PSG's Khelaifi Grilled Over World Cup Bid

Swiss prosecutors on Wednesday began grilling Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) president and beIN Media chief Nasser al-Khelaifi over allegations that he obtained World Cup media rights by bribing a top FIFA executive.
Khelaifi, a Qatari with close ties to the Gulf state's royal family, is under investigation for allegedly striking illegal deals with disgraced former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, who had been Sepp Blatter's right-hand man.
"We began the interrogation of the accused person at about 9:45 am(0745) this morning here at the Office of the Attorney general of Switzerland (OAG)," prosecution spokesman Andre Marty said.
"It will take hours due to translation issues but also due to the many questions we have and we are looking forward to the answers of the accused person," he added.
Khelaifi, 43, and his legal team avoided the main entrance when entering the OAG headquarters in the Swiss capital and were not seen by the roughly two dozen reporters gathered outside.
Khelaifi and Valcke have been under investigation since March in connection with media rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups on allegiations including corruption, bribery, criminal mismanagement and forgery of a document.
Authorities in France, Greece, Italy and Spain have cooperated with the Swiss probe, including by raiding properties.
But the AOG only went public with the case on October 12.
Khelaifi's high-profile French lawyer, Francis Szpiner, then swiftly announced that his sports tycoon client "denies any corruption" and "wanted to be heard as soon as possible" by Swiss prosecutors.
But deQatar,  Khelaifi's eagerness to be questioned, his case may still move slowly as Switzerland has a track record of taking its time with major corruption probes.
Bern opened an investigation targeting ex-FIFA boss Blatter in September 2015, but there are no indications that the case is ready for court.
The beIN Media group, which is headquartered in Doha, has insisted that its World Cup rights deals were "advantageous for FIFA," rejecting any suggestion that it got favorable treatment.
The contract covers broadcasting rights for the MENA (Middle East, North Africa) region for the tournaments.
The Qatar broadcaster's offices in Paris have been raised at the request of Swiss authorities.
A raid was also carried out at a luxury Sardinian villa that, it is alleged, was put at the disposal of Valcke, who is serving a 10-year ban from all soccer-related activity.
The villa, set in lush grounda on the Mediterranian island and which has an estimated value of €7 million (US$8.3 million), is owned by an international real estate agency.
Valcke, a 53-year-old French sports newspaper L'Equipe that he "received nothing from Nasser."
An increasingly prominent figure in sports and media, Khelaifi oversaw PSG's 222 million-euro ($264 million) world record signing of Brazilian superstar Neymar in August.
PSG, who were bought by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011, are not implicated in the Swiss investigation.
The corruption accusations are the latest to rock world football which is still reeling from the events of 2015, when FIFA officials were arrested en masse at the governing body's annual conference.
They are also the latest allegations to target Qatar.
The Gulf state has found itself routinely accused of corruption since controversially winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup, charges it has always denied.

Ben Simon
Agence France-Presse/Bern

Anne Frank Photo Whips Up Storm In Italian Soccer

A minute'a silence will be held and a passage from Anne Frank's diary will be read before games in Italy this week in response to acts of anti-Semitism by Lazio fans, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) said.
The FIGC announced that a minute's silence will be observed before Serie A, B and C matches during the week and amateur and youth games over the weekend.
A passage from Frank's diary will also be read before games to keep alive memories of the Holocaust, while referees and captains will give a copy of the diary to child mascots accompanying players onto pitches.
In addition, an image of Frank will be put on Lazio's shirts for Wednesday's Serie A game at Bologna to show their fight against "all forms of racism and anti-Semitism," the club said.
During Sunday's league game against Cagliari, Lazio fans defaced the Stadio Olimpico, which they share with rivals Roma, with anti-Semitic slogans and stickers showing images of Frank.
The Jewish teenager, who died in Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in 1945, was depicted wearing a jersey of their hated city rivals.
The image have whipped up a storm in Italian football with the Roman club announcing they also intend to take youngsters every year to visit the former Nazi camp at Auschwitz, in Poland.
"This is not football, this is not sport. Get anti-Semitism out of stadiums," responded Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, on Twitter.
Italian president Sergio Mattarela on Tuesday personally called Interior Minister Marco Minniti to ensure that those responsible would be identified and "permanently banned from stadiums."
Mattarella said that using the image of Frank "as well as being inhumane, is alarming for our country which suffered 80 years ago from the cruelty of anti-Semitism."
"It is something incredible, un-acceptable not to be minimized and not to be underestimated," said Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, while in Strasbourg, European Parliament chief Antonio Tajani stressed that anti-Semitism belonged "in the last century."
Lazio president Claudio Ranieri paid a visit to the Rome Synagogue bringing a floral wreath  to remember all victims of anti-Semitism.
"Today we intend to reaffirm our position once again with this clear and unequivocal gesture - no one can use Lazio in this way," said Lotito.
"Most of our fans are with us against anti-Semitism," stressed Lotito. He explained that Lazio would also be undertaking a series of initiatives such as visits by players to schools to educate on respecting rules and stamping out racism and social barriers.
Lazio's ultras were housed in the south end of the ground normally reserved for Roma supporters for Sunday's game, their own north end having been closed following racist chants during a match earlier this month.

Emmeline Moore
Agence France-Presse/Milan

Spurs Targeting 'Real Trophies' : Pochettino

Winning the Premier and the Champions League is the priority for Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino as he considers them "real trophies" rather than domestic cup competitions, the Argentine coach has said.
Tottenham finished in the league's top three during the last two seasons and Pochettino's side are currently placed third in the league. They are tied at the top of Group H with Real Madrid in the Champions League.
The North London side's most recent trophy was a League Cup triumph in 2008.
"Our objective is to try to win the Premier League and the Champions League. For me, two real trophies," Pochettino told reporters ahead of Wednesday's League Cup match against West Ham United.
"That can really change your life. And then the FA Cup, of course, I would like to win.
"I would like to win the Carabao Cup. But I think it will not change the life of Tottenham. If you want to be a big team and if you want to fight for big things, it's impossible if you don't use all the squad and rotate in England."
The Argentinian boss is likely to use the League Cup game as a chance to rotate his squad they prepare to travel to second-placed Manchester United in the league on Saturday.

Reuters/London

EPL 'Big Six' Thwarted In Bid For TV Cut

The Premier League 'Big Six' clubs have been stopped in their bid to gain a greater share of the English top fligt's lucrative overseas television deals, it was announced Tuesday.
Currently, the money from the globally popular Premier League makes from foreign broadcasting deals is shared evenly between the 20 clubs in the division.
But the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur - the so-called 'Big Six' - argued their greater worldwide popularity entitled them to a bigger cut.
Earlier this month it was decided further talks were needed on amending the league's rules, but a statement issued by the Premier League on Tuesday said a planned meeting had been canceled after it had "become clear that there is currently no consensus for change."
A two-thirds majority would be needed to change the current set-up, meaning 14 clubs would have to be in favor, and Premier League chairman Richard Scudamore had come up with a compromise plan which would see 35 percent of the overseas rights shared out according to final league position - a similiar scheme is used to allocate domestic broadcast revenues.
But with overseas income growing at a faster rate than that being generated domestically, many clubs were concerned about the possible impact of any change.
Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins highlighted the need to maintain competitiveness between the bigger and smaller clubs in his programme notea for the home match against Hudderafield Town earlier this month.
"In my opinion, competitiveness is the most important single factor that makes the Premier League so appealing across the world - and this must be protected at all costs," he wrote.

AFP/London

Cyprus Struggles To Manage Waste As Tourist Numbers Soar

Tourists on a crowded, sun-drenched beach in the Cypriot resort of Ayia Napa tossed drinks cans into recycling bins as a record-breaking holiday season drew to a close.
With more visitors heading to Cyprus than ever, the Mediterranian island's waste disposal system is under pressure, despite efforts to cut landfill use and encourage recycling, waste management and tourism, experts say.
Panicos Michael, manager of the five-star Alion Beach Hotel in Ayia Napa, said the rising number of visitors raised major issues.
"I think that this will be a big challenge for the island in general to cope with the increased amount of waste that's going to be produced," he said.
Cyprus - seen as a regional safe spot shielded from the unrest that has hit other popular Mediterranian destinations - hosted a record 3.2 million visitors last year and looks set to top that by eight percent in 2017, official figures ahow.
In response, authorities and tourism executives are backing efforts to separate waste and send as much as possible away from landfill sites and towards recycling.
Cyprus landfilled some 79 percent of its municipal waste in 2013, according to the latest figure available on Eurostat, far above the European Union average of just 28 percent.
Michael said his hotel had cut landfill output per guest by half since it introduced waste separation in 2003.
The hotel divides glass, paper, plastic, metal, drinks cartons and other categories for recycling.
The Ayia Napa municipality aims to offer organic waste collection from hotels by spring 2018.
It has also installed recycling bins in visitor hotspots such as the waterfront directly below the Alion Beach Hotel.
Russian holidaymaker Helen Mikhaylenko, who works for an industrial equipment importer in Moscow, praised the scheme.
"People drink a lot of beer and they should divide," the 23-year-old said in English, wearing sunglasses and a black bikini.
"It's a very good idea because rubbish is one of the global problems and it is solved in Ayia Napa."
Tourism and waste management experts say waste output per person in Cyprus is heavily inflated by tourist arrivals.
Kyriakos Parpounas of Green Dot, a waste management firm that deals with the vast majority of recycling in Cyprus, said tourists' waste output was equivalent to adding 300,000 permanent residents to the country's 866,000 population.
Cyprus has much improved ita waste management since 2005, when Green Dot was founded in response to a new European Union law demanding better sorting and recycling, he said.
Green Dot has run a series of school and media campaigns encouraging Cypriots to "reduce, re-use and recycle."
But the country still only recycles 19 percent of its waste, far lower than the European average of 44 percent.
"We began from stratch, there was no infrastructure," Parpounas said. "There was no sorting on the island. There was no sorting culture at all."
He was speaking at one of two Green Dot sorting warehouses in Cyprus.
On a bleak industrial estate on the outskirts of Nicosia, it handles around half the island's recycling, some 12 tonnes a day.
A digger shovelled mountains of refuse into a container where a rumbling conveyor belt heaved the waste into a warehouse nextdoor.
Around 15 workers stood at the belt, sorting plastic bottles and drinks cans and cardboard scraps into separate bins.
Warhouse manager Andreas Andreou said a fifth of the supposedly recyclable wastre arriving at the plant still had to go to landfill because non-recyclable waste arriving at the plant still had to go to landfill because non-recyclable waste crept in.
The day before, workers had even found a dead dog.
Parpounas said more efforts were needed if the country was to meet the EU target of recycling half of its municipal waste by 2020.
"We are missing a lot of important tools that would actually drive people and create the culture of sorting," he said.
Green Dot presented a list of 10 demands to the government when it was set up in 2005.
Some 12 years later, seven have yet to be fulfilled, Parpounas said.
In particular, he urged the government to introduce a "pay as you throw" scheme to encourage sorting, and to introduce a landfill tax.
Environtment department director Costas Hadjipanayiotou said the government was working to push people to recycle more but that the proportion of waste going to landfill was still "a huge number."
"Cyprus is landfilling so much waste because (...) we are still late in establishing the appropriate infrastructure and cultivating the culture, but also the infrastructure is not in place," he said.
Tourism officials say recycling efforts make economic sense.
Philippos Drousiotis, of the Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative, said both hotels and guests had welcomed efforts such as cutting use of plastic bottles.
"The sustainable tourist is good for business," he said. "It's a good opportunity to reduce their costs."
Muscovite holidaymaker Kate Tsurkanova, standing next to a beach near the centre of Ayia Napa, said she was pleased tourists could now separate their rubbish for recycling.
"It's perfect, actually I have just started doing it myself in Russi," she said. "I wish there were more bins like that everywhere."

Paul Raymond and Emily Irving-Swift
Agence France-Presse/Ayia Napa, Cyprus

Clubs Could Face High Price For Stars' Tax Affairs: Experts

Premier League club risk the possibility of demotion and being prosecuted under the new Criminal Finance Act, a leading city firm told AFP.
Under the new law, which came into force on September 30, any company, which includes soccer clubs, can be held responsible for their employees or agents with whom they do business if tax evasion becomes an issue.
The new legislation places the onus firmly on clubs to carry out due diligence on players and agents, says Tom Shave, partner in business tax at Smith & Williamson, the accountancy, investment management and tax group.
"If a case goes to a jury the reputational damage is already done. Being seen as a facilitator of tax evasion in the current environtment is viewed dimly," he told AFP in an interview at the firm's city headquarters.
"It depends how the English Premier League see it if you have a criminal prosecution in relation to your activity.
"This criminal prosecution for tax evasion remains to be tested as it has just come in but you would imagine there are implications for a club should such a case proceed."
Peter Fairchild, also a partner at Smith & Williamson, with a long list of top level footballers as clients, says the EPL might take a very dim view if one of their members was found  to be guilty of facilitating tax evasion.
"The Premier League will want to maintain its reputation with fans and sponsors. We've seen point deductions where clubs have entered administration and parallels can be drawn," he said.
The club in question will not have planned for this and as a result will suddenly see cash payments to them being withheld which will strangle cash flow and their players needing to be paid each week."
Fairchild said many clubs don't seem yet to be aware they could be hit hard by the legislation. "It is seriously scary the criminal element of the legislation," he said.
"I am a bit surprised we haven't had more enquiries. Many clubs are only just getting to grips with the problem, perhaps thinking that it doesn't apply to them or that there is a short cut.
"But there is no short cut. (The tax authorities) will come and ask their questions and if you don't have a robust defense the weight of legislation will be used against you."
Fairchild sees the forthcoming transfer window in January being even more hectic and intense with the new legislation having come into effect.
"When it comes to Jan. 31 those clubs that are struggling, or trying to get deals done, won't want to be told have you taken the time to go through the proper process and complied with the check list regarding the player they are targeting.
"The only thing a Premier League club, battling for survival, will want to do is buy a key player and preserve their EPL status.
"The prepared clubs will be asked key questions such as 'have you done this due diligence?'.
"They'll speak to external parties and potentially hire additional staff. Those clubs who don't take it seriously could find themselves facing an HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) investigation in a year or two.
"If that investigation finds problems then they could suffer an unlimited fine."

Pirate Irwin
Agence France-Presse/London

Real Travels To Girona In Eye Of Political Storm

After watching Barcelona copes ably with the distraction of political tension sweeping across Spain in recent weeks, it is Real Madrid's turn to head into the eye of the storm on Sunday when it travels to Girona.
It is the European champions' first trip to Catalonia since violence marred a separatist called independence referendum for the region on Oct. 1 that has sparked weeks of political chaos.
The atmosphere surrounding Real's first ever top-flight visit to Girona, a heartland of pro-independence support, could be further intensified should the Spanish government follow through with plans this weekend to seize Catalonia's autonomous powers in an attempt to stave off a declaration of independence.
But the protagonists insist they are preparing solely with the 90 minutes on the pitch in mind.
"We will have the security there as always to play a soccer match, nothing more," said Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane. "We are thinking solely about the match as always and not about what could happen around it."
As is normal on trips to Catalonia, Real will not use its official team bus for fear of reprisals.
"It won't be the first time that this has happened and there is no need to give it any further importance," Real's Director of Institutional Relations, Emiliano Butragueno, told Spanish sports daily Marca.
"Real Madrid are a soccer club and we will only talk about the football - that is all we focus on, to win and to make our fans happy."
Fresh from picking up FIFA's award for the best player of 2017, Cristiano Ronaldo will be one of number of Real stars to return after being rested for Real's Copa del Rey last 32, first leg at third-tier Fuenlabrada on Thursday.
Gareth Bale once again missed out through injury, altough there is hope the Welshman could return from a calf problem in time to face his old side Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Political distractions aside, Real remains in need of the points in Girona in its chase of Barcelona, which travels to Athletic Bilbao on Saturday hoping to open up an eight-point lead over its rival.
Barca boss Ernesto Valverde returns to San Mames for the first time since swapping Bilbao for Barcelona in June.
"No matter where you have made your career or where you have played, everyone has the club they are most defined by and mine clearly is Athletic," Valverde told Barcelona's website.
"The first time you go back you try to concentrate on your own team because if you go around shaking hands with everyone you forget there is a game and three very important points at stake."
Valverde's influence at both Barca and Athletic has been noted in the first few months of the campaign.
Whilst the Catalans have won 12 and drawn one of their last 13 games in all competitions, the Basques have just one win in 11 and have slipped to 11th in the table.
Atletico Madrid is better placed just six points back on Barcelona in fourth, but has been dogged by a lack of ruthlesness in front of goal all season as they await the return of club record signing Diego Costa in Januari.

Kieran Canning
Agence France-Presse/Madrid