Sports
10 Benin Republic players jailed for age fraud
Ten Benin youth team players were jailed on Tuesday for lying about their ages after they were kicked out of qualifying for next year’s Under-17 Africa Cup of Nations finals, AFP reports.
A court in the country’s commercial capital, Cotonou, handed down one-month sentences to the players, who were detained in September following their expulsion.
Charges were dropped against other people involved in the case, including a policeman and local politicians, on the “benefit of the doubt”.
The case was followed closely in the tiny West African nation and the court was packed with football insiders and fans.
Althanase Soton, who heads a fans’ association, told AFP the sentence was “lenient but educational”.
Benin were kicked out of the tournament after 10 players from the junior team were discovered to have lied about their age with the help of federation officials.
At the same hearing, the former president of Benin’s football federation, Anjorin Moucharafou, was sentenced to two months in jail.
The long-serving official had been arrested in July 2011 for fraud.
The new president of the Beninese football federation Mathurin de Chacus in August said he wanted to “put an end to corruption, improvisation and amateurism” in Beninese football.
He had filed a complaint about the overage players scandal and promised “very heavy” sanctions.
Football’s world governing body FIFA suspended Benin completely in 2004 and threatened the country with a ban several times again between 2010 and 2013.
In 2016, when the junior team was embroiled in yet another scandal, Benin President Patrice Talon worked to establish an executive committee to end the country’s “footballing decline”.
Sports
Robinho To Serve A 9 Year Jail Term Over Gang Rape
Former Manchester City and Real Madrid striker Robinho will reportedly serve a nine-year jail sentence for gang rape – Imposed on him by an Italian court — in Brazil, judges in Brasilia has ruled.
The 40-year-old was found guilty in Italy in 2017 and according to Globo, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (BSCJ), made the ruling on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.
The former Premier League player, whose real name is Robson De Souza, was one of six men who were found guilty of a§§aulting an Albanian woman in an Italian nightclub in January 2013.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court in Rome dismissed his final appeal against the conviction, according to the report.
Robinho claims he is innocent and has been living in Brazil for the past seven years. It came after nine of the court’s 15 ministers had voted in favour of the decision to incarcerate the footballer in Brazil.
Globo also claims that the ex-footballer, who also spent time at AC Milan and Real Madrid, will now be arrested in Santos, where he currently resides.
Robinho, who was 28 and was playing for AC Milan at the time, admitted during his appeal to having ‘contact’ with the woman, but the Brazilian insisted it was consensual.
The Milan Court of Appeals found Robinho had ‘belittled’ and ‘br¥tally h¥miliated’ the victim as it upheld his original sentence in December 2020.
Intercepted phone calls between the Brazilian and those allegedly involved in the assault were used as key evidence in his initial conviction.
Sports
Former Tennis Champion, Tania Okpala Returns To Tennis After Rehabilitation
Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, has revealed that former tennis champion, Tania Okpala, has resumed playing on the courts.
This development follows Soludo’s assurance that she would undergo rehabilitation after a video surfaced online showing her in distress on the streets of Awka, pleading for assistance.
In an update on his social media handle on Thursday, Soludo expressed his satisfaction with Okpala’s return, stating, “Tania Okpala is back on the courts!
“A few months ago, social media was flooded with a viral video showing Ms. Tania in a distressing state on the streets of Awka. I am pleased to report that we have successfully restored Tania to her winning ways.”
Okpala, who hails from Anambra and has a Belarusian mother, represented Nigeria in the 1990s.
Here are pictures of her in the tennis court.
Sports
AFCON: Victor Osimhen Now Cleared To Join The Other Super Eagles Ahead Of Tomorrow’s Game
Good News has it that Victor Osimhen has finally joined the Super Eagles Nigeria team in Bouake, Ivory Coast.
He has been given the clear from the medical team on the abdominal discomfort issue. Earlier it was reported that the player could not join the rest of the team who flew to Ivory Coast ahead of Tomorrow’s football match against South Africa’s Bafana Bafana.
He’s fully fit and ready to play in the Semifinals against South Africa tomorrow.
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