Murdoch Extends His Checkbook
From hard news to odd news, a roundup of recent happenings in the ever-changing kaleidoscope that is international soccer:
* Rupert Murdoch has maintained his stranglehold on English soccer by paying an astounding $1.65 billion for exclusive rights to live coverage of games in England’s Premier League for another three years. Murdoch’s satellite broadcast company BSkyB has televised the league since its formation a decade ago, but at an ever-increasing cost. It paid $465 million in 1992 for a five-year deal and $1.03 billion in 1996 for an additional five years.
* Namibian soccer officials have decided to take no action against players and officials from the country’s under-20 national team who slept with prostitutes before a world championship qualifier in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in May. The decision supposedly was made to “save the players and their parents from further embarrassment.”
* In the Netherlands, meanwhile, the “ladies of the night” are finding that business has dropped off significantly during the European Championship currently underway. “It’s enormously quiet during the matches,” one brothel keeper in The Hague told the Dutch news agency ANP.
* Canada has knocked Cuba out of World Cup 2002 qualifying, meaning the U.S. national team will not be making a trip to Havana. “It would have been interesting, for sure,” U.S. Coach Bruce Arena said. “But we’re happy to play whomever. We can’t take anyone for granted.”
* Japan has qualified for the Sydney Olympics in September and the Asian Cup in Lebanon in October, but the country’s national coach, Frenchman Philippe Troussier, said he might quit to accept a position with a European club team unless he is shown more respect by the Japanese soccer federation, which has delayed offering him a new contract.
* Albania didn’t qualify for Euro 2000, but the 16-nation tournament has spawned a huge, albeit illegal, gambling market in Tirana. More than 100 professional gamblers have set up shop in the city’s Palace of Culture and are seeing a turnover of $700,000 a day. Across the world in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, meanwhile, bettors are circumventing anti-gambling laws by placing bets via the Internet. Also, Coca-Cola Vietnam is offering three soccer balls each made with 2.2 pounds of gold to winners of a Euro 2000 promotional contest.
* Goalkeeper Briana Scurry and forward Susan Bush have been recalled to the U.S. women’s national team for the CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup, Friday through July 3. The U.S. will play Trinidad and Tobago at Hershey, Pa., on Friday; Costa Rica at Louisville, Ky., on Sunday; and Brazil at Foxboro, Mass., on June 27 in the first round of the eight-nation tournament, which could produce a U.S.-China final at Foxboro.
* Fans of the Italian club AC Milan staged a traffic-stopping protest in the middle of the city, complaining that the club has not spent enough on new players. Protesters tossed fake money in the air and shook collection boxes, pretending to seek donations to help out the club’s wealthy president, Silvio Berlusconi. They pointed out that rival Inter Milan has spent $35.83 million on new talent, while the Rome clubs, AS Roma and Lazio, have spent $55.73 million and $74.64 million, respectively.
* A cafe in the Belgian city of Ghent has installed a television in the men’s room so that customers do not have to miss a moment’s play in the Euro 2000 tournament.
* FIFA’s executive committee has approved a harmonized international calendar that is intended to eliminate the clashes between clubs and national teams over player availability. The controversial plan, opposed by Europe, still needs to receive final approval at the FIFA Congress on Aug. 4-5 before it can be implemented in 2002.
* Spain’s coach, Jose Antonio Camacho, had particular reason to be angered by his team’s opening-game loss to Norway in Euro 2000. If Spain wins the tournament for the first time since 1964, Camacho will earn a $509,900 bonus.
* Moammer Kadafi, the soccer-playing son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, claims he has been approached to play for the Italian team Perugia. Kadafi, 27, said he would rather play for Inter Milan, alongside his friend Ronaldo. “I visited Ronaldo recently in hospital and he gave me a pair of his boots to play with,” said Kadafi, whose fitness trainer is former Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. “Ronaldo has asked me to play alongside him to gain experience.”
* The 2002 World Cup will start a day earlier than planned, with the opener May 31 in South Korea and the championship game June 30 in Japan. FIFA also has set ticket prices. The opening game and ceremony will cost $150-$500; other first-round games $60-$150; the second round $100-$225; the quarterfinals $125-$300; semifinals $175-$300, and the final $300-$750. At the 1994 World Cup in the United States, tickets ranged from a low of $25 for the first round to $475 for the final.
* Peter Velappan, general secretary of the Asian soccer confederation, warned Japanese World Cup 2002 organizers that traffic chaos is likely at the new $260-million Miyagi Stadium near Sendai. Narrow roads through rice fields and forests meant that spectators had to spend hours getting to a recent Japan-Slovakia game. “Spectators should not be harassed like this. People were sitting outside the stadium from 8 o’clock in the morning, and this can only happen in Japan because the people are so disciplined. But it’s criminal to be keeping them here for seven or eight hours for one match.”
* Don’t look for Spanish striker Raul to be playing for anyone but European champion Real Madrid in the foreseeable future. The 22-year-old signed a new five-year contract with the club that will pay him $5.75 million a year. To prevent other teams from poaching Raul, the contract’s buy-out clause was increased from $34.30 million to $171.5 million.
* South Africa is trying to persuade Morocco and Brazil to withdraw their bids to host the 2006 World Cup, and has offered to support Brazil’s bid in 2010 in exchange for its support of South Africa as host in 2006. England and Germany also are contenders for 2006. FIFA will make its decision July 6.
