time should be placed in “immediate quarantine” for breaching Covid-19 protocols.

According to ANVISA, the Premier League players — Cristian Romero and then club-mate Giovani Lo Celso of Tottenham, and Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia — provided “false information” upon entering Brazil.

On Monday, FIFA said that “the abandonment of the match stemmed from several deficiencies of the parties involved towards their respective responsibilities”.

FIFA banned the four Argentine players for two matches each for “not complying with the FIFA Return to Football International Match Protocol.”

It also handed a series of fines to the two national football federations.

The Brazilian Football Association must pay 500,000 Swiss Francs (540,000 dollars, 477,000 euros) for “infringements related to order and security”.

The Argentinian Football Association was fined 200,000 Swiss Francs for “its failure to comply with its obligations in relation to order and security, the preparation of and its participation in the match.”

Both federations were also fined 50,000 Swiss Francs for the abandonment of the match.

Source: AFP

A Winter Olympics overshadowed by human rights concerns and taking place inside a strict Covid-secure bubble kicked off in Beijing on Friday with a glittering opening ceremony at the “Bird’s Nest” stadium.

The distinctive lattice-shaped arena took centre stage, just as it did at the 2008 Games – seen as China’s coming-out party to the world – as Beijing becomes the first city to host both a Summer and Winter Olympics.

Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Games open, triggering a burst of fireworks and wrapping up a ceremony filled with imagery of ice and snow. Xi’s declaration was followed by red-suited “skaters” sliding across virtual ice.

Held on the first day of Spring by the Chinese calendar,the ceremony began with a performance by dancers waving glowing green stalks to convey the vitality of the season, followed by an explosion of white and green fireworks that spelled the word “Spring”.

On a three-dimensional cube resembling a block of ice, lasers carved figures from each of the previous 23 Winter Games. The block was then “broken” by ice hockey players, enabling the Olympic rings to emerge, all in white.

That was followed by the traditional “parade of nations”, with each of the 91 delegations preceded by a women carrying a placard in the shape of a snowflake resembling a Chinese knot.

In keeping with Olympic tradition, the parade was led into the stadium by Greece with the rest ordered by stroke number in the first character of their Chinese name, which meant Turkey was second, followed by Malta, with host China going last and drawing roars from the stadium crowd.

The entrances for “Hong Kong, China”, as well as for Russia, also generated applause.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the highest profile foreign leader present for the Games, could be seen in the stadium without a mask. However, the athletes from his country were unable to carry its flag due to doping violations, marching instead under the standard of the Russian Olympic Committee.

Source: Reuters

UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou has suggested the media in France are very fickle when it comes to his representation of the European country.

At the opening pay-per-view of 2022, two former teammates at Paris’ MMA Factory gym collided. On one side of the Octagon was a Cameroon native who built his life and career in France. Opposite him was a La Roche-sur-Yon native, born and bred in the west side of the nation.

In the main event, it was Ngannou who emerged victoriously and left the cage as the undisputed heavyweight king. He did so despite carrying a torn MCL into the contest and following a difficult opening two rounds.

After struggling on the feet against “Bon Gamin” for the first 10 minutes, “The Predator” adjusted his strategy and won the remaining three frames thanks to top control and an impressive display of wrestling.

With the victory, Ngannou closed the book on his feud with former coach Fernand Lopez, defied the odds, and established a strong position for future negotiations with the UFC. A defeat may well have seen him depart the promotion.

Given the two names involved in the headline clash, it’s unsurprising that French interest was at an all-time high ahead of UFC 270. But with Ngannou’s history and frequent praise of the opportunities he was given in France, it was perhaps surprising to see the attitude of some of the country’s media towards him.

At the UFC 270 press conference during fight week, Ngannou had a heated exchange with a French reporter who asked him if he’d “brainwashed” his time at Paris’ MMA Factory gym out of his memory. The champ later took issue with another journalist who seemed to suggest Ngannou had described Gane as an easy opponent.

During an episode of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour in the week following the PPV event, Ngannou was asked why members of the French media pushed a negative narrative about him leading up to the contest.

“It’s (attitude of the French media) because I was fighting a French guy,” Ngannou said. “That’s how it happens in France. In France, when you lost, you are Cameroonian; when you win, you’re French-Cameroonian or French. And this time I was fighting a real French guy, so they built up the story of the villain and the good guy. I mean, it’s just media. After the fight, a lot of them, they just changed their mind. Some people just wrote back the article, like, ‘A French-Cameroonian retained his title,’ all that kind of stuff. It’s the media, you can’t control that stuff.

“But regardless of that, I know that I have a huge fanbase in France,” added Ngannou. “I have people in France who love me and that’s all that matters. That’s the people who I represent. In France, my fans, my friends, those who even became my family, you know, that’s why I’m happy about France.”

Despite moving permanently to the United States to train at the Xtreme Couture gym, Ngannou has previously returned to France and certainly appears to appreciate the support he still receives from his fanbase across the Atlantic.

It’ll be interesting to see how the French media approaches Ngannou’s next fight, and whether, like Ngannou says, they’ll follow a different narrative if he’s not up against a French national.

Source: ufcbettingsite.com

The President of the Confederation Africaine de Football (“CAF”) (www.CAFonline.com) Dr Patrice Motsepe received cellphone calls yesterday from numerous football Presidents of African nations supporting the speech that FIFA President Gianni Infantino delivered at the Council of Europe on Wednesday 26 January 2022; as the speech was in line with previous CAF resolutions.

Several commentators unfortunately seem to have misunderstood and misinterpreted President Infantino’s speech. He stated that football is one of the tools that should contribute to the economic and social development and upliftment of many Africans and also to building a better future and dignity amongst many people on the African Continent. President Infantino did not say that the FIFA World Cup every 2 years will stop Africans from crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

The leadership of the 54 African football nations that are members of CAF have at previous meetings expressed their unanimous support for the FIFA World Cup taking place every 2 years due to the developmental and upliftment benefits to Africa and the developing world.

CAF and the African football community are aware that if African governments, domestic and global businesses and investors and other development and social partners do not significantly contribute, to the provision of quality education, jobs, health services and other infrastructure facilities and create an inclusive and better future for the poor, and particularly Africa’s approximately 300 million youth between the ages of 15 and 25; Africa will experience periods of consistent and sustained political and social instability and uprisings as well as migrations of millions of people within and outside the African Continent, seeking a better and brighter future.

It is in this context that football is seen in Africa as an important tool and partner for governments, investors, philanthropists and the domestic and global football community in contributing to improving the living conditions of the poor and building an inclusive and bright future for the people of Africa and particularly the youth.

CAF appreciates the partnership and commitment of FIFA and President Infantino to the development and growth of football in Africa and the world.

Source: APO Group on behalf of Confederation of African Football

Cameroonian fighter Francis Ngannou, known as ‘The Predator’, scored a decision victory over Frenchman ‘Bon Gamin’ Ciryl Gane to hold on to his heavyweight UFC 270 title on Saturday night.

In a surprising turn of events, Ngannou, the UFC’s king of the fast knockout, saved his heavyweight championship with his grappling game after dropping the first two rounds.

The Las Vegas-based fighter used takedowns and top control over the final three rounds to eke out a unanimous decision at Honda Center in Anaheim, California, and retain his belt.

The judges’ scores were 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46 to mark the first decision victory of Ngannou’s career.

Saturday’s fixture offered an intriguing match-up, the two fighters having previously trained together in Paris – Ngannou was once a homeless immigrant in the French capital – before pursuing their careers in the US.

Gane, a kickboxer, used body kicks over the first two rounds to keep Ngannou from getting untracked. In the third, he used a huge slam to alter the fight, and followed it with a judo throw later in the round.

In the fourth round, Ngannou used another takedown to stymie Gane. In the fifth, Gane scored a takedown, but Ngannou switched position and used top control over the rest of the round to seal the fight.

Trilogy fight

The evening’s co-feature bout was the rare case where a trilogy fight was not the concluding matchup between a pair of fighters.

In a sensational bout, Deiveson Figueiredo of Brazil won a razor-thin affair with Tijuana’s Brandon Moreno to regain the UFC flyweight title. The judges’ scores were 48-47 across the board for a unanimous decision.

The bout was a 25-minute whirlwind, Moreno (19-6-2) landed more often, but Figueiredo (21-2-1) landed harder shots and scored more knockdowns, including one in a frantic and close final round that very well may have spelled the difference on the scorecards.

With the victory, the duo are now tied at 1-1-1. Their first bout at UFC 256 ended with Figueiredo retaining the championship via majority draw. Moreno took the title via third-round submission at UFC 263.

With the win in the third fight, Figueiredo became the first two-time UFC flyweight champion with the win. He indicated after the fight he was willing to give Moreno a fourth-right rematch to settle things.

Source: Reuters

Tennis world No.1 Novak Djokovic was included in the Australian Open official draw on Thursday, although uncertainty remained about whether the government will cancel the top seed’s visa for a second time.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke is weighing exercising his discretionary power to revoke Djokovic’s visa over concern about the star’s medical exemption from Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

The 34-year-old defending champion, who was out practicing at the Rod Laver Arena earlier on Thursday, drew unseeded fellow Serb Miomir Kecmanovic for his opening round match, expected to be played on Monday or Tuesday.

The controversy has assumed an importance that goes beyond tennis: it has intensified a global debate over the rights of the unvaccinated and become a tricky political issue for Prime Minister Scott Morrison as he campaigns for re-election.

Australia is due to hold an election by May, and while Morrison’s government has won support at home for its tough stance on border security before and during the pandemic, it has not escaped criticism over the botched handling of Djokovic’s visa.

Morrison declined to comment on Djokovic’s visa on Thursday.

Organiser Tennis Australia had delayed the official draw for more than an hour, without saying why.

Djokovic, a vaccine sceptic, fuelled widespread anger in Australia last week when he announced he was heading to Melbourne for the Australian Open with a medical exemption from requirements for visitors to be inoculated against COVID-19.

On his arrival, Australian Border Force officials decided his exemption was invalid and he was held alongside asylum-seekers at an immigration detention hotel for several days.

A court on Monday allowed him to stay on the grounds that officials had been “unreasonable” in the way they handled his interview in a seven-hour process in the middle of the night.

The government, which has won support at home for its tough stance on border security before and during the pandemic, must now decide whether to let Djokovic remain and bid for a record 21st major title.

Mistakes Made

Djokovic’s cause was not helped by a mistake in his entry declaration, on which a box stating he had not travelled abroad in the two weeks prior to leaving for Australia was ticked.

In fact, he had gone to Spain from Serbia.

Djokovic, 34, attributed the error to his agent and acknowledged he also should have rescheduled an interview and photoshoot for a French newspaper on Dec. 18 while infected with COVID-19.

Fans, including many Serbian Australians, gave him noisy support when he was detained. Anti-vaxxers have hailed him as a hero and his family have portrayed him as a champion of individual rights.

But Djokovic may face hostility from the crowd if and when he walks out on court.

There is widespread anger over the saga among Australians, who have a 90% vaccination rate among adults after enduring some of the world’s longest lockdowns aimed at curbing the pandemic.

Crowds at the Open’s main arenas will be capped at 50% capacity and masks will be mandatory for all spectators under updated COVID-19 restrictions announced on Thursday as authorities battle a surge of cases caused by the Omicron variant.

“I don’t like his arrogance,” Teyhan Ismain, a Melbourne resident, said on Wednesday. “It does seem that he’s been telling a few fibs too. So I think he should just probably go back.”

There may also be resentment in the dressing room, where all but three of the top 100 men are inoculated.

Tennis great Martina Navratilova told Australian television Djokovic should “suck it up” and return home.

“The bottom line is, sometimes your personal beliefs have to be trumped by what’s good for the greater good, for those around you, for your peers,” she told Seven’s Sunrise programme. “You have two choices, get vaccinated or just don’t go play.”

Source: REUTERS

Lionel Messi has tested positive for Covid-19 and has entered self-isolation, his club Paris Saint-Germain announced on Sunday.

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner was one of four PSG players to test positive for the virus ahead of a French Cup match against Vannes.

The Argentinian star has endured a difficult start to life in the French capital since an emotional exit from Barcelona last summer.

Messi has scored only one goal in 11 league appearances for PSG, although he has netted five times in the Champions League.

He will miss Monday’s cup tie and will likely also be sidelined for PSG’s first Ligue 1 match since the winter break, at Lyon next Sunday.

The other players to test positive were full-back Juan Bernat, back-up goalkeeper Sergio Rico and teenage midfielder Nathan Bitumazala.

“They are currently respecting isolation and are subject to the appropriate health protocols,” PSG said.

The number of Covid cases in France has topped 200,000 a day this week.

Source: AFP

Qatar passed their first test with a successful hosting of the Arab Cup but bigger challenges lie ahead when 1.2 million fans and 32 international teams arrive for the World Cup one year from now.

Algerian rejoicing at Saturday’s 2-0 extra-time win over Tunisia in the final — exactly a year before the 2022 World Cup decider, and with FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the stands — will have been accompanied by satisfaction from Qatari officials.

But now comes the hard work as Qatar prepares for the unique task of hosting a World Cup in and around a single city, Doha, with limited hotel accommodation and a transport network that is likely to come under strain.

The wealthy Gulf state will also be bracing for intense scrutiny after coming under fire over the rights of the migrant labourers who have built its infrastructure, including the World Cup stadiums.

And it will be mindful of a cultural gap when fans from around the world arrive in a conservative Muslim country with restricted access to alcohol, and where public drunkenness and homosexual relations are illegal.

More than 600,000 tickets were sold for the 16-team Arab Cup, including a Qatari-record 63,439 crowd when the hosts played fierce rivals the United Arab Emirates in the quarter-finals.

Six of the eight World Cup venues were employed as Qatar took the chance to test its stadiums and training sites, transport, accommodation, volunteers and other areas including security.

A fan ID system was dropped midway through the tournament following reports of long queues and complaints from fans, but crowd trouble appeared limited to some damaged seats at the quarter-final between Tunisia and Oman.

‘Lessons learned’

Qatar will “take account of the lessons learned to organise the best World Cup”, said Jassim Al-Jassim, the organising committee’s vice-president of operations.

The Lusail Stadium, which will host the World Cup final, was notably not used for the tournament. In October, its project manager told AFP that it still needed final checks and tests.

Coaches were impressed by the facilities, with Algeria’s Majid Bougherra, a World Cup veteran, saying “everything is perfect” –apart, perhaps, from the accommodation.

“The stadiums are great, the pitches are great. Perhaps one small downside, but it won’t be the case at the World Cup, is that we were in the same hotel as everyone else,” he said.

“We congratulate (Qatar) on this beautiful Arab Cup and I think the World Cup will be exceptional,” Bougherra added.

Egypt coach Carlos Queiroz, the former Iran, Portugal and Real Madrid boss, said the Qatar World Cup has “all the ingredients to succeed”, but called for better communications.

“If there is one advice I will give to everybody, we need to talk, because the better we talk the better the harmony between the needs inside and outside the pitch,” he said.

Daniel Reyche, a sport policy and politic researcher and visiting associate professor at Qatar’s Georgetown University, said he was impressed by the organisers’ ability to learn from their mistakes, for example by dropping the fan ID.

“Overall, I think the test went well, but it is difficult to compare the FIFA Arab Cup and the FIFA World Cup, since most visitors this time came from within the country and next year they will come from outside the country,” he told AFP.

And after Qatar dismissed concerns from the LGBTQ+ community about attending the World Cup, FIFA secretary-general Fatma Samoura gave assurances next year’s tournament would be inclusive.

“People are free to display any kind of flag they want, including the rainbow flag, without them being targeted or singled out,” she said this week.

Source: AFP

The United States Monday announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a calibrated rebuke of China’s human rights record that stops short of preventing US athletes from competing.

The decision comes after Washington spent months wrangling with what position to take on the Games, hosted in February next year by a country it accuses of perpetrating “genocide” against Uyghur Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

There was no immediate reaction from Beijing, but the Chinese foreign ministry had earlier threatened “resolute countermeasures” to any such boycott.

The decision was broadly welcomed by rights groups and politicians in the US, where President Joe Biden has been under pressure to speak out against Chinese rights abuses.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration would send no diplomatic or official representation to the Games given China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

Sending official representation would signal that the Games were “business as usual,” Psaki said.

“And we simply can’t do that.”

“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home,” she added.

The International Olympic Committee said the sending or not of officials was a “purely political decision for each government, which the IOC in its political neutrality fully respects.”

The announcement “also makes it clear that the Olympic Games and the participation of the athletes are beyond politics and we welcome this,” an IOC spokesperson said.

Diplomatic high-wire act

US-China relations hit a low point under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, with a massive trade war and incendiary debate over how the Covid-19 virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Biden has sought to re-engage with Beijing, while at the same time focusing on strengthening traditional US alliances to counter China’s ever-growing economic clout and military presence across the Indo-Pacific region.

The Olympics boycott is part of a complex diplomatic balancing act.

Biden’s administration has left Trump-era trade tariffs on China in place and continues to order naval patrols through sensitive international sea lanes that China is accused of trying to bring under its control.

However, with Biden also emphasising the need for dialogue, critics on the right say he is being too soft.

This makes the looming Olympic Games a political flashpoint.

Members of Team USA, their coaches, trainers and other staff will still receive consular and diplomatic security assistance, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

When asked about calls for private businesses to end any Winter Games sponsorships, he stressed that the decision was up to them.

“It is not in this country — unlike other countries — the role of the government to dictate the practices that the private sector should adopt,” Price said.

‘Powerful rebuke’

Campaigners say that at least one million Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.

Bob Menendez, the chair of the powerful US Senate foreign relations committee, welcomed the diplomatic boycott as “a powerful rebuke” of the “genocide in Xinjiang.”

He and top House foreign affairs Democrat Gregory Meeks called for other countries to follow the US lead.

Meeks warned the international community should not be helping China “whitewash its atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities.”

But Republican Senator Tom Cotton called it a “half measure, when bold leadership was required.”

“The United States should fully boycott the Genocide Games in Beijing,” he said in a statement.

The last full boycott of the Olympics by the US was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter withdrew in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Human Rights Watch called the Biden administration’s decision “crucial” but urged more accountability “for those responsible for these crimes and justice for the survivors.”

Earlier Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned the Games were “not a stage for political posturing and manipulation” — in response to reports a boycott could be imminent.

“If the US is bent on having its own way, China will take resolute countermeasures,” he vowed.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the United States, said that politicians calling to boycott the Games “are doing so for their own political interests and posturing.”

“In fact, no one would care about whether these people come or not, and it has no impact whatsoever on the #Beijing2022 to be successfully held,” he tweeted.

Coming just six months after the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Games, the Winter Olympics will be held from February 4 to 20 in a “closed loop” bubble because of Covid-19 restrictions.

“To be honest, Chinese are relieved to hear the news, because the fewer US officials come, the fewer viruses will be brought in,” tweeted the Chinese state-owned tabloid newspaper, Global Times.

Source: AFP