Blatter, Platini claim innocence in FIFA fraud trial
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini strongly reiterated their innocence as the two former soccer leaders were questioned on day two of their criminal trial on charges of defrauding FIFA.
Blatter was due to testify on the opening day on Wednesday but the former FIFA president said he was bothered by chest pains and asked to respond the following morning.
“I feel much better, thank you,” the 86-year-old Blatter said at the start of Thursday’s session at the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland in Bellinzona.
Blatter’s 17-year reign as president came to an end in June 2015, when he resigned amid a corruption scandal. A few months later, federal prosecutors in Switzerland revealed their investigation into a $2 million payment from FIFA to Platini from four years earlier.
The fallout from the case also ended Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor and removed the France soccer great as president of UEFA.
Both have always denied wrongdoing and have also long questioned how the disputed payment came to light.
Thursday’s final witness, former federal prosecutor Olivier Thormann gave testimony that was widely anticipated.
Blatter and Platini claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for the latter to be paid 1 million Swiss francs ($1.02 million) to serve as advisor to Blatter if he was elected as FIFA president. That defense first failed with judges at the FIFA ethics committee, which banned them from soccer, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Platini’s contract with FIFA, signed in August 1999, was for 300,000 Swiss francs ($312,000) annually and backdated to January. It is claimed Blatter said he would pay only the same as FIFA’s then-secretary general, and promised the balance later.
“In the verbal contract we didn’t determine the date he would get it, it was a contract between men, and we started work immediately. I didn’t give him a precise time when he would get it,” Blatter said.
•Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah was voted as men’s player of the year by his fellow professionals in England for the second time, while Chelsea striker Sam Kerr won the women’s award on Thursday.
Salah became only the seventh man to win the Professional Footballers’ Association award more than once after a season in which he scored 23 goals in the Premier League — tied for first with Tottenham’s Son Heung-min — and had a league-leading 14 assists.
Kerr was the top scorer in the Women’s Super League with 20 goals to help Chelsea to the title, with the team also winning the FA Cup.
She is the first Australian player, male or female, to win the award.
Wimbledon prize money at $50.5M
Wimbledon will offer a record total of 40.3 million pounds ($50.5 million) in player compensation, but the singles champions will receive less than the prepandemic amount.
The prize money excluding per diems totals a record 38.9 million pounds ($48.8 million), the All England Club announced Thursday. The men’s and women’s singles winners will each earn 2 million pounds ($2.5 million),
Ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter says he is innocent of fraud at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
which is 14.9% less than in 2019.
The overall prize money is an 11% increase over last year, when crowd capacity was reduced because of coronavirus restrictions, and a 5.4% increase over 2019.
The oldest Grand Slam tournament begins June 27.
• The ATP men’s professional tennis tour announced reforms Thursday that include expansion of five Masters 1000 events and 50-50 profit sharing between players and tournaments starting next year.
Changes approved by the ATP Board also include increased prize money, all the result of more than two years of negotiations.
The “OneVision” phase one plan hopes to increase profits by aggregating tournament revenue into ATP Media and the tour’s Tennis Data Innovations.”
Players will receive audited tournament financials for the first time and “a ground-breaking 50-50 profit sharing formula will align the interests of players and tournaments in growing the game as partners in success.”
Starting next year, Masters events in Madrid, Rome and Shanghai will grow from eight-day competitions to 12 days in line with Indian Wells and Miami. Beginning in 2025, the Canada and Cincinnati events will similarly expand.
Prize money at the five expanded events will increase by more than 35%, the ATP said.
• Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray defeated seventh-seeded Alexander Bublik 6-3, 7-6 (4) on Thursday to reach the Stuttgart Open quarterfinals.
The 35-year-old Murray dropped his intensity in the second set but saved three set points as he rallied from 5-2 down to win in 1 hour, 42 minutes.
Murray’s bid to reach the Stuttgart semifinals will be tested next by the topseeded Stefanos Tsitsipas or Swiss qualifier Dominic Stricker.
Also, home favorite Oscar Otte upset fourth-seeded Denis Shapovalov 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4) to reach his third quarterfinal this year. The German next faces French player Benjamin Bonzi.
• Top-seeded Maria Sakkari recovered from a poor start to beat Rebecca Marino in three sets on Thursday and reach the quarterfinals of the Nottingham Open on another rain-affected day at the grass-court event.
The Greek player won 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 to keep alive her bid for a second WTA title, after the Morocco Open on clay in May 2019.
Sakkari will next play seventh-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, who defeated Yuriko Miyazaki 6-2, 7-6 (4).
Lasitskene calls out ban on athletes
Olympic champion high jumper Maria Lasitskene, likely to be banned
from defending her three straight world titles next month, lashed out at the leaders of the IOC and World Athletics, and expressed sympathy for her Ukrainian competitors in a heartfelt open letter distributed Thursday.
Lasitskene will likely be kept out of the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, because of a World Athletics decision to bar all Russians in wake of the country’s war against Ukraine.
This year World Athletics plans to ban all Russians, barring a late and unexpected end to the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the start of the war, the IOC recommended international sports federations ban Russian and Belarusian athletes.
Lasitskene’s open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach criticizes his recommendation to ban Russian athletes as a way of protecting them from possible backlash at worldwide events.
Olympics basketball plan criticized
Most basketball games at the Paris Olympics could be played a threehour journey outside the host city, a plan criticized Wednesday by the sport’s governing body trying to get a better deal for players.
Paris organizers have struggled to find agreement on a suitable basketball venue for games before the medal rounds at the 2024 Summer Games, and the latest proposal is the soccer stadium in Lille — about 130 miles (210 kilometers) from Paris.
The previous plan was to use an arena in the capital, but that venue was dropped in March amid a backlash by NBA players from France who said the ceiling was too low for basketball.
“We don’t feel that our athletes should be subject to the conditions we currently have on the table,” Andreas Zagklis, secretary general of world basketball body FIBA, told Paris officials Wednesday stressing “serious concerns” and citing three changes of venue plans in five years.
Jabari Smith did the first of his two planned pre-NBA draft workouts on Thursday, the former Auburn All-American going through drills for the Magic — the team that holds the No. 1 pick for the June 23 draft. His other workout will be for Oklahoma City
The New York Giants canceled practice after holding a team meeting on Thursday, wrapping up a mandatory three-day minicamp.
The team said it was holding an organizational function instead of a practice. That means the next time the Giants and coach Brian Daboll will get together on the field will be July 26, when the team reports for the start of training camp.