Diego 3Maradona, the Argentinian football legend, has been buried in a small, private ceremony in Buenos Aires – a stark contrast to chaotic scenes earlier in the day when tens of thousands of weeping fans gathered in the capital to pay their respects.
Only family members and close friends were permitted at Jardin Bella Vista cemetery for the final religious ceremony and burial of Maradona on Thursday evening next to the graves of his parents, Dalma and Diego.
Fans waving national flags gathered along the route to the cemetery as Maradona’s funeral car drove by under heavy security. Many tried to touch the vehicle whenever it was stopped by traffic.
Argentina had come to an almost complete standstill earlier in the day asthe nation turned its gaze to the Casa Rosada presidential palace where thousands of people queued up to file, slowly, reverently and one-by-one, past the iconic footballer’s coffin.
Maradona’s body was held in a wooden coffin draped with the blue-and-white national flag and an Argentina strip with the No 10 that had been part of his nickname “D10S” – a play on dios, the Spanish word for “god”. Fans threw flowers, football shirts and rosaries on to the coffin while, outside, health workers distributed water among the huge crowds standing under a punishing southern springtime sun as they waited their turn to enter.
Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, cleared his schedule after declaring three days of national mourning on Wednesday, and accompanied the Maradona family at the Casa Rosada.
“He was someone who touched the sky with his hands but never took his feet off the ground,” Fernández said following Maradona’s death, reflecting the player’s gift for captivating hearts at home and abroad.
But with the time for viewing the coffin at the presidential palace drawing short, police moved to cut off the back end of the crowd, enraging fans who hurled rocks and other objects at officers, who responded with rubber bullets.
The crowd overwhelmed organizers and the violence resulted in injuries and arrests, which led Maradona’s family to end the public visitation at 6pm on Thursday.
Another of Argentina’s favourite sons, Pope Francis, sent a special gift to the Maradona family – a blessed papal rosary that was hand-delivered to Maradona’s daughter Giannina at the intimate family wake in the early hours of Thursday morning before the presidential palace was opened to the public.
Maradona’s former wife, Claudia Villafañe and her daughters with Maradona, Dalma and Giannina were present at the small wake, as were his children from other relationships, Jana and Dieguito Maradona.
World Football mourns legendary Diego Maradona
2020 TOTAL Great Ethiopian Run International 10km New Race Date: Sunday 10th January 2021
On Sunday 15th November, the date originally set for the 20th edition of the annual 10km road race, Great Ethiopian Run staged an alternative smaller event at Entoto Natural Park to commemorate the date.
The international 10km was first staged in November 2001 with just 10,000 participants. Today that number has grown to 45,000 participants and the event has become Ethiopia’s favourite running competition, eagerly anticipated each year by an ever-increasing mass-participation running community.
This year because of the global COVID-19 pandemic the hosts will be staging the 2020 TOTAL Great Ethiopian Run International 10km on Sunday 10th January 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned. To keep the participants safe, the hosts also had to reduce the number of those taking part and have set a limit of just 12,500 participants.
The race will be staged in waves to allow more distancing among participants. Participants will line up using three approach roads onto the Eastern side of Meskel Square: from Bole Road, from Haile Gebreselassie Avenue and from the road coming down the hill from the Hilton Hotel. A three-coloured system (green-yellow-red) will be used for t-shirts to allocate participants to one of these three approaches. On each approach road participants will be held in a sequence of waves.
The registration fee is 450 birr for all waves or category colours with a first come first served basis. Every participant will receive a souvenir ‘20 Together’ t-shirt, a finishers’ medal and WHO-approved masks.
German Coach Middendorp abandoned St George in mid air
Notorious for wandering around different clubs that is 23 teams in three decades, German Coach Ernest Middendrop did what he did best with other side that is abandoning St George in less than a months’ time. He left the club flat footed just four weeks in to his three years contract. Physical trainer Mahir Davids takes over at the vacant hot seat as interim Coach.
Just three weeks at the club’s preseason camp at Yedenekachew Tessema Acadamy: forty-five kms from the capital, Middendrop took the players as well the club officials announcing his sudden change of mind on grounds of security.
Though Board Chairman Abnet G/Meskel boasted they have finally found the right boss to steer back his side to former glory day, the German simply walked out of his three years contract without much explanation.
Although he paid a two months’ salary for the contract breach, St George is suspended in the air five weeks from the start of the new season.
Of course the South African Mahir Davids who joined the team as assistant to Middendorp took over as interim Coach until a new appointment. Nevertheless the team’s dream of returning to the championship after three disappointing seasons appeared to face a difficult setback. What is more bizarre is that of the Germans decision to let the players have a seven days break just three weeks into their preseason preparation camp at the club youth academy at Debrezeit 45km from the Capital.
Despite the club’s claim that they parted sides after mutual agreement to pay his two month salary as penalty for breaching the contract, insiders disclosed he was unhappy with the club’s setup including players’ selection and interference of the administration.
Having a long history of switching clubs and his loyalty in question, critics suggested earlier that the 61 year-old German was not the right professional to help St George back to the championship title. “Middendorp’s record shows he is not someone to be trusted for lasting commitment. I wonder why they signed him after all,” one critic remarked.
St George is the only club in the country to appoint a foreign Coach for the new season.
CAF President Ahmed banned for five years
The head of African football, Ahmad Ahmad, has been banned from football for five years by Fifa following an ethics investigation by world football’s governing body.
Ahmad Ahmad, from Madagascar, was found guilty of breaching his duty of loyalty, offering and accepting gifts and other benefits, misappropriation of funds and of abusing his position by the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s independent ethics committee. In addition to the ban, he was fined 200,000 Swiss francs (£164,000).
Ahmad was elected CAF president in March 2017, and last month submitted his candidacy to serve a second term in office, with elections due to take place next year.
Fifa had “sanctioned him with a ban from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level for five years,” it said.
Former CAF general secretary Amr Fahmy, who died this year from cancer, had been dismissed after he made corruption allegations against Ahmad last year in a document sent to Fifa.
The document, sent on 31 March 2019 by Fahmy to a Fifa investigations committee, accused Ahmad of ordering his secretary-general to pay $20,000 (£15,000) bribes into accounts of African football association presidents. They included Cape Verde and Tanzania.
The document also accused Ahmad of costing CAF an extra $830,000 (£621,000) by ordering equipment via a French intermediary company called Tactical Steel. The company denied any wrongdoing and said it had won the contract on merit.
Furthermore, it accused him of harassing four female CAF staff, whom it did not name; violating statutes to increase Moroccan representation within the organization; and overspending more than $400,000 (£300,000) of CAF money on cars in Egypt and Madagascar, where a satellite office has been set up for him.
Senior CAF officials, speaking on condition of anonymity at the time of his dismissal, said Fahmy was fired in reprisal for compiling the document with the allegations against Ahmad.
