Category Archives: Football

Southampton pledge bans after fans detained for ‘mocking’ Emiliano Sala

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• Two men filmed making plane gestures during Cardiff game
• Fan behaviour back in spotlight after four arrests at Watford

Police have detained two Southampton fans who appeared to mock the death of the Cardiff striker Emiliano Sala, on a day when unrelated incidents put fan disorder back in the spotlight.

At St Mary’s, two men were filmed apparently making plane gestures during Southampton’s defeat to Cardiff in reference to the crash which killed Sala and left the light aircraft’s pilot, David Ibbotson, missing.

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Rio declares three days of mourning after fire kills 10 teenage footballers

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Flamengo president says it is ‘the worst tragedy to happen to the club in its 123 years’

Rio de Janeiro has declared three days of mourning as investigators seek to determine the cause of the fire that killed 10 teenage footballers at the training centre of the city’s Flamengo football club on Friday morning.

Cláudio Castro, the vice governor of Rio de Janeiro state, said authorities were looking at the possibility of a short circuit in an air conditioning unit.

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Emiliano Sala: family of missing pilot launch fundraiser to continue search

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David Ibbotson, who was flying light aircraft that crashed in Channel, has not been found

The family of the missing pilot of the plane carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala have set up a fundraising page for donations to restart a search for him.

Sala’s body was recovered and formally identified earlier this week but David Ibbotson, who was flying the light aircraft, has not been found.

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Fire at Flamengo football training centre kills 10 people

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Rio de Janeiro firefighters confirm fatalities at Ninho de Urubu ground

Ten people have been killed and at least three injured in a fire at the training centre of the Rio de Janeiro football club Flamengo.

Firefighters were called to the blaze at the Ninho de Urubu training ground just after 5am on Friday, a fire official told the Associated Press.

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Body recovered from wreckage of Emiliano Sala’s plane

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Authorities yet to confirm if remains are those of missing footballer or pilot David Ibbotson

A body has been recovered from the wreckage of the plane that crashed in the Channel with footballer Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson on board, three days after the aircraft was found.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has not said whether the body is that of the Argentinian striker or that of the pilot, following their disappearance on 21 January.

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Emiliano Sala search: investigators spot body in plane wreckage

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Underwater search reveals one occupant visible amid wreckage

One of the occupants of the plane that crashed carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala has been spotted by air investigators who have been carrying out underwater searches.

The UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) said it was considering its next steps in consultation with the families of Sala and the pilot, David Ibbotson, and the police.

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Emiliano Sala: missing Premier League footballer’s plane found

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The plane carrying the missing Cardiff City player and pilot David Ibbotson has been found

The wreckage of the plane that vanished with the footballer Emiliano Sala on board has been found within hours of a search starting in the sea off the Channel Islands.

A search boat hired privately by Sala’s Argentinian family – thanks partly to a crowdfunding appeal – located the wreckage on Sunday morning.

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Campaigners say case of Bahraini footballer Hakeem al-Araibi now an ‘emergency’

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• Al-Araibi has been detained in Thailand since November
• ‘We are clearly facing a human rights emergency’

Activists campaigning for the release of the Bahraini refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who has been detained in Thailand since November after an Interpol red notice was wrongly issued against him, say his plight has become an emergency.

The warnings came from Brendan Schwab of the World Players Association and the former Australia captain Craig Foster after news that Bahrain has formally submitted an extradition request for Al-Araibi’s return.

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Hakeem al-Araibi’s detention not Sheikh Salman’s responsibility, AFC says

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Asian Football Confederation, which has come under fire for failing to call for the refugee footballer’s release, says its president was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago

The Asian Football Confederation claims its president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, is not responsible for matters regarding the Thai detention of Hakeem al-Araibi because he was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago out of conflict-of-interest concerns.

The new claim came in response to a call from the World Players Association for Salman to be disqualified from office if the refugee footballer was returned to Bahrain.

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Search for Emiliano Sala resumes after crowdfunding effort

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Two boats go out looking for Cardiff City footballer after £259,000 raised online

A new search for missing Cardiff striker Emiliano Sala has been launched after more than £250,000 was raised to fund the operation.

An official search and rescue operation for the Piper PA-46 Malibu carrying the Argentinian striker and pilot David Ibbotson was called off on Thursday.

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Emiliano Sala’s sister begs rescuers to restart search for missing footballer

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Romina Sala says she believes he is still alive after plane vanished over Channel Islands

The family of the footballer Emiliano Sala have pleaded for rescuers to continue searching for the player and a pilot after their light aircraft went missing over the Channel Islands.

Sala’s sister, Romina Sala, speaking after the search was called off, said she believed the Argentinian striker and the pilot Dave Ibbotson, from Lincolnshire, were still alive and in the Channel three days after their plane vanished.

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‘Please help me’: refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi tells of his Thai jail ordeal

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Exclusive: In an interview with the Guardian he pleads for his release and says he fears torture and jail if extradited to Bahrain

Hakeem al-Araibi, the refugee footballer from Bahrain who was detained in Thailand while on his honeymoon, has said he is “losing hope” and believes he will be tortured again or even killed if he is deported to Bahrain.

Speaking to the Guardian from Bangkok Remand Prison, a visibly distressed Al-Araibi said he was “terrified ” and that his fear was “getting worse every day”. Al-Araibi was given asylum in Australia in 2017 after fleeing his home country where he was persecuted for his beliefs, tortured in prison and convicted on a trumped-up vandalism charge.

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Emiliano Sala: search resumes for lost plane carrying Cardiff player

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Voicemail message revealed as police say chances of finding footballer alive are ‘slim’

The search for the plane carrying the Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala that went missing over the English Channel has resumed, amid only “slim” hopes he survived.

The aircraft, carrying Sala and the pilot, disappeared off Alderney in the Channel Islands on Monday night.

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Cardiff City’s Emiliano Sala was on missing plane, French authorities say

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• Flight from Nantes to Cardiff missing over Channel
• Sala signed for Cardiff for £15m last Saturday

Emiliano Sala, the Argentinian footballer who signed for Cardiff City last Saturday, was on a private plane that disappeared near the Channel Islands on Monday evening, the French civil aviation authority has said.

A small plane – a Piper Malibu – travelling from Nantes to Cardiff went missing near the Casquets lighthouse, with Sala one of two people on board.

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Ronaldo agrees to pay €19m fine to settle tax fraud case

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Juventus footballer pleads guilty after agreeing to fine and suspended sentence in Madrid court

The Portugal and Juventus footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted committing tax fraud while playing for Real Madrid and agreed to pay an €18.8m (£16.5m) fine after striking a deal with prosecutors and tax authorities in return for a 23-month suspended prison sentence.

Ronaldo, 33, had been accused of defrauding the authorities of €14.8m (£12.9m) in unpaid taxes between 2011 and 2014.

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Journalist who exposed football corruption shot dead in Ghana

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Exposés by Ahmed Husein, who died in Accra, had also lifted lid on corruption in judicial system

A Ghanaian journalist who helped expose corruption in African football has been shot dead in Accra.

Ahmed Husein was part of a team led by award-winning journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, whose investigation led to the resignation of the head of the Ghana Football Association.

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Cristiano Ronaldo rape allegation: lawyer confirms police have issued warrant for DNA

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  • Juventus star is subject to allegations from 2009
  • Forward has denied claims he raped woman in hotel room

Cristiano Ronaldo’s lawyer has confirmed authorities in Las Vegas have issued a warrant to collect DNA from the football star in the wake of allegations he raped a woman in the city in 2009.

“Mr Ronaldo has always maintained, as he does today, that what occurred in Las Vegas in 2009 was consensual in nature, so it is not surprising that DNA would be present, nor that the police would make this very standard request as part of their investigation,” Ronaldo’s lawyer, Peter S Christiansen, said in a statement to the BBC. The Wall Street Journal reports that the warrant has been sent to courts in Italy, where Ronaldo plays for Juventus.

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