Olympics committee offers their apology
Leicester manager Claude Puel appeared to rule Mahrez out of today’s match on Thursday, but opened the door for his return for the rest of the season.
“I think Riyad is not available for Saturday’s game. I hope he can come back and work hard with the team sooner rather than later, of course, we will see,” said the Frenchman.
Mahrez was crowned players’ player of the year during Leicester’s remarkable title-winning campaign in 2015-16, scoring 17 Premier League goals and then signed a four-year deal to help lead their Champions League charge.
Other heroes of Leicester’s titlewinning triumph – N’Golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater – have been allowed to leave the club and join Chelsea with less resistance. — PYEONGCHANG Olympic organisers said they had apologised to Iran yesterday after a diplomatic furore over its athletes being denied special Samsung phones issued for the Games.
The head of the Pyeongchang organising committee, Lee Hee-beom, confirmed he had written to the Iranian team “to apologise for the misunderstanding“.
The problem started on Wednesday, when Games organisers said Iranian and North Korean athletes would be refused the Galaxy Note 8 devices from sponsor Samsung, loaded with essential logistical and competition information.
Although the organisers later backtracked, it sparked anger in Iran, where Samsung has a major commercial presence, and its athletes refused to accept the phones until there was a full apology.
The source of the misunderstanding was not explained.
The committee had initially claimed the phones were denied “because of existing UN sanctions“, even though all UN sanctions on Iran were lifted in 2015 apart from those linked to arms and nuclear technology.
Samsung billboards and flagship stores are seen all over Iran, and the South Korean company has sponsored many large-scale cultural events, including the current exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
Samsung sought to distance itself from the spat, saying in a statement that it was “not responsible for the distribution of the phones” and referring questions to Olympics organisers.
Prior to the apology, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Telecoms Minister MohammadJavad Azari Jahromi was looking into the issue, and was considering whether to block imports of Samsung phones.
Although this was not confirmed, the report appeared to trigger a series of “No to Samsung” protests on Twitter.
“If I were a famous person, in response to Samsung’s big insult, I would have thrown my Samsung mobile away on camera, and would have asked other famous people to join me,” wrote one Twitter user.
Others had a more light-hearted response, with one saying he had slammed the door of his Samsung fridge particularly hard after hearing the news. —