TFA to be renamed as Tata Atlético Football Academia
New Delhi: The Tata Football Academy (TFA) is set to be renamed as Tata Atlético Football Academia after the Tata Trusts on Wednesday joined hands with La Liga giants, Atlético de Madrid (ATM), to enhance and strengthen its existing programmes for promoting Indian football. The main objective of the collaboration is to encourage football as a sport at the youth and grassroots level as well as support the Indian national team. As part of the collaboration, the TFA will now be called as Tata Atlético Football Academia. The Spanish club will provide a full-time head coach to TFA, who will work on the structure and curriculum that is followed in the Atlético de Madrid Academia in Spain. Technical experts will also visit TFA to guide and exchange knowledge on the best practices in various areas. “The partnership with Atletico de Madrid will enrich grass-root players with best-in-class professional training in all aspects of football. It will help young players train to international standards, scale them up to become future international players and help establish India on the global map of the sport,” Director, Program Design of Tata Trusts R Pavithra Kumar said. Miguel Ángel Gil, owner of Atlético de Madrid added: “For our club is an honour to join Tata Group as a strategic partner in this ambitious football development project. (PTI)
Artistic gymnastics World Cup: Dipa eyes Olympic berth
New Delhi: Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar would be aiming to put behind the injury-marred disaster that was the Asian Games when she aims for a positive start to her Olympic qualification bid with the World Cup of artistic gymnastics in Cottbus, Germany from Thursday. The four-day showpiece is part of an eight-event qualifying system under which the gymnasts will make the cut based on the aggregate of their top three scores. The four-member Indian team, which also comprises B Aruna Reddy, Ashish Kumar and Rakesh Patra, will look to make it count with good performances. Dipa, who finished fourth at the Rio Olympics, will be India’s best bet in the tournament after clinching the gold at the Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup at Mersin, Turkey in July this year. The 25-year-old endured a poor comeback from injury in the Jakarta Asian Games where she had to pull out midway after her knee problem flared up again. Aruna, on the other hand, won a bronze medal in one of the earlier world cups this year in the women’s vault event in Melbourne and she too will fancy her chances. Among the men, Ashish has been India’s brightest with a bronze in floor exercise at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. He also won a bronze and silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in floor exercise and vault respectively. (PTI)
Hockey WC: Team Argentina arrives in Bhubaneshwar
Bhubaneswar: Olympic Champions and World No 2 Argentina arrived in the ‘Temple City’ of Bhubaneswar for the Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018 to begin on November 28. The anticipation among local hockey buffs and early morning travellers was evident as they waited patiently to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars here on Wednesday morning. Expressing his team’s excitement to return to Bhubaneswar where they won the silver medal at the Odisha Men’s Hockey World League Final 2018, Argentina’s dragflick sensation Gonzalo Peillat said, “It will be a great tournament, playing in Bhubaneswar again in front of a crazy crowd, the entire team is looking forward to it and are very excited to be back.” Argentina grouped in Pool A with Spain, New Zealand and France will begin their campaign on November 29 at the newly renovated Kalinga Stadium. The Olympic Champions have a new chief coach in German Mariano Orozco who replaced former chief coach Carlos Retegui in early 2018 and is a former defender for Argentina having played the Olympic Games in 2000 and 2004. (UNI)
China to set salary cap for football players in 2019
JINAN: China will introduce a series of new regulations including a salary cap and a bonus cap in the Chinese Super League (CSL) and lower professional leagues from 2019. The regulation will cover the Chinese Super League, China League, and China League Two. The CFA says the regulations hope to curb “irrational” investment and promote healthy and sustainable development of professional leagues, sources with China’s football governing body, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) told Xinhua on Wednesday. Chinese football leagues will introduce the salary cap in 2019, and all domestic players will sign a new contract under the new regulations while the size of the salary cap has not been decided yet. Also, the leagues will introduce a bonus cap for every winning game in 2019. The clubs will work together to set the bonus cap in the beginning of the league year. Cash bonuses will not be allowed, sources revealed. The transfer tax, starting from 2017, will cover both the CSL and China League One next season. Any club that buys a foreign player for over 45 million yuan (about 6.5 million U.S. dollars), or a domestic player whose transfer fee exceeds 20 million yuan, will have to pay the same amount of money as a tax if the club fails to break even in the 2018 season. The CFA will work with other government bodies like the State Administration of Taxation to crack down on dual contracts and tax evasion. The CFA will conduct various financial reviews and provide supervision to ensure the rules are enforced. (PTI)
Man United to play Leeds in pre-season Australia match
London: Manchester United announced on Tuesday they will take on English rivals Leeds in Australia next year as part of their preparations for the 2019-20 season. The two clubs have only met twice in the past decade, with Leeds clinching a famous win in the 2009-10 FA Cup before United triumphed in the League Cup in September 2011. United confirmed their first two fixtures of their 2019 tour schedule will be against A-League team Perth Glory on July 13 before they take on Leeds in the city four days later. (AFP)