Suarez in blockbuster extention talks

BARCELONA:

European Golden Shoe winner Luis Suarez said negotiations to extend his contract with Barcelona until 2021 were running smoothly. The 29year-old, who claimed the award for a second time after finishing top scorer across Europe last season, originally joined Barcelona on a five-year deal from Liverpool in 2014. “Negotiations are moving along nicely in the right direction,” Suarez told a press conference in Uruguay, where he is preparing for a World Cup qualifier with Ecuador today. “Both parties want this deal to go through,” said the centreforward, who scored 40 Liga goals in 35 games last season and 59 goals from 53 games in all competitions. Barcelona-based sports daily El Mundo Deportivo reported yesterday the Spanish champions had offered Suarez an improved deal until June 2021, two years beyond his current contract. “Luis Suarez, ready,” read its headline, while Marca also reported the imminent deal. “His salary rise will be substantial,” said Marca. “Right now he earns 16 million euros ($17.6 million) a season, his new deal will push that to 25 million euros a season,” it added. —AFP

LONDON:

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford will appear before British politicians as part of an inquiry into antidoping practices in cycling, it was revealed yesterday. The Culture, Media and Sport select committee is looking into how British cycling has handled anti-doping issues and the use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs). Brailsford is likely to be asked about Sky’s Bradley Wiggins being granted three TUEs for the banned anti-inflammatory drug triamcinolone to treat a pollen allergy. “Sir Dave Brailsford has been one of the most senior figures in British cycling over the last 10 years and we thought it important to speak to him as part of our inquiry into how the sport has handled anti-doping issues and the ethics around TUEs,” committee chairman Damian Collins told The Times. “We are now talking to Team Sky about a date when he can come and speak to us.” Wiggins’s use of triamcinolone was revealed following a leak of his personal medical data by presumed Russian cyber hackers the Fancy Bears in September. —AFP