The Malaysian Insider :: Sports
The Malaysian Insider :: Sports |
| Berbatov returns to Old Trafford as ‘best player’ Posted: 25 Jan 2013 07:53 AM PST  Berbatov is relieved to be back among the goals. — AFP pic The Bulgarian striker, who left Old Trafford in August after four years where he struggled to hold down a regular starting spot despite the odd moment of brilliance and 48 league goals, faces his old team tomorrow in the FA Cup fourth round. When he left United, Berbatov criticised Ferguson for the way he had been treated towards the end of his time at the club and said he had lost respect for his former manager and that he had not even said goodbye to the Scot. When he takes to the Old Trafford turf again this weekend, he may feel he has a point to prove and Ferguson is well aware of the threat the creative Bulgarian poses. "He is their best player," Ferguson told a news conference today. "I don't think he was a failure here. He was a really good player. At his age it's not easy to be not playing when I have lots of choices. He wanted first-team football ... and it was the right thing to do. I think he's doing well there. "It's a step down from Manchester United to any club in my mind. But it's not a huge drop. The problem for him here was the way we wanted to play and the selections I had. I had Carlos Tevez here also and that affected both of them." Fulham manager Martin Jol is hoping for a big performance from Berbatov, who has scored seven league goals this season, telling British media this week he would "love to see him score a hat-trick over there". United go into the game on the back of some warm-weather training in Qatar, having avoided the snow in Manchester. "We couldn't have picked a better moment (to go away) and hopefully we will get the benefit of that," Ferguson said. The Premier League leaders are still without Jonny Evans and Ashley Young but Ferguson was hopeful he would have a fully fit squad in time for United's Champions League last-16 first leg at Real Madrid on February 13. In the mean time, Ferguson is concentrating on domestic matters and is keen to enjoy better FA Cup success than in recent years, which have included a fourth-round exit last season at the hands of arch rivals Liverpool. United have won the FA Cup a record 11 times but have not lifted it since 2004. "We haven't done as well in the FA Cup for a few years now," Ferguson said. "It's a cup which has fantastic appeal given our record in it. We have benefit of the home draw. We'll take that any time. It's going to be a challenge for us but we would play anyone at the moment." — Reuters |
| Commission adjourned pending UCI documents Posted: 25 Jan 2013 07:49 AM PST LONDON, Jan 25 — Cycling's world governing body has yet to release any documents to an independent commission it set up last year to investigate allegations over the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, a hearing was told today.  Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong's confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs in an interview with chat-show host Oprah Winfrey recently. — Reuters pic Mill also told the hearing that a date for a commission hearing set provisionally for April 9-26 would need to be rescheduled. Friday's hearing was intended to set up the procedures, fix a timetable and set a date for a hearing. However, it hit immediate stumbling blocks and was adjourned to Jan. 31. Mill said there had been "no desire to suppress or conceal any documents", with 16 files of material available, but cast doubt on the commission's need for them, with the possibility of a broader 'truth and reconciliation' hearing being set up with other bodies. In increasingly testy exchanges between the commission members and the UCI lawyer, it was made clear that the process could take up to two years, if the commission were not suspended entirely. Mill said it was clear in any case that it would not be possible for the proposed April hearing to go ahead and a report would not be ready for June. Responding to concern expressed by the independent commission chair Philip Otton, who had expressed a fear that allegations against the UCI risked being "kicked into the long grass", Mill said: "We're not trying to kill this enquiry, we set you up." "Now you want to knock us down," said Otton, before withdrawing the comment. After a 45 minute break, Otton told the hearing that the UCI had agreed to make documents available to the Commission and the hearing was adjourning "with considerable reluctance". Next week's hearing will decide how to proceed. "On that occasion, we will consider whether or not the Commission will continue on the present timetable," he said. PUBLIC INTEREST Otton said it was "blindingly obvious" that there was immense public interest in determining why and how Armstrong's US Postal Service team was able to engage in systematic doping without detection or sanction. Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after a USADA report, that included testimony from former teammates, revealed what it called "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen." The UCI, who dope tested Armstrong 218 times without a positive result, set up its independent commission to investigate allegations made against it in the affair. Mill said the UCI was open to a truth and reconciliation process, with the world anti-doping agency WADA and the US anti-doping agency USADA, but subject to changes to the WADA code to allow an amnesty to be offered to those testifying. "The UCI has accepted that a truth and reconciliation process was one they wish to engage with, notwithstanding that it was limited to the problems of doping in the sport of cycling," he said. "WADA has accepted that it's code would require to be changed so as to enable the sort of amnesty to be offered which would be likely to result in important evidence being made available. "We have asked WADA to tell us how and when such a change to the code can be achieved." Mill said the independent commission appeared to envisage such a truth and reconciliation process forming part of their enquiry, but that might not be the case. "That was not what this (independent) enquiry was designed to do," he said, pointing out that the UCI had spent a considerable sum on the commission and funding another longer and broader one was beyond the resources of the UCI alone. "If others, in particular WADA, are being asked for help to fund the process then they have to have the opportunity to discuss and agree with us the process itself and we envisage that," added the lawyer. "It therefore does not follow that this commission will ultimately be involved in that process." — Reuters |
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