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Established 1961 15 Sports Monday, March 5, 2018 Italian international defender Astori dies of heart attack at 31 Fiorentina’s game was called off ROME: Italy international defender Davide Astori Fiorentina in 2015. He played 14 times for Italy. died in his hotel room during the night of Saturday, Former team-mates, coaches and teams were his club Fiorentina said yesterday. “Fiorentina are amongst those taking to social media to express their profoundly shocked to have to announce the death of grief. captain Davide Astori after a sudden illness,” the Gianluigi Buffon, the Juventus captain, called Serie A club said on Twitter. The 31-year-old, who Astori “a great man”. “Farewell dear Asto”, wrote leaves behind a two-year-old daughter, was in Udine Buffon in a post on Instagram accompanied by a pho- to prepare for Sunday’s match against Udinese. to of the two players exchanging pennants before a Astori died of “natural causes” after a “cardiac cir- game between their clubs. culatory collapse”-a type of heart attack-Antonio de Nicolo, a Udine magis- ‘TRAGIC DEATH’ trate was quoted in Buffon said he did Italian media as saying. not usually make a habit The magistrate added of expressing his feel- that it was “strange that ings about others. “I such a thing happened Gianluigi Buffon, want to make an excep- without any warning tion to my rule because symptoms in a profes- called Astori you have a young wife sion which is so closely and others close to you monitored”. “a great man” who are suffering, but Astori’s body was mostly because your taken to a hospital in little girl deserves to Udine for an autopsy. know that her dad was Fiorentina’s game was a good man... a great UDINE: File photo taken on September 18, 2016 Fiorentina’s defender Davide Astori falls as he plays the called off in the morning. The early kick off between man,” Buffon wrote. ball during the Italian Serie A football match Fiorentina vs AS Roma, at Florence’s “Artemio Franchi” Genoa and Cagliari, one of Astori’s former clubs, was Radja Nainggolan, a Belgian international who comunal stadium. — AFP abandoned when players learned the news while played with Astori at two clubs, posted a photo of the warming up on the pitch. two of them joyously celebrating a goal at Cagliari. “A The Italian league then postponed the other five great player, but an even bigger man, so many battles loved football and who grew up with us. AC Milan is leader of the Democrat Party in Sunday’s Italian elec- Serie A matches scheduled for Sunday, including the fought together in Cagliari before coming to Rome, I shocked by the tragic death of Davide Astori,” the tion, tweeted: “This seems to me impossible. I don’t Milan derby. Astori began his career at AC Milan, also cannot believe it,” he wrote. club’s official account tweeted in English. believe it and I cry with the family and everyone at playing for Cagliari and Roma before joining Astori’s formative club Milan joined in. “A man who Matteo Renzi, a former mayor of Florence and now Fiorentina. Ciao capitano.” – AFP Southgate’s England seek Illegal gambling seclusion at shadow hangs World Cup over Russia ahead of WCup REPINO: England’s World Cup squad will seclude them- selves in a modest hotel in the woods near Saint Petersburg, opting for the calm of a history-steeped village rather than a city closer to their group matches. MOSCOW: At least a billion dollars a year are The four-star ForRestMix Club Sport and Relax-an believed to be pouring into offshore accounts of affordable option for Russians looking to get away from it Russian shell companies linked to just one semi-legal all-offers little entertainment but plenty of sleep. Nervous but blossoming industry: online gambling. fans back home might frown at the choice since England This poses a new challenge for Russia as it pre- are playing nowhere near Saint Petersburg, Russia’s so- pares to host the World Cup in June and July-the called northern capital. Their three group stage matches country has already been plagued for decades by will take Harry Kane and his teammates from the Volga allegations of match-fixing in its domestic football. River to the edge of Poland, making a total of 6,400 kilo- No one expects illicit betting to play a role on the pitch when football’s most celebrated competition metres (4,000 miles) of back and forth travel. SAINT PETERSBURG: File photo taken on December 04, 2017 shows the four-star ForRestMix club hotel England will play in Volgograd against Tunisia on June kicks off in 100 days. But it represents another dark which was chosen to be England’s national football team’s base for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, in the village corner of Russia’s economy that the authorities have 18, in Nizhny Novgorod against Panama on June 24, and in of Repino on the Baltic coast near Saint Petersburg.—AFP Kaliningrad against Belgium on June 30. But coach Gareth struggled to police. Southgate has decided that peace and quiet on the Gulf of “The total turnover volume of the legal and offshore online bookmaking market is more than two Finland was what his men needed most. ties for players to go out on the town-repeating the fabled 200 people, it has four restaurants, a “Fito Bar” offering billion dollars (1.6 billion euros) a year,” Anton “We want that environment where the players are exploits of Paul Gascoigne-will be rare. “Our hotel is for fruit and herbal tea, a 25-metre pool and a fairly modern Rozhkovsky, the director of the government-mandat- relaxed,” he said in October as the FA settled its choice on lovers of silence,” said manager Tatyana Zubochenko. It is gym. “We already have experience accommodating ath- ed TsUPIS online betting payment system, told AFP. the outskirts of President Vladimir Putin’s home town. a place to focus the minds of the English, whose 1966 letes,” manager Zubochenko said. “We also hosted (the “We do not pretend to know if the actual figure is Located 27 kilometres (17 miles) northwest of Saint World Cup win on home soil has never been repeated and Russian) Olympic judo team” as they prepared for the $2.5 billion or $4 billion,” said Rozhkovsky. “Around Petersburg, the village England will be calling home is who enter the June 14-July 15 tournament as long shots 2016 Rio Games. 70 percent of that is illegal, offshore business.” named after Ilya Repin, a realist painter who settled there despite being the so-called “home” of the beautiful game. The training ground is seven kilometres away in Pent-up demand for organised gambling was at the turn of the 20th century. Zelenogorsk, which can be reached by bus in about 15 unleashed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Repino became famous for its wooden country houses RUSSIAN JUDOKAS STAYED minutes. “The location is very convenient,” said led to glitzy casinos and seedy slot machine halls favoured by Russian artists, intellectuals and nobles, Built in 2011, the hotel has 105 rooms with pleasant Zubochenko. “The training ground is nearby, the city cen- opening across Russia. before being transformed into a Soviet rest home for views of the surrounding forest and traditional Russian tre is not far and we are in the woods.” But travel might They skirted paying taxes but were not strictly workers and children. These traces of history are still visi- rugs overlaying the carpet of the more upscale suites. A frazzle the Three Lions’ nerves. illegal. The government tried to impose order by ble today: by the understated four-floor hotel stand quaint no-frills “Standard” room with two beige armchairs and a Simply getting to and from Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo shutting them all down in 2009 and allowing bookies tsarist-era cottages and an imposing concrete sanatorium TV screen the size of a laptop computer is offered for Airport is a hassle, requiring the team to cross the con- to open sport betting shops that instantly gravitated built by the communists. $145 (115 euros), while a “Family” room with a balcony and gested city of four million people, where traffic jams are a toward football. Improved internet access pushed The feel of Repino is decidedly serene and opportuni- a couch runs up to $240. Normally able to accommodate constant fixture. — AFP most of these punters online and produced a legal vacuum filled by scores of anonymous websites with no licences but burgeoning business. The 34-year-old Farah has been training in Ethiopia Russia’s Bookmakers Rating gambling analysis Farah wins and arrived in London on Thursday. He managed to centre pegged the entire industry’s annual turnover at adjust to a huge drop in temperature for Sunday’s race, $11.8 billion in May 2017, 65 percent of it made in illegal online bets. It also expected the market to his first for six months. inaugural Big Half triple in the next five years thanks to high-profile “It wasn’t too bad, I was comfortable,” Farah told events such as the World Cup. “We expect colossal BBC radio, but added with a laugh “I have to do double interest in the World Cup,” Alena Sheyanova, spokes- the distance (in six weeks’ time).” Farah has turned to woman for the legally registered bookmaker Leon, LONDON: Britain’s top long distance runner Mo Farah marathon racing after a glorious career on the track told AFP.

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