Sir Alex Ferguson compares Luis Su rez case with Eric Cantona ban
Sir Alex Ferguson has said Liverpool are right to feel aggrieved over the length of Luis’s arez’s ban.
Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested Liverpool will be glad they did not ban Luis Su rez themselves before the Football Association’s 10-game suspension for the striker, with the Scot claiming the governing body cannot be trusted.
Ferguson pointed to how Eric Cantona was prohibited from playing for nine months by the FA for kicking a Crystal Palace fan in 1995 having allegedly first promised Manchester United that a club ban would suffice.
Speaking before Su rez decided on Friday to accept the 10-match tariff for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, Ferguson said: “I think back to Cantona and I have to say that a nine-month ban doesn’t equate to a 10-match, does it? I can understand how Liverpool are aggrieved at it, I must say that.
I keep going back to Cantona the FA done us that day, we would never allow that to happen now.
I would never have listened to them in the first place saying that if ‘you make your punishment we’ll be happy’.
“We did that, gave him a four-month ban and then they turned round two or three days later, and said: ‘Right, we’re charging him.’ We would never allow that to happen again at this club.” Asked if this was why Liverpool did not choose to levy their own ban on Su rez, Ferguson said: “I’ll bet they’re glad they didn’t.
It didn’t work with us, that’s for sure.
David Davies then the FA’s spokesman promised us that, if we did it, there’d be no more action taken bloody hell.
If you think about it a nine-month ban, its quite incredible, I still can’t get round that.” It is understood that Davies has always maintained that he was in no position to give assurances regarding any FA action over Cantona and that he never communicated directly with Ferguson during the episode.
After winning the club’s 20th title on Monday Ferguson believes the club’s commercial growth over the past few years puts them in prime position to dominate over the coming seasons.
“Having spoken with the Glazer family the owners I think there’s every intention we want to kick on, yeah,” he said.
“Absolutely.
I hope so.
It has been fantastic and that’s credit to the commercial people, they’ve done a great job and of course the football team has been platform for that.
But they’re capitalising on such a great profile of the club there’s no doubt, worldwide it seems to me to be getting bigger.” United’s cut of the new 5.5bn television deal, plus tie-ups with Nike, Aon and Chevrolet means they can expect even greater revenues in the immediate future.
“We’re happy where we are at the moment that’s for sure,” Ferguson said.
“We’ve attracted some really good sponsors, interesting and valuable partnerships because all the sponsors we’re combining with have got the same philosophies as ourselves in terms of trying to make their product the best in their business that’s what we’re trying to do.” Ferguson believes that United may need only two players to strengthen this summer.
“I don’t think that we need to rebuild at all possibly two players, if possible.
It depends of course.If a player came along that we felt met our criteria, I think we’d push the boat out and get him irrespective of how many players we had,” the Scot said.
He praised Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski, who scored all the German club’s goals in their 4-1 win over Real Madrid in Wednesday evening’s Champions League semi-final first leg.
“To score four goals in a game of that nature against Real Madrid is wonderful,” said Ferguson of the striker for whom he has previously stated his admiration but who may join Bayern Munich this summer according to reports in Germany..
Ferguson is also happy that Arsenal will form a guard of honour for United when they play against Ars ne Wenger’s side at the Emirates on Sunday afternoon.
Some home fans may vilify the returning Robin van Persie but Ferguson said: “I don’t think Robin should be bothered about it.
There was a bit of booing when we played them at Old Trafford and I think you expect a portion of the fans will do that.
That’s the modern society I’m afraid.
I’m glad that Ars ne has done that guard of honour because when Arsenal came to Old Trafford some years back we did exactly that and that’s what great clubs should do.”
BHA will not break down 2012 drug test figures for Godolphin
Certify, one of 15 horses from the Mahmood al-Zarooni stable banned for use of anabolic steroids, passed two tests in 2012.
Photograph: PA The British Horseracing Authority has refused to divulge how many Godolphin horses have been tested for banned substances in the past two years, despite this week banning 15 of the stable’s horses for six months and effectively casting the shamed trainer Mahmood al-Zarooni from the sport.
While the BHA publishes figures showing how many raceday tests have been carried out in each calendar year, it said it would not break down the figures any further despite the shadow hanging over the world’s biggest bloodstock operation.
It is understood that Certify, the winter favourite for the 1,000 Guineas who was one of 15 horses banned, after being given anabolic steroids by Zarooni, was tested twice last year and was clean both times.
The BHA also confirmed that both Godolphin yards in Newmarket one under the aegis of Zarooni and the other under Saeed Bin Suroor had been visited for “in training” testing in the past “few years” and no horses had tested positive.
The sport’s governing body also said it was unrealistic to expect the winner of every race to be tested hence it was inevitable that not every Godolphin winner would have been tested during the past two years.
“We test horses from every race but not always the winner,” said a BHA spokesman.
“What I can say is that the winner of every major race almost certainly would have been tested.” The BHA’s figures show that of 90,174 runners in 2012, it conducted 7,182 raceday tests 14 of which were positive.
It has pointed to those figures as evidence that racing does not have an endemic problem.
Yet only 600-700 out-of-competition tests were carried out in 2012 as part of the BHA’s “testing in training” sampling programme.
Again, it would not break down where these tests were targeted.
“There could be a number of reasons why a yard could be idenitified for testing in training but we do not disclose the strategy for this,” said the BHA.
In non-equine sport the direction of travel has been towards increased out-of-competition testing at short notice, leading to the development of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s “wherebouts” programme.
The BHA said it was too early to say whether or not its out-of-competition testing regime would be improved as a result of the scandal, pointing instead to the statement by Paul Bittar, its chief executive, in the wake of the ruling on Thursday that it would “identify further areas for consideration” to be incorporated into its sampling strategy.
The BHA is now testing the remaining horses (around 150 in number) at Zarooni’s Moulton Paddocks yard.
However, the horses in Bin Suroor’s stable, where the rest of Godolphin’s 300-plus horses are trained, will not be tested.
The case has highlighted the inconsistencies in the approach to drugs taken by the various racing jurisdictions around the world with the BHA’s so-called “zero tolerance” stance, which bans the use of steroids in races and training, far from standard.
As racing becomes more international, those inconsistencies are likely to be thrown into sharper relief and, unlike other sports, there is no global harmonised code.
In Australia it is legal to use steroids in training and in Dubai it is legal to administer steroids before a horse goes into training.
In the US steroids have been routinely used since the 1960s and they remain legal for use in training in most states.
While Bittar’s statement on Thursday said that the BHA would raise the issue again with its international counterparts, on Friday he said it was unlikely that Australia would change its rules and admitted that Britain was unlikely to do anything that would force it to do so.
“It’s unlikely that will happen but even though the rules in Australia are different from Britain, and we might take a view that we’re comfortable with our rules and they’re the best in world, we have to respect that the way horses are trained and the way they are treated in their home jurisdictions is under the auspices of those rules,” he said.
“If those horses come here, they will be drug-tested, either post-race or in the lead-up to the race, and the drugs may well have cleared the system.
In that case it seems a slight anomaly but I don’t think it would ever shift us to a position where we stop overseas horses coming in.” A spokesman for Ascot, at the forefront of trying to encourage big-name horses from overseas to race in the UK over recent years, said it was “becoming a massive issue” and something the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities should put “as a No1 priority for discussion”.
But he said the course would continue to try to attract horses from abroad.
“As long as everyone is operating within the rules, there is no reason not to encourage horses to travel,” he said.
Chicago Bulls take NBA playoff series lead over Brooklyn Nets
Brooklyn Nets’ Kris Humphries looks disconsolate during their NBA Eastern Conference first round playoff Game Three defeat against the Chicago Bulls.
Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters The Chicago Bulls held off a late rally by the Brooklyn Nets to take control of their best-of-seven NBA playoff series.
The Bull won 79-76 to take a 2-1 series lead heading into Saturday’s Game Four in Chicago.
The Memphis Grizzlies climbed back into their series with the Los Angeles Clippers, winning Game Three 94-82 after losing the first two games in LA.
The Miami Heat are close to sweeping the Milwaukee Bucks aside after taking a 3-0 series lead.
Ray Allen scored 23 points and broke the NBA career playoff record for 3-pointers, as the Heat used another of their patented runs to beat the Milwaukee Bucks 104-91 on Thursday.
The Heat can complete the sweep in Game Four on Sunday at the Bradley Center.
No team has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a series in the NBA playoffs.
Allen’s five 3-pointers against the Bucks gave him 322 for his career, two more than Reggie Miller.
LeBron James added 22 points for the Heat, and Chris Bosh had 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Dwyane Wade scored only four points, but had 11 assists.
Larry Sanders and Brandon Jennings led the Bucks with 16 points each.
In Chicago Carlos Boozer had 22 points and 16 rebounds, Luol Deng added 21 points and 10 boards.
The Bulls had no field goals and two foul shots in the final 5:46 of the game, but still managed to beat the Nets for the second time in the postseason.
Brooklyn shot just 35 percent for the second straight game.
Brook Lopez had 22 points and nine rebounds, and Deron Williams finished with 18 points on 5-for-14 shooting.
In Memphis Zach Randolph had 27 points and 11 rebounds as the Bucks pulled the series back to 1-2.
Memphis snapped the Clippers’ nine-game winning streak by outrebounding and dominating on second-chance points, the same things Los Angeles did so well on its home court to start the series.
Marc Gasol accepted his trophy as the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year before tipoff, then scored 16 points.
Blake Griffin scored 16 points for the Clippers.
Chris Paul had eight points on 4-of-11 shooting and added six assists.
Game Four is on Saturday in Memphis.
Usada accuses UCI of failing to act on drugs video
The chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, talks to reporters after presenting evidence to an anti-doping commission in Paris on Thursday.
He criticises cycling’s international governing body, the UCI, for failing to take decisive action against doping in cycling.
Tygart also condemns Lance Armstrong’s refusal to co-operate with Usada Source: SNTV Length: 1min 25sec Friday 26 April 2013
Ryan Harris gives Australia fresh scare ahead of Ashes series
The Australian seam bowler Ryan Harris, who has a history of injuries, has had to fly home from the IPL.
Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images Australia have suffered a major injury scare hours after naming their Ashes squad as the fast bowler Ryan Harris has flown home from the Indian Premier League with an achilles problem.
Harris was one of the five specialist seamers included in Australia’s squad who are thought to represent the most serious threat to England this summer.
But now the 33-year-old, who has a long history of injuries including an ankle problem that ruled him out of the fifth Test of the last Ashes series after he had played a key part in Australia’s third Test win in Perth must convince the medical staff of Cricket Australia that he will be fit to join the tour.
According to Brisbane’s Courier Mail, the Queensland bowler suffered the injury after making three IPL appearances for Kings XI Punjab.
Australia already have another of their five quicks, Mitchell Starc, in recovery after leaving their disastrous tour of India early to have an ankle operation.
Danny Cipriani spends night in hospital after being hit by bus in Leeds
Sale Sharks’ Danny Cipriani spent the night in hospital after being hit by a bus in Leeds on a night out with his team-mates.
Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA Sale Sharks fly-half Danny Cipriani has spent the night in hospital after being hit by a double-decker bus in Leeds.
The 25-year-old is understood to have been on a night out with his Sharks’ team-mates.
He suffered concussion and was kept in hospital overnight where X-rays were carried out.
No further details are currently available on his condition.
Cipriani’s manager James Williamson told The Sun on Wednesday night: “Danny’s spending the night in hospital.
X-rays and scans will be carried out overnight.” Cipriani, who has seven England caps, signed for second-bottom Sale in February 2012 and has made 16 Premiership appearances for the club after returning home following a stint in Australia with the Melbourne Rebels.
Cipriani made his full international debut against Ireland in March 2008, but lost his place when Martin Johnson was in charge of the England team.
London Marathon observes silence for Boston bomb victims video
Runners and spectators at the London Marathon hold a 30-second silence in memory of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombs.
Security at the London event is tighter than usual after Monday’s attack, which left three dead and others injured.
Many of the 36,000 marathon competitors are wearing black ribbons as a sign of solidarity for those caught up in the Massachusetts attack Source: Reuters Length: 47 sec Sunday 21 April 2013
The London marathon – how it made us want to run further, faster, fiercer
In 1979 Chris Brasher, an Olympic steeplechase champion, travelled to New York to run the city’s marathon.
It was a trip that left an immediate impression on an athlete who, having been a pacemaker for Sir Roger Bannister when he broke the four-minute mile, was not someone easily impressed.
“Last Sunday,” Brasher wrote in the Observer , “in one of the most violent, trouble-stricken cities in the world, 11,532 men, women and children from 40 countries of the world, assisted by 2.5 million black, white and yellow people, Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Confucians laughed, cheered and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen.” After lobbying the relevant authorities, Brasher helped to launch the London marathon.
When it began in 1981, he had hoped around 4,000 would turn out to race.
On the day 7,000 started and most finished.
Brasher, then aged 52, completed the race in less than three hours.
The marathon, after several wobbles, has become the capital’s biggest single-day festival.
For the Virgin London Marathon, about 37,000 people will take part, cheered on by more than half a million spectators.
But the event has had a profound influence that stretches far beyond the confines of the M25.
Prior to London, distance running had simply been for the athletics elite.
London brought running to the masses.
That legacy has mutated over the last 30 years as, buoyed by London’s success, running clubs, companies, cities and parks have sought to stage their own long-distance running events, creating an increasingly crowded and eclectic field.
The Runner’s World database recorded 145 full marathons in the UK last year, almost three times the 50 held in 2003.
The number of half marathons over the same period rose from 189 to 336.
There has also been a huge rise in the number of 10km races, while the success of the free 5km Park Run series has led tens of thousands more people to participate in an organised running event for the first time.
In total, the database recorded 3,517 races distance races last year, compared to 2,014 in 2003.
The mainstream events have spawned outliers in the form of ultra marathons (those more than 26.2 miles) and extreme, obstacle-littered races that sell themselves on the sheer levels of pain they can inflict on competitors.
Themed races, such as the Rock’n'Roll series, and Nike’s Run to the Beat, both set to live music, are hugely popular.
The more astute organisers have turned their races into festivals mini Glastonburys or Latitudes that provide facilities and activities not just for competitors but their families.
The popular Loch Ness marathon weekend is more than 10 years old and boasts 9,000 runners (more than 10 times the original number), who compete over 26.2 miles, 10 and five kilometres and, in the case of the under 5s, 400m.
“We are very much a destination event,” said Malcolm Sutherland, the race director.
“People will come for the weekend and go on and then do something else, like the whisky trail.” Organising the Loch Ness marathon is a full-time job for Sutherland and his team, a sign of how the sport is moving from an amateur era into a more corporate one.
But the plethora of races raises questions about whether the running bubble could burst.
“It’s not cheap, putting on a marathon,” Sutherland conceded.
“Some will find themselves unable to continue.” But such concerns do not deter others from entering a crowded field.
Newcomer Xtremerunning.co.uk will stage its first obstacle race, run over either five or 10 kilometres, this June at Gloucester Park in Essex.
“The people who come to us are those who’ve done a triathlon or have attended boot camps exercise classes run by military fitness instructors,” said Brian Lee, its co-founder.
“They’re looking for something more.
We get a lot of interest from people talking on Facebook or Twitter.” The increasing popularity of such events, powered in part by social media, may help explain why more people are running.
The government’s latest Active People Survey, published last December, revealed that, for the first time, more than 2 million adults now take part in athletics each week.
Some have suggested that the economic climate is playing a part.
The rising cost of gym membership has led more people to take exercise on trails and roads, rewarding themselves with a race as a training goal.
Others can see an almost spiritual dimension.
“As the recession continues to bite into our finances, we are turning to cultural events to affirm our unity rather than our individuality,” said Ellis Cashmore, a professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University.
“Today’s event marathons are secular equivalents of Diwali or Eid al-Fitr.” Whatever the reason, the mass appeal of running has turned hitherto anonymous runners into rock stars.
Distance runner Scott Jurek is now feted by sportswear companies, while athletics brands compete to put on high-profile races.
Purists gripe that their sport is being commercialised.
But Kym McConnell, the author of Extreme Running , a book that examines 24 races on seven continents, said they were the minority.
“People are just grateful that the races can survive,” McConnell said, pointing out that the popular London to Brighton run has returned only recently after being disbanded in 2006.
The trend now is for people to run further, faster, fiercer.
The Mont Blanc all-night race had 200 competitors when it started seven years ago.
Last year 2,000 competed and 10 times that many tried to enter.
The number of UK ultras recorded by Runner’s World rose from 29 in 2003 to 156 last year.
For Bannister, the trend makes perfect sense.
“The more restricted our society and work becomes,” he once said, “the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom.”
Arsenal’s Ars ne Wenger criticises Everton for going ‘over the edge’
The Arsenal manager, Ars ne Wenger, felt Everton’s Darron Gibson should have been sent off for fouling Theo Walcott.
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Ars ne Wenger accused Everton of going “over the edge” to intimidate Arsenal at the Emirates and was critical of the referee, Neil Swarbrick, for failing to dismiss the visitors’ Darron Gibson as a goalless draw hindered both clubs’ pursuit of a top-four place.
Gibson was booked for a foul on Theo Walcott and, six minutes later, shoulder-barged the England forward but received only a verbal warning for the second offence.
Tempers boiled over from a fractious first half as the teams went off at half-time, with Kevin Mirallas squirting water at Jack Wilshere to prompt a m l e in the tunnel.
No cards were shown by the referee and it remains to be seen whether the incident warrants inclusion in his match report to be filed to the Football Association.
Wenger’s frustrations at Everton’s perceived strong-arm tactics lingered after the final whistle.
“It’s a part of the game, and we had to deal with it, but the referee has to make the right decisions,” he said.
“Basically the game was very intense physically.
I felt that in the first half the referee didn’t deal at all well with the intimidating physical challenges.
“We responded well to the physicality.
We had fantastic commitment.
It was detrimental to the fluency of our game but we kept going, had good concentration.
It was a game of huge intensity, a fight for both teams.
They decided to make it very physical for us to disturb our game and sometimes went over the edge but I don’t blame Everton.
The referee had to make the right decision.” Asked whether he thought Gibson should have been dismissed, Wenger said: “Yes.
I don’t know why he was not booked for a second time, honestly.
But he should have had a yellow card already before the first one.” Everton’s manager, David Moyes, praised his side’s approach.
“Do you mean when we were a little bit rough with the tackling?” he said.
“Up north we do that quite often.
That’s actually allowed in football.
We weren’t going to come here and let Arsenal stroke the ball around and make 600 passes.
I thought Ars ne was complaining quite a lot to the fourth official.
Was I upset? I just thought it was quite a lot.” Neither manager admitted to witnessing the trouble in the tunnel.
The draw leaves Arsenal in third place, two points clear of Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, with those sides having two games and one game in hand respectively.
Wenger claimed his charges remain “in a strong position” in that race for Champions League qualification, even if the stalemate constituted two points dropped.
“If we win our coming games we’ll get there,” he said.
“The other teams have 58 with a game in hand but they play each other.
My belief was always strong and still is.
I’m confident we’ll do it.” Moyes, in contrast, claimed he would accept a Europa League place if it was offered to Everton now.
“For us to overhaul an Arsenal, Tottenham or a Chelsea if I said much different, you’d think ‘He’s not right, him,’” he added.
“I would take it, but I’m going to try and get Champions League.
If we’re still getting that mention in mid-April, it’s not bad for Everton.”
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