The Brazilian side Flamengo of Rio de Janeiro claim to have collected evidence of the dangers of playing at high altitude. The red and blacks received a facsimile from a group of Bolivian and Mexican doctors who had concluded that playing
high above sea level could prove fatal. The doctors reached this conclusion after studying the death of a 23-year-old soccer player last year during a game in the Bolivian mountain city of Potosí.
The physicians performed all sorts of heart and blood tests on various players who had played at altitudes of above 2500 meters and determined that athletes indeed can die in such conditions.
The Brazilian media claim the Bolivian authorities tried to prevent the publication of the said report since their country’s FA is play bazaar struggling to persuade FIFA to withdraw the ban on playing international matches above 2700 meters. Other countries involved in the struggle against FIFA are Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, while Brazil and Argentina largely support the ruling.
According to the medical science, athletes should have to spend two weeks adapting to high altitude before playing a soccer match, which is impracticable due to the condensed playing schedule.
Mijatovic tries to lure Cristiano Ronaldo to Madrid
Real Madrid’s sports director Predrag Mijatovic travelled to Manchester last week to discuss a possible transfer with Cristiano Ronaldo’s agent Jorge Mendes.
According to Spanish tv station Sexta, Real Madrid are prepared to play
no less than 125 million euros for the magnificent Portuguese player,
which is five million more than the Spaniards had previously offered.
Last summer Manchester United were unwilling to accept 120 million
euros, so it is unclear how five million more could make a difference.
Still, Real Madrid hope Cristiano could be theirs for much less in two
years time, when he would be able to invoke UEFA’s controversial
Webster ruling, allowing players over 23 to buy off their contract by
simply paying the club their remaining wages.
Getafe protests over favouritism towards Valencia
Angel Torres, chairman of Madrid giant killers Getafe, is furious over the Spanish League’s treatment of his team in view of the forthcoming Cup finals to be held on April 16th.
What angers Torres is the fact that the League allowed Valencia to bring forward their League game against Rácing from next Sunday to Saturday.
Curiously, the League also said it would allow Getafe to play against Zaragoza on Saturday, but that change of date would not mean anything to the Madrid team.
In fact, it would complicate their life rather than make it easier.
The reason is Getafe played their UEFA Cup quarterfinals second leg against Bayern on Thursday, so meeting Zaragoza on Saturday would be a terrible ordeal for them.
“A solution would be fielding juniors against Zaragoza, but we are not going to do that in order not to hurt other clubs. Therefore we shall ask for the resignation of the League chairman José Luis Astiazaran,” said Torres.
Since Zaragoza is a relegation threatened team, Getafe vows to field a full team to guarantee the regularity of the competition.
sattamatka 