Joan Laporta has lined up former France and Barcelona defender Eric Abidal to be his technical secretary if he wins next month’s election at the Primera Liga and European champions.
Laporta, who held the top job between 2003 and 2010 and is one of the front-runners along with incumbent Josep Maria Bartomeu, presented Abidal at a news conference in the Catalan capital on Monday.
Abidal, 35, played for Barca during a glittering run for the club between 2007 and 2013 and became a fan hero when he made a successful return after undergoing a liver transplant in 2012.
He joined Ligue 1 side Monaco in July 2013 and announced his retirement as a player in December after a brief stint with Greek club Olympiakos Piraeus.
“Barca is more than a club and I wanted to carry on working and maintain a link to that,” Abidal, who would help oversee Barca’s transfer market dealings, told reporters.
Another of his tasks would be to ensure Barca’s La Masia academy, which produced the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi in recent times, remained the centre of excellence, he added.
A lawyer and pro-Catalan independence politician, Laporta has tried to distinguish his candidacy from Bartomeu’s by criticising the sponsorship deal Barca signed with Qatar under former president Sandro Rosell.
Rosell took over from Laporta in 2010 but was forced to resign in January 2014 after he and the club were accused of tax fraud in the signing of Brazil forward Neymar.
Bartomeu stepped up to the top job and has decided to run for another term, following a successful season on the field for the club as they won the domestic league and cup double in Spain and then won the Uefa Champions League final earlier this month, even though he has also been named as a defendant in the case.
Stoke City’s Krkic could fit in time for new season
Stoke striker Bojan Krkic hopes to be fit for the start of the new domestic season. The 24-year-old Spaniard suffered a cruciate ligament injury in an FA Cup tie at Rochdale at the end of January, abruptly ending what had been a promising first season in English football. The former Barcelona player has undergone an extensive rehabilitation programme in his native Spain and has said he is on course to be ready for Stoke’s opening Premier League game against Liverpool on the weekend of August 8-9. “I feel better. It’s been four and a half months from that knee injury,” Bojan told Italian newspaper Corriere Dello Sport. “Now I’m enhancing muscle tone and I hope to return in time for the start of the season.”
Celtic draw against FC Stjarnan in Champions League
Celtic have been drawn against FC Stjarnan of Iceland in the second qualifying round of the Uefa Champions League. Ronny Deila’s side, who won the Scottish Premiership ahead of Aberdeen, will begin their campaign on July 14 or 15 with the second leg a week later on July 21 or 22. The Glasgow side failed to reach the group stages in 2014/15, when they lost out to Slovenian side Maribor having been re-instated into the play-off round despite a 6-1 aggregate defeat by Legia Warsaw, with the Polish side ejected from the competition by Uefa after fielding an ineligible player. Irish club Dundalk face a tough test against BATE Borisov, the champions of Belarus. Elsewhere in the first qualifying round, The New Saints of Wales, one of the seeded teams, will play B36 Torshavn of the Faroe Islands while Northern Ireland side Crusaders were drawn against Estonian side Levadia Talinn.
West Ham begin preparations for Europa League
Premier League club West Ham United are set to enter the first round of the Europa League qualifying, having been given a place via the Uefa Fair Play table. West Ham, now managed by Slaven Bilic, were handed a draw against FC Lusitans of Andorra. Scottish club St Johnstone will play Alashkert of Armenia, while Aberdeen take on Macedonian side Shkendija.
Russia makes 2018 World Cup budget cuts
Russia has slashed over US$500 million (Dh1.83 billion) from its official budget for the 2018 World Cup after cutting spending on hotels and infrastructure. The government is curbing most areas of public spending as the economy contracts due to the low oil price. An order signed by Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, cut the total World Cup budget by 29.2 billion roubles (Dh1.98bn) to 631.5bn roubles. “We’re optimising and cutting expenses. First of all we’re removing the excess number of hotels,” sports minister Vitaly Mutko said. Fifa denied the cuts would mean a shortage of hotel rooms for fans in 2018. “As any other entity with operations in Russia, Fifa keeps a close eye on the financial situation in Russia,” it said in a statement.
Parma to play in Italian fourth tier
Bankrupt club Parma will have to play in the fourth tier of Italian football after no buyer was found by the deadline. Parma’s hopes of avoiding demotion to the amateur division were all but ended when Mike Piazza, the former Major League Baseball player, pulled out of talks yesterday, shortly before the deadline for the club to be sold. “No offers have been received for the sporting rights of the club,” a Parma statement said, adding that “in the coming hours the administrators will meet ... to make the necessary arrangements for the bankruptcy proceedings”.
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