Governing Bodies
WIMBLEDON LAUDED FOR SHARING PAYOUTS
Wimbledon was hailed as a “class act” on Friday after the tournament agreed to award £10 million (S$17.6 million) in prize money to the 620 players who would have taken part had it not been cancelled.
The All England Club said that based on world rankings, 224 players who would have competed in qualifying will each receive £12,500, while the 256 players who would have featured in main draw singles will get £25,000.
In doubles, it will be £6,250; for wheelchair events, the sum would be £6,000 per player, with £5,000 for quad wheelchair competitors.
“Amazing news – always a class act and leader of our sport. Well done @Wimbledon – can’t wait to be back next year,” tweeted former world No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam singles winner Kim Clijsters.
The championships, which should have staged the finals this weekend, were cancelled in April for the first time since World War II due to the coronavirus crisis.
“We know these months of uncertainty have been very worrying for the players, many of whom have faced financial difficulty during this period and who would have quite rightly anticipated the opportunity to earn prize money at Wimbledon, based on their world ranking,” said All England Club chief executive Richard Lewis.
“We are pleased that our insurance policy has allowed us to recognise the impact of the cancellation on the players and that we are now in a position to offer this payment as a reward for the hard work they have invested in building their ranking to a point where they would have gained direct entry into The Championships 2020.”
Wimbledon will reportedly receive over US$140 million (S$194.7 million) in insurance payouts due to the cancellation.
The organisers will also distribute money to officials and some international umpires.
“Just when you thought you couldn’t love @Wimbledon any more,” tweeted Britain’s Marcus Willis, who famously reached the second round in 2016, where he lost to Roger Federer.
Willis was ranked 772 in the world at the time, having played six rounds of qualifying.
His £50,000 prize money doubled his entire career earnings.
Meanwhile, the men’s singles seedings will revert to the world rankings at next year’s edition, after almost two decades of being based on grass-court form.
Next year’s tournament will run from June 28 to July 11.
Separately, the table tennis world team championships have been delayed to early next year amid lingering concerns about the pandemic across the world, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) announced yesterday.
After deliberations with key stakeholders, the ITTF executive committee concluded that the 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan, South Korea, will be staged from Feb 28 to March 7, 2021.
The event were originally scheduled from March 22-29, but they were postponed to June 21-28 and once again to Sept 27-Oct 4.
The executive committee noted that due to a decreasing probability of international events being staged this year, the ITTF will therefore attempt to stage “bubble” or regionally based events during the remainder of the 2020 calendar.
-AFP/Xinhua
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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