Amiri gift offered to HH Amir Cup top four
Guangzhou denied victory by last-gasp Frontale
KUWAIT CITY, March 14, (Agencies): The Kuwait Football Association (KFA) on Monday held a ceremony to honor the top four teams of the soccer Amir Cup (55th edition) — Kuwait, Kazma, Qadsiya and Tadamon, offering them an Hh the Amiri gift.
During the ceremony, patronized by Acting Director General of Public Authority for Youth and Sports (PAYS) Hamoud Fulaiteh, footballers, referees and match commissioners were honored.
Addressing the ceremony, deputy head of the interim committee in charge of the KFA Saad Al-Houti, stressed keenness on encouraging Kuwaiti athletes work harder for more achievements.
Kuwait won the title of the 20162017 season after defeating Kazma 4-2 in the final.
HH the Amir Cup was launched in the 1961-1962 season;Qadsiya won it 16 times, Al-Arabi 15, Kuwait 12, Kazma 7. Each of Al-Salmiya and Al-Yarmouk won the title twice, and Fahaheel only once.
Big-spending Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande was held to a 1-1 draw in the Asian Champions League on Tuesday after conceding an injury-time penalty against Japanese team Kawasaki Frontale.
Yu Kobayashi scored from the spot in the fifth minute of injury time at Tianhe Stadium after Yu Hanchao had handled in the area.
Guangzhou, the six-time defending Chinese league champions coached by Luiz Felipe Scolari, took the lead in the first half of the Group G match when Brazilian midfielder Alan Carvalho scored from the edge of the area. Guangzhou and Suwon Bluewings both have five points in the group. The South Korean club beat Hong Kong team Eastern SC 1-0.
In Group E, Brisbane Roar lost to Kashima Antlers 3-0 in Japan. The ALeague’s three representatives have yet to win a game in this year’s competition.
Thai club Muangthong United continued its impressive form to move second behind Kashima after a 0-0 draw at 2012 Asian champion Ulsan Horangi. In the western half of the tournament, 2016 finalist Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates was held to a 2-2 draw by Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia. Also, Iranian club Esteghlal beat Uzbek team Lokomotiv Tashkent 2-0 to move into first place in Group A.
Kobayashi
Divisions of US media companies Twenty-First Century Fox Inc and Time Warner Inc won a joint contract to broadcast Argentine soccer matches for five years from next season, the Argentine Football Association said on Tuesday. Fox Sports Latin America, a unit of Fox, and Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting System Latin America Inc won a three-way race for television broadcast rights against the United States’ ESPN and Spanish company MediaPro.
Terms of the deal were not released, but local media reported that Fox and Turner would pay $206 million per year and some $77.2 million as a guarantee. The channels will begin broadcasting when the 2017-18 season begins later this year.
The companies will also take on the court case brought by Argentine media company Grupo Clarin SA against the soccer association, which sold ownership rights to the federal government for its subsidized, freeto-view Futbol para Todos (Soccer for All) program in 2009.
Former left-wing President Christina Fernandez’s move to bring topflight matches into the households of soccer-obsessed Argentines for free was widely considered a political masterstroke and emblematic of her populist policymaking during her eight years in power.
The new center-right government of President Mauricio Macri, a former chairman of top club Boca Juniors who took office in December 2015, made a deal with the association last month to rescind the contract, which had been due to run until 2019.