UEFA sets $360 million prize fund for 24 national teams at Euro 2024
Hamburg, Dec 2: UEFA said Saturday it will pay 331 million euros ($360 million) in total prize money to the 24 national teams at the men’s European Championship that is expected to earn about 2.4 billion euros ($2.61 billion) in commercial revenue. The team prize fund is in line with the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020 and 20 times more than UEFA’s prize fund for the women’s Euro 2022. The national federation of the Euro 2024 title winner can get a maximum of 28.25 million euros if the team wins all three games in the opening group stage, the European soccer body said ahead of the tournament draw. Each of the 24 teams gets a minimum of 9.25 million euros for playing at the month-long tournament in Germany that starts June 14. Clubs will share in a further 240 million euros from UEFA for releasing their players to national-team duty. They get a daily rate of several thousand euros per player while they are with national teams for qualifying games and at Euro 2024 itself. FIFA paid prize money of $440 million to the 32 men’s teams at the 2022 World Cup, four times more than the $110 million shared among 32 women’s teams at their 2023 World Cup. The Euro 2024 winner will be paid more than the total 16 million euros prize money fund for the 16 women’s teams that played at Euro 2022 in England. (AP)
Junior Boxing World C’ships: 12 Indian pugilists storm into finals
New Delhi, Dec 2: Indian boxers on Friday continued their fine form at the IBA Junior World Boxing Championships as 12 of them entered the finals after stunning displays in the last four rounds in Yerevan, Armenia. Amisha (54kg) and Payal (48kg) started the day on a winning note for India against Trigos Bucur Rocio of Romania and Bibolsynkyzy Sila of Kazakhstan, both winning the bout by an unanimous 5-0 verdict. Prachi Tokas (+80kg) put up a dominant show over Osipova Mariia of Russia, forcing the referee to stop the contest in the first round itself. Megha (80kg), on the other hand, showed a similar display of strength and power to also clinch a referee stop the contest (RSC) win in round three against Tseng An Chi of Chinese Taipei. Vini (57kg), Akansha (70kg) and Shrushti (63kg) outperformed their opponents to grab identical 5-0 unanimous decision victories to enter the finals. Vini was up against Kantzari Ouriana of Greece while Akansha and Shrushti faced Mcdonagh Mary of Ireland and K Alina of Kazakhstan respectively. Nisha (52kg) struggled after the initial dominance in round one but soon fought back to grab an impressive 4-1 win over Russia’s Sikstus Diana. The boys put on a solid display as four out of five boxers in action got the win. The two heavyweight boxers Hardik Panwar (80kg) and Hemant Sangwan (+80kg) entered the finals with a comfortable 5-0 unanimous decision win against R Andrei of Belarus and K Tigran of Armenia respectively. Jatin (54kg) took on K Pavel of Russia who for a moment looked like the more dominant boxer but Jatin soon took control of the game and got a 4-1 win in his favour. Sahil faced a tough challenge from D Vladimir of Russia as both the boxers were quick in predicting each other’s moves and counter attack. The bout looked like it could go anywhere, but ultimately, Sahil got the win with a 3-2 split decision verdict. (PTI)
National TT: Manav regains men’s title, Sreeja wins women’s crown
Vijayawada, Dec 2: Top-seeded Manav Thakkar defeated an injured G. Sathiyan 4-2 to lift the men’s singles trophy while Sreeja Akula rallied to beat Archana Kamath and win the women’s crown in the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships here on Saturday. Sathiyan, the second seed, conceded the match in the sixth game when he was trailing 0-2 because of a back spasm. Nevertheless, he fought and opened well and even led 2-1. But his back pain shot up sharply and rendered him helpless. Yet, the reigning national champion carried on for a while before conceding. Archana had things going her way in the final against top seed Sreeja. Leading 3-1, she failed to press home the advantage to win the second crown. But credit must go to the RBI woman, who seized the moment in the fifth game and avoided the two close calls in the sixth and seventh games to win the title. Sreeja sailed into the final after some midway struggles against fourth seed Sutirtha, winning her semifinal 4-2. Sixth seed Sharath was on course when he led 2-0 and 10-8 in the third game of his quarterfinal against Sourav Saha. But the 10-time national champion squandered the advantage to bow out 2-3. In the men’s singles semifinals, top seed Manav picked up from where he left off Friday to beat Anthony Amalraj 4-1. Second seed Sathiyan dropped a couple of games against Sourav Saha, but the latter could neither repeat his quarterfinal performance nor stop his rival from entering his maiden final of the season. Sathiyan won 4-2. (PTI)