Sports

The African Cup of Nations tournament is scheduled to start in two months, but nobody wants to host it.

Organiser the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is running out of time and is without a host country because of the threat of Ebola. CAF has refused to reschedule.

Initial host Morocco stood firm this weekend in its decision not to host the 16-team event early next year and still wants it postponed until 2016 because of the outbreak of the deadly virus in West Africa.

CAF will meet Tuesday to make a final decision on the cup — and may have to give up on the tournament in 2015.

The Cairo-based African football body, which rejected Morocco’s previous request for a postponement, said it will look for a new host to stage the continent’s top tournament on its scheduled dates of January 17-February 8 if Morocco is unrelenting.

Morocco could be stripped of its hosting rights at the CAF executive committee meeting and possibly punished further, but there is no obvious plan B for the African Cup if CAF goes ahead.

Four possible stand-in countries — South Africa, Sudan, Egypt and Ghana — have also indicated they are not willing to host. It is unclear if any other countries met Saturday’s deadline to put their names forward as hosts in place of Morocco.

Ghana ruled itself out Monday when its sports minister, Mahama Ayariga, said it had taken advice from health workers not to host because of Ebola.

CAF approached seven countries as backup hosts last month, according to one of them, South Africa.

CAF has declined to name the countries, but Nigeria and Angola have been mentioned as possible stand-in hosts alongside the four that have declined.

One of CAF’s pressing concerns is that its showpiece tournament fits into FIFA’s calendar, but Africa’s best players — like Manchester City’s Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure — may not be released by their clubs to play in early 2016, if the Cup of Nations is postponed until then.

Repeating its stance on the Ebola threat Saturday, Morocco’s ministry of youth and sports said in a four-page statement that it still wanted the Cup of Nations postponed for a year because of the “serious risk of spread of the deadly Ebola pandemic”.

Nearly 5,000 people have died from Ebola, with almost all the deaths in the three worst affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Morocco said it expected tens of thousands of fans to travel for the games — many from football-mad West Africa — and it was not willing to risk Ebola spreading through large gatherings of people at matches in its country.

The advice of its health authorities took precedence over sport, said the ministry, and it did not want to be forced to refuse supporters from Ebola-affected countries entry into Morocco.

SEOUL — South Korea coach Uli Stielike hopes a tough trip to the Middle East to face Jordan and Iran will be the perfect opportunity to sharpen his squad ahead of January’s Asian Cup.

Stielike took over in September after Hong Myung-bo resigned in the wake of a woeful World Cup campaign and guided his new side to a win over Paraguay and defeat to Costa Rica in October.

South Korea, who have been grouped with hosts Australia, Oman and Kuwait in the first stage of the January 9-31 Asian Cup, take on Jordan on Friday before travelling to Tehran to face the Iranians the following Tuesday.

“Regardless of where we play, I am just glad to be back with the players after five weeks,” Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted Stielike as saying late on Monday before the team left for Jordan.

“These are our two final matches before the Asian Cup, and if we win these matches, it will be a huge confidence boost for our players.”

While it is far too early to judge Stielike’s impact on the Koreans, they have impressed under the former German international and will fancy their chances of ending a miserable run against the Iranians away from home.

South Korea has never beaten Iran on home soil, and the relationship between the two became fractious during 2014 World Cup qualifiers after the Koreans complained about training facilities in Tehran.

“I know South Korea’s history against Iran on the road,” Stielike added. “I think this will be our opportunity for payback.”

The 59-year-old coach has injected a much-needed dose of confidence into the squad and been rewarded for picking young players, but he raised eyebrows by including struggling striker Park Chu-young and goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong in his latest squad.

Park and Jung both disappointed in Brazil, where the Koreans failed to win a game and were eliminated in the group stage.

“I’ve gone through some difficult times but I’ve tried to stay positive,” said Jung, who conceded five goals in two games against Russia and Algeria before being dropped for the Koreans final group game against Belgium.

“As a goalkeeper, I think it’s important to communicate well with the defenders. I’ve got to do my absolute best.”

SAO PAULO — This time, Nico Rosberg wasn’t going to let victory slip away.

A week after seeing Lewis Hamilton overtake him to win the United States Grand Prix, Rosberg fended off another strong challenge by his Mercedes teammate to secure the victory at the Brazilian GP and close in on his rival in the Formula One title race.

“It was a great weekend all in all,” Rosberg said. “Just didn’t do a good enough job in the race in Austin, today I managed to do that. I learned from Austin and did better, so that’s a big step in the right direction. One race too late, [but] there’s still all to play for.”

The German cut his points-deficit to 17 but Hamilton will keep the upper hand going into the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi, where the Briton can clinch his second title with another second-place finish. If Rosberg misses out on a podium spot, Hamilton can finish eighth or better and still lift the trophy.

Hamilton has 334 points to 317 for Rosberg. The championship could not be decided at Interlagos because the race in Abu Dhabi on November 23 will be worth double points.

“Now I’m just hoping for [Abu Dhabi] and need to try and keep this going now,” he said.

Hamilton also started behind Rosberg in Texas but outpaced him during the race. Rosberg said it took too long for him to find his rhythm at the Circuit of Americas. It wasn’t going to happen again this time.

“I always needed to make sure that the gap was always such that there was no chance of him to go for the overtake, unlike Austin, and managed to do that, so that was good.”

It was Rosberg’s fifth win of the season and his first since the German GP in July. Hamilton was trying to win his sixth race in a row.

Felipe Massa of Williams finished third in front of his home crowd, ahead of Jenson Button of McLaren and Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Vettel, the winner last year in Brazil, was fifth, while Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished sixth, ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen, the only front driver to use a two-stop strategy instead of a three-stop one.

It was the 11th 1-2 finish for Mercedes, one more than the previous record set by McLaren in 1988. The team’s 15th victory of the season also allowed it to match the record held by McLaren and Ferrari.

“We used to be always hunting and now we’re the hunted, and that’s a big change,” Rosberg said. “It’s great to see how the team has adapted and not slackened off, because that is always difficult, when you get to the front to then stay there. It seems that we’re really going strong and that’s fantastic.”

Hamilton was quickly making up ground to Rosberg near the mid-point of the race but his chances of getting close enough to attempt a pass were hurt when he went off the track and nearly spun at the end of the back straight — a mistake that put him more than seven seconds behind Rosberg.

“I was much quicker at the point,” Hamilton said. “I locked the rears and it just spun me around. No one’s fault but mine.”

Hamilton kept charging and got within a second in the final laps but was never able to make a move on Rosberg, who crossed the line 1.4 seconds in front.

“In the first stint I could see that I could control the gap and could just make sure that Lewis didn’t come into the region where he could launch an attack,” Rosberg said. “Once I saw that, I was very confident that I could keep controlling the gap for the whole race.”

Massa, who started third and ran close to Mercedes all weekend, almost threw away his chance to finish on the podium at home after a five-second stop-and-go penalty for speeding on the pit lane during his first pit stop. He also lost some time by entering the wrong pit stall in his final stop.

“I’m happy with the race, not happy with my mistakes,” he said. “I thought I could lose the podium.”

There were huge cheers from the crowd as Massa crossed the finish line in third place. The fans loudly chanted his name at the podium ceremony.

“It’s really exciting to be here after everything that happened to me in this race,” the Brazilian said. “This crowd really deserved it. The whole energy that I had this weekend, it’s difficult to explain.”

There were only 18 cars on the grid for the second race in a row. Marussia was shut down on Friday, while Caterham has a crowdfunding project under way to try to return to the grid in Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile, Formula One’s financially struggling smaller teams fear there could be an “agenda” to end their constructor status and turn them into mere operators of cars provided by bigger rivals.

“Looking at the proposals which have been made, we have to believe there is some agenda here,” Sauber principal Monisha Kaltenborn told reporters after Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

“When ideas are offered to us of a year-old chassis or engines which maybe are a different specification or whatever, a different series, there must be an agenda,” she said.

“Those ideas are ideas. But that tells you where it is going... the more these ideas are coming up, the more we three get the feeling that maybe some people don’t want us to be around and maybe the sport is supposed to be changed in a very different way.”

The three — Sauber, Force India and Lotus — have all been calling for the distribution of revenues to be made fairer to guarantee them a “base payment” that would help them to continue competing.

However, talks with commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone at Interlagos produced no agreement, with the 84-year-old Briton holding out little hope of one.

“We are giving these teams collectively $900 million and that’s enough,” he told reporters.

Force India deputy principal Bob Fernley wondered whether the end goal was to turn Formula One into a constructor and a customer series.

AMMAN — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team has regrouped to play three local friendlies during the training camp currently under way. Coach Jamal Abu Abed said the team would play Faisali on Wednesday, followed by a match against Jordan Professional League leaders Wihdat Thursday and Shabab Urdun on Saturday. Team officials and the Jordan Football Association are trying to secure several friendlies as the team prepares for the 2016 Olympic qualifiers set for March 2015. “These matches will pave the way to assess all players recalled and finalise the line-up accordingly,” Abu Abed said.

AMMAN — Jordan was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 Asian Football Confederation U-19 Women’s Championship which ended here on Sunday. Uzbekistan grabbed the sole qualifying berth after beating Jordan 3-0 to top the group. Jordan finished second after they beat India 3-1 and Lebanon 3-0. Uzbekistan  beat India 2-0, and the newly formed Lebanese team 7-0. India beat Lebanon 3-1 to finish third. The U-19 squad was hoping to qualify for the second time after Jordan was the first Arab team to play in the 3rd AFC U-19 Women’s Championship finals in 2007.

SAO PAULO — Despite being only 22 years old, Neymar has already done enough to be ranked among Brazil’s greatest players of all time.

If he can keep it up, not even the great Pele may be standing in front of him when the youngster hangs up his boots.

Brazil’s most promising player in decades is living up to expectations and has set himself on a path to greatness. He is enchanting with his brilliance and putting up numbers that few others have achieved at his age.

He is already Brazil’s fifth-greatest scorer with 40 goals with the national team, and is well on pace to surpass Pele’s record of 77 as the nation’s most prolific scorer.

If Neymar keeps scoring like this, he may break Pele’s record before he turns 28, in 2020. Pele was only two months older than Neymar when he netted his 40th goal. Only Pele and Romario have a better goal average than Neymar with the national team.

“I am very happy and proud of the progress of Neymar since he moved to play in Europe,” Pele told The Associated Press in an e-mail. “This season, he keeps proving that he’s one of the best players in the world. His growth as a player is fantastic and very beneficial for the Selecao.”

Among the few Brazilians who have more goals than Neymar are Zico, Romario and Ronaldo, longtime heroes in the land of football.

Neymar reached his 40th goal after scoring four times in a friendly against Japan last month, and in the coming weeks he has a chance to move closer to Zico’s mark of 48 goals when Brazil plays friendlies against Turkey and Austria. Romario has 55 goals in official matches with the Selecao, while Ronaldo had 62.

“We both came from Santos FC where we developed the same set of skills: creativity, passing, clinical finishing and, of course, insatiable hunger for goals,” Pele told the AP.

While Pele spent most of his career in Brazil, Neymar was quick to move to European football. He went straight from Santos to Barcelona, and it didn’t take long for him to start succeeding alongside the likes of Lionel Messi.

In Brazil, many say Neymar already has what it takes to become the best player in the world.

“Maybe it won’t happen this year, but by next year he will be named the best in the world, I’m certain,” former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira told Brazilian media recently. “He’s already an idol.”

Neymar had just started to catch everyone’s attention when Zico, the star of Brazil’s 1982 World Cup team, said the youngster could become as good as Pele or Diego Maradona.

“He does things that Maradona was never able to do,” Zico told local channel Esporte Interativo a few years ago. “Maradona was as great as he was thanks to what he could do with his left foot, but he was never able to use his right leg effectively. Neymar has this ability to play well using both of his legs.”

But even Zico pointed to some of Neymar’s weaknesses at the time, including his less-than superb heading skills, an area where Pele thrived. Neymar also was criticised because of his dives and for failing to perform well with the national team early in his career.

He has steadily improved in most areas and is a much more mature player today. Neymar has been diving less often and is behaving better both on and off the field. A season playing alongside the best in the world in Europe helped him progress rapidly.

He also improved with the national team, becoming Brazil’s captain and the player carrying the fans’ hopes for a sixth world title.

“I don’t know what my limit is,” Neymar said after he surpassed Bebeto as Brazil’s fifth-best scorer. “I’m not thinking about surpassing Pele, that’s not my goal. My goal is to keep scoring to help the national team and to help my teammates.”

It’s not only the goals that make Neymar a special player.

He lacks the physical strength that Pele used to have, and also doesn’t seem to have the same above-average quick-thinking of the three-time World Cup champion, but Neymar has similar light-footed skills and uses his incredible speed to make up for some of his weaknesses. Like Pele, Ronaldo and Romario, he also has outstanding precision on his finishes.

Neymar does have some advantages over players such as Ronaldo and Romario, who became stars mostly because of their goal-scoring ability. Neymar is not only about scoring goals, he is more of a playmaker, and uses his ball skills and speed to create scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates. Ronaldo used mostly his strength to get past defenders, while Romario was more about using good positioning inside the area and precise strikes.

Contrary to a classic No. 10 such as Zico, who had outstanding ball control and was always trying to put his teammates in position to score, Neymar is constantly challenging defenders and using his dribbling skills to get near the opponent’s area.

Although it remains too early to tell how Neymar will be compared to other Brazilian greats, it’s likely that his success will depend largely on whether he can win with Brazil and lead the five-time world champion back to its glory days.

Pele had already won two World Cups by the time he was 22. Neymar missed out on a chance to win his first world title thanks in part to a back injury that ruled him out of some of this year’s tournament in Brazil.

And there is always the chance that Neymar may never be as good as everyone expects, as happened to Robinho, who also was touted as a promising star when he transferred to European football as a 21-year-old. Also a Santos player, Robinho moved to Real Madrid instead of Barcelona, but never played up to expectations.

He played in two World Cups and remains with the national team, but never became the type of star that Brazilians had hoped for after he started making headlines as a teenager.

Only time will tell if Neymar will be more like Robinho or more like Pele.

AMMAN — The first ever Tennis Masters Championship hosted in Amman concluded on the weekend with the event creating a chance for fans and aspiring players a weeklong tennis packed activity. The final saw top ranked Spaniard Adrian Maceiras winning the title on Saturday after he beat Slovak Ivo Klec 7-5, 6-2. Organised by the Tennis Academy Amman in cooperation with the Jordan Tennis Veterans Club, the championship was held for the first time in Jordan and is modelled after the World Tour Finals that are held annually. Eight international players competed for a total of $20,000 in prize money. The eight players were divided into two groups with the top two from each group moving on to the semis. The event hosted semifinalist Arab champion and captain of the Egyptian Davis Cup team Mohammad Safwat, Bulgaria’s top player Dimitar Kuzmanov, who was a junior semifinalist at Rolland Garros and top European under-16 player, former 75th ranked Romanian Victor Crivoi, Spain’s Jaime Garcia, Juan Samuel Aruzo Martinez and Qatari Davis Cup team player Mubarak Shannan. The eight tennis pros also put in some time for a session with juniors and kids at the Tennis Academy.

AMMAN — Veteran driver Marouf Abu Samra on Friday secured his fourth title after winning the fifth and final round of the National Rally Championship. Abu Samra, who won the championship title in 1997, 1999 and 2013, clocked 47m50s leaving Ahmad Daoud in second place (53m13s) and Husam Salem in third (57m27s). “I wanted to seal the win to take the title and this is what happened. The competition was excellent and there was no room for errors,” said Abu Samra. Salem who faced a puncture in the fifth stage had to put more pressure on the car to reserve a place on the podium. “This is rallying and anything could ruin the moment. I ended up in the third place and I am okay with that,” he said. Meanwhile Khaled Juma and Raed Habaybeh retired early due to mechanical problems. Only seven drivers took part in the final round.

MILAN — Lionel Messi scored twice to draw level with Raul Gonzalez as the Champions League’s all-time leading scorer on Wednesday, as Barcelona won 2-0 at Ajax to reach the knockout stage along with Group F leader Paris Saint-Germain.

Bayern Munich also progressed, beating Roma 2-0 to maintain their perfect record, while Porto won by the same scoreline at Athletic Bilbao to join the Bundesliga club in the last 16.

“Messi is absolutely the best player I have ever seen as player or coach,” said Barcelona coach Luis Enrique.

It was a miserable night for English sides with nine-man Manchester City losing 2-1 at home to CSKA Moscow to slip to the bottom of Group E and Chelsea missing a penalty in a 1-1 draw at Maribor in Group G.

Sporting Lisbon blew that group wide open as it came from behind to beat Schalke 4-2, while Luiz Adriano scored a second-half hat trick to help Shakhtar Donetsk humiliate BATE Borisov 5-0 and stay second behind Porto in Group H.

Messi scored his 70th Champions League goal in the 36th minute with a soft header after Ajax failed to clear a free kick and then linked up with substitute Pedro Rodriguez for his second of the night in the 76th minute.

Ajax played the last 20 minutes with 10 men after defender Joel Veltman was sent off for his second yellow card.

PSG beat Apoel Nicosia 1-0 to remain a point ahead of Barcelona, with Edinson Cavani scoring the only goal of a scrappy game after just 57 seconds.

Manchester City are on the verge of tumbling out of the group stage following two goals from Seydou Doumbia either side of a Yaya Toure free kick.

City’s halftime substitute Fernandinho was sent off in the 70th minute for two bookable offences, and Toure followed for pushing Roman Eremenko.

“It’s very difficult to understand why we played so badly,” City coach Manuel Pellegrini said. “Really, we didn’t play. The first half especially, we didn’t see the team we normally see.”

City is two points behind CSKA and Roma.

The Italian team was keen to avoid a repetition of its 7-1 mauling at the hands of Bayern last time out and managed to restrict the five-time champion to two goals, by Franck Ribery and Mario Goetze, either side of halftime.

Maribor was unrecognisable from the side crushed 6-0 by Chelsea two weeks ago and claimed a deserved lead when Agim Ibraimi curled a beautiful shot into the top corner five minutes into the second half.

Nemanja Matic levelled from close range 17 minutes from time and Chelsea had the chance to take all three points when Eden Hazard was fouled for an 85th minute spot-kick, but the Belgian’s effort was too central and Jasmin Handanovic saved.

Chelsea still leads Group G with eight points, three ahead of Schalke, with Sporting a point further back following its first win of the tournament this season. Maribor has three points.

Islam Slimani’s 17th-minute own goal from a deflection handed Schalke the lead, but Sporting equalised just under 10 minutes later through Naby Sarr’s glancing header.

Goals from Jefferson and Nani put Sporting in front and, although Dennis Aogo pulled one back two minutes from time, Slimani sealed it in stoppage time.

In Bilbao, Porto forward Yacine Brahimi atoned for his first-half penalty miss with an exquisite solo effort to set up Jackson Martinez for the 56th minute opener. Brahimi then sealed the win with the easiest of goals after a gaffe by goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz.

As well as taking his tally to nine Champions League goals this season, Luiz Adriano also set up both of Shakhtar’s other goals for captain Darijo Srna and Alex Teixeira.

BATE right-back Anri Khagush was sent off after the halftime whistle had gone, earning a second yellow card in less than a minute for arguing with the referee.

AMMAN — The first ever Tennis Masters Championship hosted in Amman concludes on the weekend with semifinals on Friday and the final match on Saturday.

Organised by the Tennis Academy Amman, in cooperation with the Jordan Tennis Veterans Club, the championship is being held for the first time in Jordan and is modelled after the World Tour Finals that are held annually. Eight international players are competing on the Tennis Academy's courts at the Hussein Youth City to win a total of $20,000 in prize money. 

"The significance of this tournament is to put Jordan on the tennis map and raise the profile of the game locally," one of the organisers and former Jordan champ Khalid Naffa told The Jordan Times.

The eight players were divided into two groups with the top two from each group moving on to the semis.

On Thursday, Arab champion and captain of the Egyptian Davis Cup team Mohammad Safwat beat Spain's Juan Samuel Aruzo Martinez 6-2, 7-5 to top Group B. 

Safwat, ranked 187th, beat Bulgaria's top player Dimitar Kuzmanov 6-2, 6-1 but lost to former 75th ranked Romanian Victor Crivoi in a very close match. Crivoi, also defeated Martinez 6-4, 6-2. 

Bulgaria's Kuzmanov came second in the group. He defeated Spain's Martinez 6-2, 6-2. 

In Group A, top ranked Spanish player Adrian Maceiras beat compatriot Jaime Garcia 6-2, 7-6 to top the group. He also defeated Qatari Davis Cup team player Mubarak Shannan 6-0, 6-1. 

Slovak Ivo Klec, ranked 184th, came second in the group.

Kuzmanov, highest ranked 381st, was a junior semifinalist at Rolland Garros and top European under-16. 

Safwat will play Klec  while  Kuzmanov takes on Maceiras in the semifinals on Friday.