Spain’s ex-coach Lopetegui to be presented at Real Madrid
Ghana great to help run football after bribery scandal
MADRID, June 14, (Agencies): Just a day after he was sacked on the eve of the World Cup, former Spain coach Julen Lopetegui arrived in Madrid on Thursday where he will be officially presented as Real Madrid’s new manager.
Lopetegui landed at Madrid’s Barajas airport just before 5 am (0300 GMT). He will be officially presented as Real new coach for the next three seasons at an event at the Spanish giants’ Santiago Bernabeu stadium at 7 pm (1700 GMT), the club said in a statement.
“I am very sad, but we have a magnificent team and hopefully we’ll win the World Cup,” Lopetegui told reporters on his departure from Spain’s training base in Krasnodar on Wednesday.
Spain’s World Cup preparations were thrown into turmoil on Wednesday as Real Madrid-bound coach Julen Lopetegui was sacked by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), with Fernando Hierro taking charge just two days before their opening game in Russia.
Former Ghana captain
Abedi Pele has been appointed to help run football in the country in the wake of a corruption scandal that saw the government dissolve the sport’s governing body.
Pele, a three-time African footballer of the year who played most of his club football in Europe, was named in a five-member interim committee to manage the sport.
Other members include businessman Kofi Amoah and the president of the Ghana League Clubs Association Cudjoe Fianoo, according to a government statement on Wednesday.
Another member is Osei Kofi, who played for Ghana in the 1960s and is now
Lopetegui
a church minister.
Bosnian police on Thursday arrested Zdravko Mamic, a fugitive ex-boss of soccer club Dinamo Zagreb, on a warrant from Croatia which has sentenced him to 6-1/2 years in prison for tax evasion and siphoning off profits from player transfers.
Mamic, who holds dual Croatian and Bosnian citizenship, was sentenced in absentia last week after he had fled to Bosnia. He denied any wrongdoing and said that he aimed to stay in Bosnia to fight for his innocence.
“Mamic was arrested and he will be handed over to Bosnia’s state prosecutor in the course of the day,” a spokeswoman for Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) said.
The prospect of working with Liverpool great Steven Gerrard was a major factor in Connor Goldson agreeing to become Rangers’ sixth signing of the summer, the former Brighton & Hove Albion defender has said.
The 25-year-old, who had a heart operation early last year that saw him sidelined until December, had signed a four-year deal, the club said, with local media reporting a transfer fee of around 3 million pounds.
Goldson is the second central defender signed by the Scottish side this week after they paid a reported 2 million pounds for Nikola Katic from Croatia’s Slaven Belupo on Tuesday.
Broadcaster Sky and sports media group Perform won the rights to screen top-flight Serie A football matches in Italy until 2021 for more than 973 million euros ($1.2 billion) per season, Italy’s soccer league chairman said.
Sky and Perform outbid Mediaset, Italy’s biggest commercial broadcaster, which had strained its finances to buy rights in the previous three-year tender.
“The sale of TV rights has finally reached a conclusion,” league Chairman Gaetano Micciche said.
The league had been trying for a year to auction the rights for 20182021.
European pay-TV firm Sky said it had secured exclusive rights to broadcast live 266 matches in Italy every season, or seven out of 10 Serie A games being played on a given day.