Said & Done: ‘They’re here to write dirty stories. That’s what depresses me most’

Vladimir Markin, Russia FA security head, on what upset him about reports of racist Spartak fans abusing Liverpool players: “Sometimes foreign media come here with the purpose to write dirty stories… That’s what depresses me most.”
• Markin’s previous on anti-Russia bias: a) reviewing a BBC Russian hooliganism film as “made-up propaganda”; b) warning western press that “Russophobia” is “just like Aids … both lead to a shameful death”; and c) tweeting to mock the French reaction to Russian hooligans at Euro 2016: “Seeing normal, real men shocks them … They’re more used to seeing their ‘men’ at gay pride parades.”
• Also last week from Russia’s FA: a two-game ban for Ararat Moscow coach Aleksandr Grigoryan for an “offensive finger gesture” aimed at Torpedo fans who called his players “black faggots”. Torpedo chairman Aleksandr Tukmanov said Grigoryan showed “open disrespect to our fans” with “conduct unbecoming of a coach, or indeed of any person. And all this on the eve of a World Cup. He paints our country in a bad light.”
Qatar 2022 head Hassan al-Thawadi, frustrated by western press coverage of more migrant worker deaths: “It is unfortunate that much of the world views us through a lens clouded by negative headlines.” His rallying message with five years to go: “No matter our creed, belief, nationality or economic status, sport brings out the best of us as individuals, and as human beings.”
Making moves last week:
• Former Concacaf head Jack Warner – losing a legal challenge in Trinidad against his extradition to the US. Warner, accused of fraud, bribery and diverting $750,000 of Haiti earthquake relief aid into his own accounts, denies all charges.
• And former Fifa vice-president and Cayman Islands FA head Jeffrey Webb, who pleaded guilty to fraud in 2015, still working on raising the $6.7m he owes under an asset forfeiture agreement. Webb’s attorneys say their client has already sold two of his US properties, but “needs more time” to sell his remaining four.
Juventus president Andrea Agnelli – elected head of the European Club Association last month. His opening play: being banned from football for a year for helping sell tickets to mafia‑linked ultras. He denies wrongdoing.
Switzerland: Former Neuchâtel Xamax owner Bulat Chagaev – losing his appeal against his three-year jail sentence for criminal mismanagement, embezzlement, tax crime, forgery and attempted fraud. Lawyers for the Chechen, who bankrupted the club eight months after taking over in 2012, argued undue media focus had “denied him a fair hearing”.
• Among his Xamax highlights: sacking all his admin staff, four coaches and a keeper; denying using armed men to threaten his players; attacking the media for getting him all wrong (“For example, I give bread to the ducks before work in the morning. A Swiss friend once asked what I expect in return for pleasing such ducks? I told him: ‘Nothing – my reward will come in heaven’”); and, after his arrest, going on hunger strike in prison to protest against inmates’ conditions. A prison source told Le Matin that Chagaev was staying strong during the strike by “still eating bread” and “borrowing cigarettes from the guards”.
Switzerland: Sion president Christian Constantin, reacting after being charged over last month’s pitch-side assault of a TV pundit who called him a “narcissist with zero empathy”. Constantin: “Will I apologise for this? As a club president of course I should. But I will not.”
• Among those upset with Constantin for damaging Swiss football’s image: Sepp Blatter, 81. “I’ve gulped when I saw it. When two schoolboys are scrapping I can understand, but this is a 60-year-old man. Such reprehensible conduct must be punished.”
Germany: Bayern president and paroled €27.2m tax evasion convict Uli Hoeness – happy with their moral victory over PSG. “People criticise us for not buying €100m players, but they should be singing our praises instead. Our success comes purely through our own work and resources.”
• Also new from Bayern – 23 Sep: chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge reveals coach Carlo Ancelotti “is not being criticised by us. For a coach it is not easy at Bayern Munich, you have to balance all the demands. But if anyone can do it, it’s our Carlo.” 28 Sep: Sacks him.
Germany: Bert Ehm – coach of fifth-tier Teutonia 05 – sacked after he ended a press conference with the phrase “Sieg Heil”. Ehm, 70, called the moment “a giant error on my part … I’m no National Socialist. Those words just kind of tumbled out of me.”
Malawi: Southern Region club Nchalo United, upset after losing a cup tie despite bribing four match officials with $20. United complained to authorities after the officials “only refunded $15”; head of referees Chris Kalichero said all four would be banned for life: “They did a very bad thing to soccer lovers in Malawi. They lost their human dignity.”
Germany: Fifth-tier KFC Uerdingen, holding auditions for a new mascot suit wearer, six months after their previous Grotifant the Elephant, Andreas Bosheck, was censured for referee abuse. Bosheck was also warned in 2015 after he went into a stand to “beat” a fan who pulled his head off by the trunk: “The fan said sorry but I was feeling angry. I just wanted it back.”

SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94