Friday December 29, 2017
George Weah: Ex-AC Milan, Chelsea & Man City striker elected Liberia president
George Weah will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president. (Getty Images) BBC Sport - Former Chelsea, Manchester City and AC Milan striker George Weah will be the next president of Liberia. Weah, 51, became the first non-European player to win the Ballon d’Or in 1995 - just one of many achievements over a prolific 18-year professional career that ended in 2003. He entered politics after his retirement and had been serving as a senator in Liberia’s parliament. His victory was announced by Liberia’s National Elections Commission yesterday - it said that with 98.1% of ballots counted, Weah had won 61.5% of the vote. He will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president. She defeated Weah in elections in 2005, held shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. How good was Weah the player? Weah’s most famous goal for AC Milan was a solo effort against Verona which started in his own penalty area For a few years in the 1990s, Weah was among the best strikers in world football. Capable of scoring all sorts of goals, his most famous moment came while playing for AC Milan in 1996 when he scored a solo effort against Verona which started in his own penalty area and saw him dribble past almost an entire team. First brought to Europe b y A r s e n e We n g e r a t M o n a c o i n 1 9 8 8 , We a h scored 47 league goals for the club in four years before a move to Paris StGermain. There he won the league title in 1994 and was the top scorer in the Champions League a year
later - finishing ahead of Jari Litmanen, Romario and Hristo Stoichkov - before moving to Milan in 1995. Playing alongside Roberto Baggio, Weah won Serie A in his first season with the club and won it again in 1999 but eventually fell out of favour and had short spells with both Chelsea and Manchester City in the Premier League. But he scored just four goals in the English top flight though before returning to France though he did add the FA Cup to his trophy collection with the Blues. At international level, Weah was unable to help Liberia reach a World Cup but he did play in two Cup of Nations, scoring against Mali in 2002. From sport to politics Weah is not the first sports star to move from the pitch to the political world. Sebastian Coe went from Olympic champion to the House of Lords, via the Commons, and is now head of athletics’ world governing body the IAAF. One of Britain’s greatest Paralympic athletes, Tanni Grey-Thompson won 11 gold, four silver and a bronze medal at five Paralympic Games. In 2005, she became a Dame and in March 2010 was made a life peer and sits in the House of Lords as Baroness GreyThompson. Cricketer Imran Khan captained Pakistan to victory at the 1992 World Cup, but he has spent the past 20 years in politics. He formed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in 1996 and has been leader of the opposition since 2013. Chess legend Garry Kasparov stood for the Russian presidency in 2007 and is an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He is
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chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. A s a b o x e r, M a n n y Pacquiao won world titles at five weights over a 12year career, with his payper-view fights earning a reported $1.2bn (£893m). But he is now a senator in the Philippines. Vitali Klitschko, the three-time world heavyweight champion boxer is mayor of Kiev in his native Ukraine. He has previously spoken of his desire to run for the country’s presidency. What was it like to play with Weah? Former Netherlands defender Mario Melchiot, who played with Weah at Chelsea, on BBC World Service. He was a great player, but also - what a person. After he came to Chelsea he walked in the dressing room and asked me: Can I sit next to you? Can you imagine? I said: ‘Dude, you can sit wherever you want’. We used to call him ‘Mr Weah’, because he was a top man. His personality and the game, together - that made him who he is today. Now, having been elected president, he has got what he has been fighting for for so long. Ex-Bermuda striker Shaun Goater was at Manchester City when Weah joined in 2000. Good luck to him, because he was brilliant. He came in and was just so humble. This was one of the world’s best players - we were just thinking: ‘My...’ When he was leaving, I was out doing extra training and I said: ‘George have you got any spare boots?’ You just wanted to have something of his. But in the dressing room everything was cleaned out. They took the lot!
Fitness comes first for returning Murray, Djokovic (Reuters) - Former world number ones Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are relishing their return to competition after serious injuries cut their last campaigns short, but the overriding aim for both players in the New Year is to stay fit and healthy. Murray, who has struggled with a persistent hip injury since the Briton’s quarterfinal exit at Wimbledon in July, pulled out of the U.S. Open and dropped to 16th in the world rankings. The 30-year-old is scheduled to participate in the Brisbane International which starts on Dec. 31 as he gears up for the Australian Open, but a season blighted by injury has changed the double Wimbledon champion’s outlook. “When I was fit and healthy last year (2016), you think about winning all the major events, getting to number one and winning every competition that you are in and that is what drives you,” Murray told Sky Sports. “When you miss four or five months and there has been a bit of uncertainty about my hip (that changes). The goals change and I remember now how much I loved playing tennis — it isn’t about winning every match I
play in the future or winning more slams. “I want to get back to playing tennis, I want to be fit and healthy and that is what is driving me just now... I was pretty unhealthy for most of this year and I am getting there but it is a slow process.” Djokovic suffered a year-long dip in form before an elbow injury forced him to retire in the Wimbledon quarter-finals. The Serb has not played competitively since and underwent surgery. “It’s been a real roller-coaster ride for me for a year and a half with this issue,” world number 12 Djokovic told Sport360 in an interview ahead of his return at the World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi. “I’ve never had surgery in my life, I’ve never had any major injuries that kept me away from the tour for such a long time... I’ve learned a lesson because I really want to avoid getting to that stage of an injury ever in my career after this. “I can’t wait to get back on the competition level but it was a great experience for me to have. And it was a somewhat necessary experience because I got maybe too comfortable with not having major injuries.”
Former Peru soccer official found not guilty in U.S. FIFA bribery case (Reuters) - Former Peru soccer federation president, Manuel Burga, was found not guilty on Tuesday of racketeering conspiracy by a U.S. jury in New York. Burga was charged along with Juan Angel Napout, the former president of the South American soccer governing body CONMEBOL and Paraguay’s soccer federation, and Jose Maria Marin, former president of Brazil’ soccer federation, with taking bribes in exchange for the award of valuable marketing and media rights to international soccer matches. The three men were the first to stand trial on charges brought by U.S. prosecutors in 2015 as part of investigations of world soccer’s governing body FIFA. Napout and Marin were both convicted on several counts on Friday, following a five-week trial in federal court in Brooklyn. The jury said at the time it was deadlocked on the single count against Burga. Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom after the verdict was read, Burga, 60, said the criminal proceeding had been an ordeal for his family and that he was eager to spend time with them in Peru. Burga’s lawyer, Bruce Udolf, said the verdict was the “right thing to do” but that he had expected Burga to be found guilty because a question posed by the jury suggested it was siding with the prosecutors. U.S. prosecutors have charged 42 people and entities in the case, at least 24 of whom have pleaded guilty. Several of those testified for prosecutors in
Former Peru FA president Manuel Burga, left, was acquitted in the FIFA bribery scandal on Tuesday. this trial, telling of corruption that went far beyond the defendants in the courtroom. Alejandro Burzaco, the former head of Argentine sports marketing company Torneos y Competencias, told jurors in November that he paid bribes to all three defendants to secure rights to matches including the Copa America and Copa Libertadores. Burzaco had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Burzaco also said that Fox Sports, Mexico’s Grupo Televisa and Brazil’s Globo paid bribes for media rights to games. Fox and Globo denied being involved in bribery, while Televisa declined to comment after Burzaco’s testimony. Burzaco also said that Qatar bribed officials of soccer’s world governing body FIFA to host the 2022 World Cup. Hassan alThawadi, secretary of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery
& Legacy, which is organizing the event, has denied the allegations. Santiago Pena, a former financial manager at Argentine sports marketing firm Full Play, walked the jury through a spreadsheet detailing what he said were payments to eight CONMEBOL officials, including Napout and Burga. The trial was marred by tragedy in its first week, when Argentine police said that Jorge Delhon, a former lawyer for the country’s Futbol Para Todos (Soccer for All), program had committed suicide after Burzaco named him in his testimony. The next day, U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen put Burga under house arrest after prosecutors said he threatened Burzaco by making a slicing motion across his throat. Udolf, Burga’s lawyer, denied that his client threatened Burzaco.