Swiss Club’s Apology in Black, White
United States World Cup team defender Frankie Hejduk found himself in an embarrassing situation Friday when his club, St Gallen in Switzerland, took out a full-page notice in a local newspaper apologizing for an 11-3 loss Sunday.
“We, the players of FC St Gallen, made fools of ourselves,” said the notice in the St Gallen TagBlatt.
It was accompanied by a team photograph and signed by each member of the team, including Hejduk, and Coach Thomas Staub, who was fired after the loss to lowly FC Wil.
“We know you are the best fans in Switzerland and we’ve let you down. We are sorry. Unfortunately, we cannot turn back the clock.”
The newspaper, not coincidentally, is the team’s sponsor.
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England Chosen
European soccer’s ruling body, UEFA, selected England to host the European Women’s Championship in 2005, meaning that England’s team will qualify automatically for the eight-nation finals.
England has never progressed beyond the semifinals in the previous five championships and will fail to qualify for the 2003 Women’s World Cup in China unless it defeats France next week in France
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Kenedy Suspended
Portugal national team midfielder Daniel Kenedy was suspended for 18 months by the Portuguese league’s disciplinary committee after failing a drug test last spring.
Kenedy, who plays for Maritimo, also was dropped from Portugal’s World Cup team. He said he would appeal the ruling, claiming all he had taken were slimming pills to lose weight.
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Match Fixing
Twenty Vietnamese players, believed to include members of the national team, face a possible lifetime worldwide ban after a police undercover investigation turned up evidence that they had conspired to fix matches.
Several members of a game-fixing syndicate have been arrested as a result of the probe, and the Asian Football Confederation is awaiting action by the Vietnamese federation before taking any steps itself.
Peter Velappan, general secretary of the AFC, will meet with Vietnamese soccer and government officials in Hanoi next week to discuss the matter.
He said the problem extended to other countries in Indo-China.
“We believe that the police efforts in Vietnam may represent just the tip of the iceberg where match-fixing scandals are concerned,” Velappan was quoted as saying on the AFC Web site.
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Slapped With a Ban
Romania national team and Real Betis defender Iulian Filepescu was handed a four-game suspension by the Spanish soccer federation “for slapping another player [forward Raul Molina] in the face and then pushing him while play had been stopped,” during Real Betis’ recent game against Recreativo Huelva.
