Madrid, Spain | AFP | Football icons and longtime rivals Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo joined Spanish sports stars around the world in expressing their grief after Thursday’s terror attack in Barcelona left 13 people dead. Barcelona’s most famous street Las Ramblas was packed with tourists when a van drove …
Read More »Neymar deal makes financial sense – PSG chief
Paris, France | AFP | Neymar’s world record 222 million euro ($264 million) transfer fee may look expensive, but it will end up earning a great deal of money for Paris Saint-Germain, club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi insisted Saturday. Neymar, 25, is among the world’s finest players and will help the …
Read More »Investigation begins into Senegal football stadium disaster
Shocking footage of Senegal stadium wall collapse that left eight dead Dakar, Senegal | AFP | Senegalese prosecutors on Monday announced the opening of a judicial enquiry into a stadium tragedy, as a local team whose fans were accused of triggering a deadly stampede were suspended from the country’s football federation. …
Read More »Burundi ‘peace run’ attracts 8000, say organisers
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | More than 8,000 people on Saturday took part in a “Burundi Peace Run” through the capital Bujumbura, organisers said, in a bid to show the country has overcome more than two years of political crisis. A heavy military and police contingent was on hand for …
Read More »World Cup, Olympic stadiums in Brazil corruption scandal
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | AFP | Brazil was proud of its football World Cup and Olympics stadiums, but the shame of the country’s corruption saga has engulfed even these monuments to fair play. A bribery scandal linked to construction firm Odebrecht that has swept up scores of politicians has …
Read More »ANALYSIS: No-one safe as sport becomes growing magnet for extremists
Paris, France | AFP | Three bombs hidden in a hedge that exploded when the Borussia Dortmund Champions League team passed by proved that no sporting event is now safe from a militant attack, experts said. With the Boston marathon looming on Monday — four years after it was the …
Read More »Five attacks on sporting events…memories of Munich massacre, Togo
Paris, France | AFP | Three explosions targetting the Borussia Dortmund team bus left one person injured and forced the postponement of Tuesday’s Champions League match against Monaco in Germany. Here are other attacks that have rocked sporting events. 1972 Munich Olympics massacre Eleven Israeli athletes perished at the 1972 Munich …
Read More »Year 2016: A year of big money sport deals
Paris, France | AFP | Money flooded into sport in 2016 faster than ever before and flooded out in the shape of fatter salaries for the stars who have become multi-million business brands. Paul Pogba’s world record transfer to Manchester United set the tone for a year of big money …
Read More »Year 2016: Heroes and zeros of 2016
Paris, France | AFP | AFP Sport looks back at a selection of ‘heroes’ and ‘zeros’ from 2016: THE Heroes Leicester City Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City pulled off one of the greatest shocks in English football history by defying title odds of 5,000-1 to lift the Premier League trophy. Having …
Read More »Russia ‘hijacked’ sport with mass doping, says McLaren
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Russia hijacked international sport by using more than 1,000 athletes in an “institutional conspiracy” to win medals at the Sochi and London Olympics and other global events, a top investigator said Friday. Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who has previously accused Russia of “state-sponsored” cheating, …
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