Joan Laporta has lined up former France and Barcelona defender Eric Abidal to be his technical secretary if he wins next month’s election at the Primera Liga and European champions.
Laporta, who held the top job between 2003 and 2010 and is one of the front-runners along with incumbent Josep Maria Bartomeu, presented Abidal at a news conference in the Catalan capital on Monday.
Abidal, 35, played for Barca during a glittering run for the club between 2007 and 2013 and became a fan hero when he made a successful return after undergoing a liver transplant in 2012.
He joined Ligue 1 side Monaco in July 2013 and announced his retirement as a player in December after a brief stint with Greek club Olympiakos Piraeus.
“Barca is more than a club and I wanted to carry on working and maintain a link to that,” Abidal, who would help oversee Barca’s transfer market dealings, told reporters.
Another of his tasks would be to ensure Barca’s La Masia academy, which produced the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi in recent times, remained the centre of excellence, he added.
A lawyer and pro-Catalan independence politician, Laporta has tried to distinguish his candidacy from Bartomeu’s by criticising the sponsorship deal Barca signed with Qatar under former president Sandro Rosell.
Rosell took over from Laporta in 2010 but was forced to resign in January 2014 after he and the club were accused of tax fraud in the signing of Brazil forward Neymar.
Bartomeu stepped up to the top job and has decided to run for another term, following a successful season on the field for the club as they won the domestic league and cup double in Spain and then won the Uefa Champions League final earlier this month, even though he has also been named as a defendant in the case.
Stoke City’s Krkic could fit in time for new season
Stoke striker Bojan Krkic hopes to be fit for the start of the new domestic season. The 24-year-old Spaniard suffered a cruciate ligament injury in an FA Cup tie at Rochdale at the end of January, abruptly ending what had been a promising first season in English football. The former Barcelona player has undergone an extensive rehabilitation programme in his native Spain and has said he is on course to be ready for Stoke’s opening Premier League game against Liverpool on the weekend of August 8-9. “I feel better. It’s been four and a half months from that knee injury,” Bojan told Italian newspaper Corriere Dello Sport. “Now I’m enhancing muscle tone and I hope to return in time for the start of the season.”
Celtic draw against FC Stjarnan in Champions League
Celtic have been drawn against FC Stjarnan of Iceland in the second qualifying round of the Uefa Champions League. Ronny Deila’s side, who won the Scottish Premiership ahead of Aberdeen, will begin their campaign on July 14 or 15 with the second leg a week later on July 21 or 22. The Glasgow side failed to reach the group stages in 2014/15, when they lost out to Slovenian side Maribor having been re-instated into the play-off round despite a 6-1 aggregate defeat by Legia Warsaw, with the Polish side ejected from the competition by Uefa after fielding an ineligible player. Irish club Dundalk face a tough test against BATE Borisov, the champions of Belarus. Elsewhere in the first qualifying round, The New Saints of Wales, one of the seeded teams, will play B36 Torshavn of the Faroe Islands while Northern Ireland side Crusaders were drawn against Estonian side Levadia Talinn.
West Ham begin preparations for Europa League
Premier League club West Ham United are set to enter the first round of the Europa League qualifying, having been given a place via the Uefa Fair Play table. West Ham, now managed by Slaven Bilic, were handed a draw against FC Lusitans of Andorra. Scottish club St Johnstone will play Alashkert of Armenia, while Aberdeen take on Macedonian side Shkendija.
Russia makes 2018 World Cup budget cuts
Russia has slashed over US$500 million (Dh1.83 billion) from its official budget for the 2018 World Cup after cutting spending on hotels and infrastructure. The government is curbing most areas of public spending as the economy contracts due to the low oil price. An order signed by Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, cut the total World Cup budget by 29.2 billion roubles (Dh1.98bn) to 631.5bn roubles. “We’re optimising and cutting expenses. First of all we’re removing the excess number of hotels,” sports minister Vitaly Mutko said. Fifa denied the cuts would mean a shortage of hotel rooms for fans in 2018. “As any other entity with operations in Russia, Fifa keeps a close eye on the financial situation in Russia,” it said in a statement.
Parma to play in Italian fourth tier
Bankrupt club Parma will have to play in the fourth tier of Italian football after no buyer was found by the deadline. Parma’s hopes of avoiding demotion to the amateur division were all but ended when Mike Piazza, the former Major League Baseball player, pulled out of talks yesterday, shortly before the deadline for the club to be sold. “No offers have been received for the sporting rights of the club,” a Parma statement said, adding that “in the coming hours the administrators will meet ... to make the necessary arrangements for the bankruptcy proceedings”.
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
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GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Match info:
Manchester City 2
Sterling (8'), Walker (52')
Newcastle United 1
Yedlin (30')
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The Breadwinner
Director: Nora Twomey
Starring: Saara Chaudry, Soma Chhaya, Laara Sadiq
Three stars
