TV Deals for Leagues
Major League Soccer and the Women’s United Soccer Assn. unveiled new television contracts Tuesday that will significantly boost the two leagues’ visibility when the 2003 season begins Saturday.
MLS, which already receives national coverage from ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, signed a four-year deal with Fox Sports World and Fox Sports en Espanol that includes game coverage and an interactive highlights and interview show.
A minimum of 25 Saturday night regular-season games and eight playoff games will be shown by FSW, along with a weekly one-hour in-studio show called MLS Wrap. Fox Sports en Espanol will broadcast one game a week. The agreement with MLS allows Fox Sports International to also air the games in Latin America and the Middle East.
Financial terms were not revealed, but MLS and Fox said the league is not buying the airtime. Coverage on FSW will begin April 12.
Meanwhile, WUSA, whose games have been shown nationally on the PAX network during the league’s first two seasons, announced that it has added coverage on ESPN in 2003, with the network scheduled to show four regular-season games and one playoff game as well as the All-Star game on June 19 and the championship final on Aug. 24.
MLS Update
The Galaxy signed midfielder Jose Retiz, originally from Acapulco, Mexico, to its 18-player senior roster and added forward Herculez Gomez and midfielder Jesus Ochoa, both 21, to its six-player developmental roster.
Retiz, 24, who led Rancho Santiago College of Santa Ana to the national junior college championship in 1999, spent last season training with Santos Laguna of the Mexican league after having been drafted by the Galaxy in 2000.
Meanwhile, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars have acquired midfielder Joey DiGiamarino of Corona in a lottery after the former Cal State Fullerton and Colorado Rapids player decided to return to the U.S. after two seasons with Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
Leonardo Retires
AC Milan midfielder Leonardo, who played for Brazil’s 1994 World Cup-winning team and achieved notoriety for throwing an elbow that knocked U.S. star Tab Ramos unconscious, announced his retirement at 33 but will stay with the club in a front-office position.
Leonardo played professionally for clubs in Brazil, Italy, France, Spain and Japan during a 17-year career that saw him score eight goals in 56 games for Brazil.
African Awards
Senegal swept most of the top honors Tuesday night when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) held its annual awards ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Liverpool striker El Hadji Diouf, who helped Senegal reach the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, was named Africa’s Player of the Year, becoming only the third player after Liberia’s George Weah and Ghana’s Abedi Pele to win the honor two years in a row.
Former Senegal coach Bruno Metsu, now coaching the United Arab Emirates, was selected Coach of the Year, Senegal’s Tony Sylva was named Goalkeeper of the Year, and Alberta Sackey of Ghana won the Women’s Player of the Year award.
Quick Passes
The 2004 Olympic Games qualifying series between Iraq and Vietnam, which had been scheduled for April 5 and 19, was postponed by FIFA because of what world soccer’s governing body called “the current political circumstances and the impossibility of any communication with the Iraq Football Assn.” brought about by the U.S.-led war against Iraq.... Corinthians midfielder Vampeta, a member of Brazil’s 2002 World Cup team, has been sidelined for eight months after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.... Mauricio Pinella, the 19-year-old Universidad de Chile striker who scored one of the goals in Chile’s 2-0 victory over Peru on Sunday, was transferred to Inter Milan for $3 million.
