Sweden V France : UEFA Euro 2012 Match Preview - Football
Published: 19 Jun 2012 - 13:28:57
French look to end six years of group hell.
France are looking to end a six year hiatus of failing to qualify for the knockout stages of a major finals here on Tuesday and get the result they need against already eliminated Sweden in their Euro 2012 Group D match.
The signs are positive for Laurent Blanc's side that they will both achieve their goal and extend their unbeaten run to 24 matches against what could be a demoralised Swedish side, who are pointless after two successive defeats.
The French could even lose and go through should England, who they lead on goal difference in the group with both on four points, beat co-hosts Ukraine in Donetsk.
However, under Blanc's wise and steady guidance - in comparison to the chaotic and rollercoaster ride under predecessor Raymond Domenech - this is not a concept they would entertain.
They envisage victory and topping the group to set up a quarter-final against the runners-up of Group C, finishing runners-up would more than likely see them entertaining the unappetising prospect of defending champions Spain in the last eight.
Blanc's only worry appears to be with one of the goalscorers from the Ukraine game, Yohan Cabaye, who complained about a twinge at the back of his thigh and was taken off as a precaution in the second-half.
"I am not worried but we have to be aware of it," said Blanc, whose selection of the other goalscorer Jeremy Menez in preference to Florent Malouda proved an inspired one.
"He had felt a little twinge behind his thigh in training, and he felt it again during the match. He then thought it best not to push his luck."
While Sweden may not have a place in the last eight to fight for there will be a desire to at least bow out with a famous scalp not least for some of the ageing veterans such as centreback Olof Mellberg, who is likely to retire from the national side after the finals.
Certainly if the Swedes show the same spirit and not a little skill as they did in the 3-2 loss to England then the French could be in for a real battle.
The Scandinavians' morale will have been given a timely boost when their star player Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced on Sunday he would not be retiring form international football despite the early exit.
"Absolutely. My future is with the national side," said Ibrahimovic, who has scored in three successive Euros.
"I will continue to play for them."
Sweden V France - view commentary, squad, and statictics of the game live.
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Poor ticket sales cancel The Voice UK Live tour - BBC News
The 11-date tour for The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales.
The gigs were due to feature eight of the show's finalists.
The Voice UK Live tour was to begin at the Bournemouth International Centre on 12 September and was then due to visit venues in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Glasgow and Sheffield.
Organisers say fans with tickets for the cancelled dates can get a refund.
A number of ticket outlets had only cited five dates as being axed earlier today (18 June), but organisers have confirmed that none of the scheduled dates will be going ahead.
In a statement, a spokesperson said: "Unfortunately, The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to lack of ticket sales.
"Customers are advised to contact their point of purchase for ticket refunds."
The news comes as the show was criticised for failing to attract viewers.
Episodes of The Voice consistently attracted average audiences of more than 10 million in April, but the ratings had dropped to 4.5 million later in the series.
More than seven million people tuned in to watch 28-year-old Leanne Mitchell, from Lowestoft in Suffolk, be crowned the show's first winner.
Her single, a cover of Whitney Houston's Run To You, failed to make it into the top 40 of the Official Chart.
G-Mac wants Claret Jug but Simpson may skip Open - ESPN.co.uk
Graeme McDowell is hoping to bounce back from his US Open disappointment by winning the Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes next month.
McDowell, the 2010 US Open champion, fell narrowly short in his bid to win the title for the second time in three years at Olympic Club last weekend - coming up a shot shy as 26-year-old American Webb Simpson claimed his maiden major title.
While disappointed to miss out on victory having held a share of the lead going into the final round, McDowell has taken the positives from the performance and has now set his sights on winning the Claret Jug next month.
"I will probably take a week off now and go to Lytham and prepare," McDowell said. "I fancy a run at that Claret Jug, I do."
He added: "I will take away a large cheque and am probably very close to locking my Ryder Cup place, which is more important to me.
"It has reinforced to me that I can compete and win more major championships. It's been a frustrating five or six weeks for me, but I knew in my heart that my game was better than my results were showing and it was just great to come in this week, prepare, try my best and compete."
The story is different for Simpson, however, who may not tee it up in Blackpool at all. His wife is expecting their second child in August, and the North Carolina native hinted he will not risk being stranded overseas if there is any possibility she could go into labour prematurely.
"I don't know about Lytham," Simpson said. "We met with our doctor before this week, just to see if my wife, Dowd, could come. The next eight weeks are going to be up in the air. We're going to see what we can do.
"It will all be kind of game-time decision for us."
Simpson became the 15th different first-time major winner in a row, indicating the competitive nature of professional golf at the moment. He believes that is an indication of the greater quality of tournament fields, rather than an indictment of the lack of a bona fide dominant superstar - like Tiger Woods, for example - in the game.
"I think the game's changing. My caddie and I were talking this week, the 14-year-old kid [Andy Zhang] was here, Beau Hossler was playing so well. I couldn't imagine playing in even a qualifier for this tournament when I was in high school," he said.
"But I think the Tiger effect of inspiring people to play at a younger age, and I think the access to golf has gotten so much bigger that the game is changing. Even in college, I would have been scared to death to play in a US Open. And these guys are playing like they're trying to win the tournament.
"So I think the game will continue to evolve like that. I'm lucky because I feel like we're playing at a time where golf is at its best."
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
Bloc Party announce eight UK tour dates for October - BBC News
Bloc Party have announced an eight-date UK tour starting in Newcastle on Friday 12 October.
The band, who release new album Four in August, will also play gigs in Leeds, Glasgow, Birmingham, Southampton, Bristol and Manchester.
They finish the tour just over a week later in Cambridge on 20 October.
The band is also playing several dates in America this August as well as a number of festivals across Europe including Ibiza Rocks in September.
Bloc Party - Kele Okereke, Russell Lissack, Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong - took a break between 2009 and last year.
The band pursued their own musical projects with 30-year-old Okereke releasing his first solo album, The Boxer, in 2010.
Bloc Party released their last studio album, Intimacy, in 2008.
The group's 2005 debut Silent Alarm won the Mercury Music Prize.
Pakistan Supreme Court disqualifies prime minister - Reuters
ISLAMABAD |
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's increasingly assertive Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ineligible for office, plunging the country into fresh political turmoil during a crisis in relations with the United States.
In April, it found Gilani guilty of contempt of court for refusing to reopen corruption cases against the president.
"Since no appeal was filed (against the April 26 conviction) ... therefore Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani stands disqualified as a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (parliament)...," said Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in a packed courtroom.
"He has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan ... the office of the prime minister stands vacant."
But Fawad Chaudhry, a senior Gilani aide, said only parliament could dismiss the prime minister.
While the decision is a big blow to the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), it is unlikely to lead to the fall of the unpopular government.
The PPP and its coalition partners have the numbers in parliament to elect a new prime minister until the government's term ends early next year.
"I don't see this as a major constitutional breakdown unless the PPP ignores this decision," said legal expert Salman Raja.
"I think sanity will prevail and they should be able to do that fairly easily given that they just passed the budget - they clearly have a majority (in parliament)."
The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to issue a notification declaring Gilani ineligible for office. He is the first serving prime minister in Pakistan's history to be convicted by a court.
The political instability is likely to further distract Pakistan's leaders from tackling a dizzying array of problems fueling public anger, from crippling power cuts to rampant corruption to a struggling economy.
The United States, which pours billions of dollars of aid into Pakistan, will likely view the latest political saga with unease as it struggles to persuade Islamabad to re-open the supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan is seen as critical to U.S. efforts pacify Afghanistan after more than a decade of war against the Taliban but it is often described as an unreliable ally.
CHAUDHRY BACK IN SPOTLIGHT
The decision puts Chaudhry back at the center of Pakistan's political turbulent stage.
Chaudhry became a household name in Pakistan and gained international recognition in 2007 when he stood up to then President Pervez Musharraf over his legally questionable bid to hold on to power.
Since then Chaudhry has emerged as a major force in Pakistan, taking on the unpopular government over allegations of corruption, and more significantly the military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its 64-year history.
Chaudhry took up cases involving kidnappings and torture of suspected Islamist militants allegedly carried out by the military and intelligence agencies. They deny the charges.
"The Supreme Court has expanded its domain once again," said analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.
"The Supreme Court does not have the power to dismiss the prime minister, only the parliament does. It's the first time in Pakistan's history that the Supreme Court has removed a prime minister and it has created a precedent."
The move comes during a difficult time for the chief justice.
A Pakistani real estate tycoon on Tuesday accused Chaudhry of turning a blind eye to his son's alleged corrupt financial practices.
Malik Riaz, who fashions himself as a billionaire philanthropist, said he had given almost $3.6 million in bribes to Chaudhry's son Arsalan Iftikhar.
Riaz, who has been accused of fraud, suggested that Chaudhry knew about the matter in advance of the Supreme Court's hearings on the issue this week. Arsalan Iftikhar has denied all allegations.
(Additional reporting by Rebecca Conway and Anam Zehra; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
UPDATE 3-Julius Baer in talks over BofA non-US wealth unit - Reuters UK
* Talks at early stage, outcome open
* Business seen worth $1.5 bln to $2 bln
* Royal Bank of Canada, Credit Suisse also interested
* Biggest deal since 2010 as private banking in upheaval
* Baer shares up 1.7 pct, outperform sector (Adds background, analyst comment)
ZURICH, June 19 (Reuters) - Julius Baer is in talks with Bank of America about buying Merrill Lynch's non-U.S. wealth management unit, valued at up to $2 billion, in what would be a transformative deal for the acquisition-hungry Swiss private bank.
Consolidation in the wealth management industry has been a major theme since the 2008 financial crisis, as an increase in costs and regulation force some players to sell off units and others - like Baer - to seek to improve margins through scale.
"Given the early stage of these discussions, the outcome is entirely open," Baer said on Tuesday.
A spokesman declined to say whether Baer was interested in buying the whole business or parts of it. Sources told Reuters last month it was keen on units in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia excluding Japan.
A deal would be the biggest in the sector since Dutch group ING sold its private banking assets in 2010 to Julius Baer and Singaporean group Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp for a total of about $1.9 billion.
"For Julius Baer this would be a truly transitional deal, similar to the acquisition of the UBS private bank entities back in 2005," said Sarasin analyst Rainer Skierka.
The purchase of UBS-owned assets in 2005 marked the start of a major expansion and the end of majority control for the Baer family which established the bank in 1890.
If Baer were to buy the business outright, it would increase assets under management by about 50 percent from the 178 billion Swiss francs ($186 billion) the bank reported at end-April.
Skierka said a deal could boost Baer's Asian assets under management to 25 percent from 15 percent of the total now, in line with the bank's strategy to expand in the region where the number of millionaires is booming.
Vontobel analyst Teresa Nielsen said the deal could also increase the scale of Baer's European onshore business.
Like many Swiss banks, Julius Baer is keen to grow its presence onshore in Europe and offshore in Asia as the business of serving Western foreigners with secret accounts has come under pressure from a global clampdown on tax evasion.
Julius Baer has been on the prowl since it missed out in November on a majority stake in Swiss group Sarasin, which went to Brazilian-Swiss private bank Safra for $1.1 billion.
CNBC had reported on Monday that Julius Baer was close to a deal to buy the BofA unit.
"MASS AFFLUENT"
Reuters reported in April that BofA had put its wealth management unit outside the United States up for sale as the business, which manages $90 billion for rich clients, was not large enough to generate sufficient income.
Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Canada were among those who put in initial bids to buy the business, sources told Reuters last month.
Nielsen and Skierka both estimated Baer had about 1 billion francs excess capital, so would probably have to issue new shares to fund at least part of the deal.
"Given its excess capital of 1 billion francs and expected cost synergies, financing of a reasonable purchase price via capital increase should become accretive," said Skierka.
Baer shares were up 1.7 percent at 33.08 francs at 1027 GMT, beating a 0.6 percent firmer European banking sector.
"Questions still remain around the quality of the AUM for sale, its cost income ratio and profitability. We believe the acquisition could lead to high execution risk due to differences between Swiss and American cultures," Vontobel's Nielsen said.
The BoA business targets so-called "mass affluent" clients with hundreds of thousands of dollars, rather than super-rich private banking clients worth tens of millions, but it has failed to match the scale and profitability of its home market.
Bank of America has been selling off non-core business units to build capital. The second-largest U.S. bank by assets has trailed rivals in recovering from the financial crisis, largely because of huge losses and lawsuits tied to its 2008 acquisition of subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. ($1 = 0.9547 Swiss franc) (Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Dan Lalor)
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