Azerbaijan furious over bribery claims

 The world boxing championships began in Baku on Monday amid official fury at claims that multi-million dollar bribes were paid to ensure gold medals for Azerbaijani fighters at the 2012 Olympics.

The ex-Soviet state’s powerful emergency situations minister, who also heads Azerbaijan’s boxing federation, told local media on the eve of the tournament that the corruption allegations raised in a BBC television programme were lies.

“It is wrong to disseminate news based on false information to the international community and the people who organised it must be held responsible,” Kamaladdin Heydarov said.

An investigation by BBC’s Newsnight programme alleged that $9m was paid by an Azerbaijani national to organisers of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA)’s World Series of Boxing (WSB). The money was allegedly paid to secure gold medals for Azerbaijani fighters competing at next year’s Olympics. But Heydarov said that the claims could easily be disproved. AIBA president Wu Ching-Kuo has also rejected the allegations as “totally untrue and ludicrous” but confirmed that the organisation would launch an investigation. During the 2008 Games, several fighters complained of being cheated by judges. The world championships, the first Olympic qualifying event for boxing, are being seen as a major event in Azerbaijan, an energy-rich state seeking to boost its international profile.

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Akhtar prays in Delhi

Shoaib Akhtar prayed at Nizamuddin dargah this week. It seems Akhtar may have anticipated the controversies surrounding his autobiography before its release earlier this week.

The conjecture is based on the fact that before releasing his autobiography in Delhi on Friday, Akhtar made a quick stopover at the Nizamuddin dargah in the capital on Thursday night. According to sources that Akhtar arrived at the dargah at close to 10 in the night with a few friends.

He spent over an hour at the dargah, first praying to the sufi saint and then chatting with the dargah officials. Upon contacted Syed Afsar Ali Nizami, dargah incharge at Nizamuddin, he confirmed that Shoaib had come and said that, “Shoaib bhai had come to pray to baba before he released his book. He is a very grounded person and was at the dargah till almost 11 in the night.”

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Sharapova worried for Chakvetadze’s future

TOKYO: Tennis star and world number two Maria Sharapova said on Monday her compatriot Anna Chakvetadze’s decision to run for the Russian parliament would make it “tough” on her career in the sport.

“I think it obviously takes a lot of time, so it’s tough to do two things, two pretty big things at the same time,” Sharapova told reporters after clearing the second round in the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

“But if she feels strong about it, obviously it’s a personal choice,” Sharapova said, adding she was “not really sure” whether Chakvetadze, world number five in 2007, was still going to play, or commit herself to politics.

Russian media reported that the 24-year-old Chakvetadze had been named as one of the three parliamentary candidates put forward by Russia’s Right Cause Party, a pro-business party with limited public support.

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ICC want urgent solution on banned trio

The chief executive of cricket's governing body on Wednesday said an urgent solution would be sought in resolving the case of three Pakistani players who have been suspended for suspected spot-fixing. Test captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer were provisionally suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC) last month following spot-fixing allegations. The suspensions, handed down by the Pakistan Cricket Board, followed allegations in the British newspaper News of the World that the three players contrived to bowl deliberate no-balls during the Lord's Test against England in August. It amounts to spot-fixing, which differs from outright match-fixing in that it relates to incidents which can be manipulated during the game for the benefit of punters. Earlier this month Salman and Aamer had their appeals dismissed by the ICC code of conduct commissioner Michael Beloff -- who will now form an independent anti-corruption tribunal that will look into the actual charges and give a verdict on whether the players are innocent or guilty. Salman had accused the ICC of delaying the formation of the tribunal. "We will carry on and wait for the hearing," Salman said last week. "They (ICC) haven't given us a date even though we asked for it." ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the counsels were meeting to finalise the dates. "Various counsels were meeting to set up a date for the formation of the tribunal and for the hearing and at this point of time I cannot give an exact date, but rest assured we want to do it as soon as possible," Lorgat told reporters at the ICC headquarters. "Things have been exchanged among four sets of attornies," said Lorgat. "You need to have an agreement about their availability and readiness to be at the case."

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