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Africa
The 2009 African Youth Championship begins today at Amahoro stadium with eight African countries battling for a gold medal and eyes will be fixed on the stars of tomorrow that will be re-born from this championship.
South African captain Graeme Smith has never been the most popular of cricketers with international rivals, although the Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan toned down their criticism of him ahead of the summer's tour and Smith too seemed to have mellowed at least a bit, but there was another rivalry that was potentially explosive between Smith and the South African-born Kevin Pietersen. The resignations of Vaughan as captain of the Test team due to poor form and one day captain Paul Collingwood added spice to the rivalry between Smith and Pietersen as Smith had previously labelled the new England captain a traitor over the way he deserted the country of his birth to play for England. After the end of apartheid South Africa's cricket board introduced a quota system to ensure that at least one non-white player was included in every team in order to help those players gain experience and eventually compete on merit. It was necessary to combat the discrimination of the past.
Despite not fielding a number of high profile players including Nwankwo Kanu, John Utaka, Vincent Enyeama, Obafemi Martins, Victor Anichebe, John Mikel Obi, Dickson Etuhu and Seyi Olofinjana in their last qualification match of the first round of the joint 2010 World Cup and African Cup of Nations qualifiers the Super Eagles thrashed Sierra Leone 4-1 in the Abuja Stadium, completing their impressive record of winning every match in their group. It was also the first goal that their miserly defence had permitted and even that was scored by a Nigerian.
Both Atlético de Madrid and local rivals Getafe have established foundations that work with their local communities, but they face a bigger problem in that the Spanish government is determined to confront and defeat neo-Nazi ultras that have attached themselves to several clubs, including the cream of La Liga. These ultras are avowed racists who racially abuse black players whenever they choose regardless of the consequences for the clubs they claim to love. The Sports Secretary Jaime Lissavetzky introduced an initiative to try to eradicate their influence last year.
The racist abuse that Cameroun's record-breaking striker, Samuel Eto'o Fils has suffered in several Primera División stadiums in Spain is well documented, but his international team-mate, Idriss Carlos Kameni, the goalkeeper of city rivals Espanyol, has arguably been worse, but hasn't had the same high profile. Kameni has endured monkey-chanting and banana-throwing from the notorious ultras of Atlético de Madrid – Frente Atlético – in the Madrid club's Vicente Calderón Stadium. In November 2005 Espanyol's Brasilian midfielder Fredson and Kameni were racially abused there. The previous season Kameni received similar treatment that resulted in a paltry fine of just €600, which unsurprisingly had little effect on the racists. That fine was announced in April 2005 after five-hundred members of the Frente Atlético, hurled not only racist abuse at Kameni, but also bananas. It was the third racist incident that had occurred that season at the Vicente Calderón – the previous opponents were Real Madrid and Sevilla. Atlético received the same meagre fine for those incidents – Latest Empowerfootball Tweet
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Latest Empowercricket Tweet
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