Governing Bodies
ON JUNE 12, WE STAND, SAYS LA LIGA
La Liga president Javier Tebas has said he hopes that Spanish football will resume on June 12 after being halted for over three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
All clubs in Spain’s top two divisions began testing players for the virus last week and many including La Liga champions, Barcelona started individual training, the second step of the league’s four-phase protocol for returning to action.
Real Madrid resume individual training on Monday.
“I’d like to restart on June 12 but we have to be prudent and it’s not just up to football, it’s also up to society, we all need to focus on complying with measures to protect health”, Tebas told Spanish television network Movistar on Sunday (May 10).
He confirmed that all matches will take place without spectators, as will be the case when Germany’s Bundesliga restarts on Saturday (May 16), and he said the league was working on ways to add to the atmosphere although he did not give details.
He also said fixtures would be spread out so that there are matches every day.
“Now that we are not going to have fans in the stadiums we are going to have some innovative ideas for broadcasting the games,” he added. “There’s going to be football every day once La Liga returns.”
The league reported on Sunday that five players across the two divisions had tested positive for the virus and had been ordered to stay isolated at home. They will not be able to return to training grounds until they have tested negative.
Tebas added that three staff members had also tested positive for the virus but he said the number of cases was far lower than expected, insisting there would be no increase in the risk of players getting infected once matches started.
“We were expecting around 25 or 30 based on the numbers in the Bundesliga and how much the virus has penetrated Spain. Out of 2,500 people tested we have only eight positive cases, which is good news,” he said.
“Infection during a match is practically impossible as we have done a study which we’re releasing which will show there is a minimum risk in matches if we all respect the health measures.”
German teams, meanwhile, started the week in isolation on Monday after going into seven-day quarantine ahead of the season restart, with club bosses saying completing the campaign amid the coronavirus outbreak will not be easy.
Several clubs, including champions Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg, have picked hotels in their cities to cut travel times to training locations and airports for the weekend matches.
Others like Schalke, who face Dortmund in the Ruhr valley derby, and Borussia Monchengladbach are using hotels at their stadiums.
Bayer Leverkusen and Union Berlin have moved to more isolated hotels in the countryside, as have bottom club Paderborn, who will spend the week in a nearby thermal springs town.
Players and staff wore face masks as they departed for hotels where distance between tables at team lunches and dinners will become routine, as will single rooms where players will make their own beds to reduce unnecessary contact with other people.
–Reuters
Governing Bodies
Nigeria becoming an epicentre of global badminton as Francis Orbih enters the Badminton World Federation Council
Laurels on the courts and now glory in the boardroom sums up the mark that badminton is making in Nigeria.
The President, Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN), Francis Orbih, has been elected as a council member of the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
The election took place during the BWF Annual General Meeting on Saturday in Xiamen, China.
Orbih emerged victorious over top contenders from other African countries.
He will join Cameroon’s Odette Assembe Engoulou on the council, while Chipo Zumburani (Zimbabwe) and Hadia ElSaid (Egypt) missed out.
An elated Orbih expressed his gratitude to fellow badminton presidents across the globe for their trust and support.
He said, “I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me by my peers across the badminton world.
“I look forward to quality representation, driving development initiatives, and strengthening badminton’s global reach over the next four years.”
Orbih also acknowledged the support of the Federal Government of Nigeria, particularly the National Sports Commission (NSC), which he said played a significant role in his successful bid.
“The Chairman and the Director General of the NSC monitored the entire process. I’m grateful for their involvement and confident Nigeria will benefit from this,” he stated.
He further appreciated the BFN board members and the Nigerian badminton community for their prayers and continued belief in his leadership.
“From the day I declared my intentions, the board members of BFN have been supportive, and I promise not to disappoint them,” Orbih concluded.
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A former member of the FIFA Council, Mamoutou Toure, has been released from jail in Mali after almost two years in detention for alleged corruption, Malian media reports said on Wednesday.
Toure, president of the Malian Football Federation since 2019, was released after 622 days in prison on Tuesday.
He served on the FIFA Council, world football’s all-powerful decision-making body, for four years until last month when he lost his seat after failing to contest new elections.
The 67-year-old was arrested in August 2023 on allegations of embezzling $28 million of public funds but was granted a provisional release order by the Malian courts, reports said.
He was accused of misconduct during his time as the National Assembly’s financial and administrative director from 2013-2019.
Toure denied all charges and, during his time in jail, was last August re-elected as Malian Football Federation president for a second consecutive term, with his supporters claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy fuelled by detractors.
While in jail, he received a letter of support from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. However, as of last month, Toure is no longer a member of the FIFA Council or the Confederation of African Football’s executive committee.
-Reuters
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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has denied reports of an outstanding debt to former captain Christian Chukwu and has challenged anyone with verifiable documents to prove otherwise.
Chukwu, a former national team captain and chief coach, died last Saturday.
The Nigeria Football Federation decried statements in a section of social media that the football-ruling body was indebted to the deceased.
Reacting to one statement on social media that claimed NFF owed the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team captain the sum of $128,000, NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said: “There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu.
“During the first term of the Board headed by Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations.
“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that the ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”
Sanusi challenged anyone with genuine and verifiable documents of NFF indebtedness to any coach, who has worked with any of the National Teams over the past two decades, to come forward and tender those documents.
“As a credible organization that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”
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