otics may lead to future antibiotic-resistant infec - Kuwait Times

FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2012
JAKARTA: Indonesia continues to creep
towards a FIFA ban after a reconciliation
meeting between the country’s two soccer
leagues resulted in a virtual no-show,
local media reported yesterday. The
Indonesian Football Association (PSSI)
invited 13 of the 18 clubs in the breakaway
Indonesian Super League (ISL) to
talk on Wednesday but only one, Persib
Bandung, turned up.
FIFA, the game’s world ruling body, is
set to punish Indonesia unless the PSSI,
also under orders from exasperated government
officials, restores order and unifies
the ISL with their Indonesian Premier
League (IPL) before March 20. “We won’t
stop trying to save our football,” PSSI
executive committee member Bernhard
Limbong told the Jakarta Globe. “We’ll
wait for the other clubs to respond to
our invitation before the PSSI congress
on March 18. “We want to speak with all
(ISL) clubs on the best way to settle the
dispute so there will be only one league
here.”
The decision to snub the meeting at a
Jakarta hotel has potentially serious consequences
for Indonesia, whose national
team crashed out of 2014 World Cup
qualifying in disgrace. A humiliating 10-0
defeat in Bahrain last month prompted a
FIFA investigation, leaving them bottom
of their group with no points and mark-
Sports
Divided Indonesia creep towards FIFA ban
Utd can go 4 clear by
avoiding Wolves bite
MANCHESTER: Premier League leaders Manchester
United will go four points clear if they beat secondfrom-bottom
Wolverhampton Wanderers at
Molineux this weekend but need only look back a
year to know that is not as easy as it sounds. In
February 2011, then bottom club Wolves ended
Unitedís 29-match unbeaten league run, inflicting a
first league defeat of the season on the eventual
champions when they stunned their visitors 2-1 in
this fixture.
Wolves, again embroiled in a battle to avoid relegation
after just one win in their last 14 league
games, fell behind to an early Nani goal but replied
with two goals before halftime which led manager
Alex Ferguson to bemoan his sideís ìbad play at setpiecesî.
With Manchester City, the long-time leaders
before their rivals overhauled them last week, not
playing until Wednesday because opponents
Chelsea are among those involved in the FA Cup
quarter-finals, United can turn the screw on Sunday
(1330 GMT).
One of the keys to whether they can retain their
title could be striker Wayne Rooney, who has been
challenged by Ferguson to net 40 goals this season
and who scored twice in Decemberís 4-1 victory
over Wolves at Old Trafford. Another double in last
weekís 2-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion took
his tally to 26, eight fewer than his best ever haul of
34 in 2009-10, and his team mates see his run continuing.
ìHe can go as far as he wants to,î winger
Ashley Young told British media. ìHe has done brilliantly
this season. Hopefully he keeps adding to his
tally and we can keep getting the three points.î
CANíT CRYí
City manager Roberto Mancini has said the
champions have the mental edge having been
involved in so many title battles while his club are
seeking a first championship since 1968. But he has
refused to be down and says his team have enough
games left to swing things back in their favor,
including next monthís mouth-watering
Manchester derby. ìNow we canít cry, now is a time
to be strong and keep going because we are a top
team,î the Italian, whose team have 66 points from
28 games compared to Unitedís 67, told a news conference.
ìWe have 10 games, all is in our hands and
we can change if we want. We have pressure
because we want to win the title, we want to make
history for the club.î
The increasingly interesting tussle for third and
fourth place takes a back seat this weekend because
of the FA Cup with Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal,
like fellow Londoners Chelsea, not in league action
until Wednesday. At the other end of the table, bottom
side Wigan Athletic host West Brom tomorrow
(1500) hoping to make the most of the fact fellow
relegation candidates Queens Park Rangers, Bolton
Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers are not playing
until midweek. In the weekendís two other league
games, Fulham entertain a Swansea City team who
are full of confidence after last weekendís surprise 1-
0 victory over Manchester City and Norwich City
travel to sixth-placed Newcastle United. — Reuters
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson
School football sparks
Hong Kong race row
HONG KONG: A violent incident in a school football match in Hong
Kong has sparked an ugly race row after a video was posted online
showing a Caucasian boy kicking a Chinese opponent in the head.
Parents of the Asian boy filed a police complaint after the weekend’s
under-12 game between ESF Lions and Kitchee Escola descended into
chaos, with fathers and the ESF coach engaged in an angry on-field
altercation.
A video of the match showing the 10-year-old ESF player making
contact with the Kitchee boy’s head has been viewed more than 50,000
times and generated a torrent of often racist commentary against
“gweilos”, or Caucasians. “These are English Men... Shame of mankind!”
wrote one viewer on the YouTube website. Others called the coach and
mainly Caucasian players for the English Schools Foundation (ESF) team
“animals” and “white scum”, and demanded the government stop subsidizing
the English-language school system.
“The Hong Kong government should cancel its funding of the ESF.
Gweilos should leave Hong Kong immediately,” said one user.
“Gweilo” means “ghost man” in Cantonese and is often used as
derogatory slang to describe people of European decent. Other commentators
however said the incident was bad enough without the
racist abuse on the Internet. “I am not sure what is worse, the coach,
the young thug, the refs or the tirade of racist comments in this
thread,” wrote another viewer. —AFP
ing a new low for Indonesia soccer.
Persib officials did at least have their say
in the absence of their ISL rivals. “Persib
is still a PSSI member and we still regard
the PSSI as the only football authority in
the country,” said the club’s marketing
director M. Farhan, underlining the confusion.
Both sides now face a race
against time with a FIFA ban, which
Indonesia narrowly avoided last year,
looming large again. — Reuters
Football school kicks off
Palestinian WCup hopes
AL-BIREH: At a state-of-the-art football stadium in the
Palestinian city of Al-Bireh, three-year-old Adam is trying to
pass a ball as coaches shout encouragement. The darkhaired
youngster, who is not much bigger than the ball he
is racing after, is one of scores of children attending a football
training school run by a non-governmental organization
called Palestine: Sports for Life (PS4L). Their dream is
that Adam and the dozens of other Palestinian youngsters
could one day play professionally for their country-and
even go on to represent Palestine in tournaments such as
the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Established in 2010, PS4L brings together Palestinian
athletes committed to raising the level of sports training
and education in the West Bank. It is headed by Tamara
Awartani, a 29-year-old former basketball star who used to
play for the top women’s team in the Palestinian territories.
She makes no secret of the ambitious dreams she has for
the children. “The main goal is to produce qualified footballers
who are capable of representing Palestine in the
World Cup in 2022,” she said. “This is our vision and this is
their dream.”
The school, she says, emphasizes “the basic skills of
football, like team play, discipline and communication with
each other from an early age, with a team of qualified
coaches and former footballers who are passionate about
football and who work here for a nominal fee.” Some of the
coaches used to play for teams in the Palestinian first division,
while others were part of regional or women’s squads.
And still others come from overseas to volunteer their
skills. The school also offers children the rare chance to
travel overseas to international coaching camps in places
such as Turkey and Jordan.
And in keeping with the organization’s broader goals-to
use sports as a way to build “healthy and vibrant communities”-Awartani
also wants the school to teach skills that will
serve students off the pitch too. “We are trying to create a
place for these children to blow off some steam instead of
sticking to television, Facebook and video games,” she
explains. Last summer, PS4L kicked off its first football program
which caters to around 100 children between the
ages of three and 12, giving them two hours of training
twice a week. At the stadium, the youngest are put in a
group of their own to protect them from the more boisterous
older children.
Quality from an early age-While the smaller children
learn how to kick and field the ball, their older counterparts
are working on more advanced skills, such as dribbling
around cones. The World Cup in Qatar may be far off yet,
but it’s clearly in the forefront of the minds of many of the
kids. “I will be on the 2022 team!” shouts 10-year-old Karim
Omar, one of the most promising students. “I started playing
football when I was young, and I am here to be in the
2022 national team,” declares another student, a confident
12-year-old called Mustafa Shaltaf. Football is easily the
most popular sport in the Palestinian territories, where
ferocious local rivalries coexist with enthusiastic support
for foreign teams, the most popular being Spain’s
Barcelona and Real Madrid.
But the national team, ranked 162 in the world, has had
little success and has never qualified out of its Asia group
for the World Cup. Awartani believes PS4L could change
that, and insists the students train on a proper pitch, renting
out the Majed Assad international stadium in Al-Bireh
twice a week so the children can get a feel for the real
thing. —AFP