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| Monday, 3 January 2005 |
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World sports support for Tsunami victims grow PARIS, Sunday (AFP) - Clubs from the English Premiership to America's National Football League have joined multi-millionaire soccer, tennis and cricket stars in the growing effort by the sports world to assist the victims of Asia's tsunami disaster. Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and other English Premiership clubs have pledged at least one million pounds (1.8 million dollars), with all 20 clubs in the top flight promising 50,000 pounds each to help provide relief to an area where English football is followed passionately.. Football's relief effort was kick-started by Everton's announcement it was opening a relief fund. The Liverpool-based club decided to take the lead because of its sponsorship links with Thai brewers Chang, who will be responsible for distributing the money raised. Manchester United also said on Friday that they would donate 50 pence (71 euro-cents) from every programme sold at their next two matches at Old Trafford, where they usually sell about 30,000 programmes per game. In the United States, fans attending games on the final day of the National Football League on Sunday were to be given the opportunity to donate to the relief effort, with teams also pledging funds. The Baltimore Ravens will donate 15,000 dollars, and will match up to an additional 10,000 dollars of funds contributed by fans at their game against Miami. The Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants were also working with charities to organize collections at their games on Sunday. The National Basketball Association's New Jersey Nets have pleged a percentage of all tickets sold over the next two weeks - for games through the end of the season. The aid is to be administered through UNICEF. "The thoughts and prayers of the Nets ownership group, as well as the entire Nets family, go out to the victims and survivors of this unprecedented disaster," said Nets president Rod Thorn. The Charlotte Bobcats collected donations from fans at their game on Friday against Seattle, and pledged to make their own donation, also through UNICEF. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, the sons of the late baseball legend Roberto Clemente departed on Friday on a humanitarian mission that repeated the one 32 years earlier that cost their celebrated father his life. Roberto Clemente Jr and Luis Roberto Clemente left for Southeast Asia on a mission coordinated with the Red Cross. Roberto Jr had been planning a charitable foray to Nicaragua to honor the memory of his father, who died in a plane crash delivering aid to earthquake torn Nicaragua in 1972. Instead he opted to take the goods to Asia. "I am very happy to help in any possible way and in whatever the Clemente family can do along with the people of Puerto Rico," he said during a news conference before leaving for Indonesia. The German Bundesliga is on its winter break, but some big-name footballers interrupted their holidays to help to raise money for victims of the disaster. German internationals Christoph Metzelder and Sebastian Kehl from Borussia Dortmund are using their personal websites to call for donations and are auctioning their Dortmund shirts. Two top-flight Bundesliga clubs, MSV Duisburg and VfL Bochum, said they would donate all of the ticket receipts from their friendly match in Duisburg on January 16. Otherwise, German clubs in the basketball and ice hockey leagues are calling on supporters to donate. The basketball league has even set up a special bank account for donations. Australia's world champion cricketers have proposed an international match to raise funds for victims. Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland met players' representatives and ICC officials Friday to discuss the practicalities of staging a charity match in Melbourne in January. Media reports in Sydney said the proposal was for a one-day match featuring a Rest of the World side versus either Australia or a combination of Australian and New Zealand players. The Australian Test team has already donated its 17,000 dollars (13,100 US) match winning bonus from its recent victory over Pakistan to tsunami relief. England's cricketers have donated 15,000 pounds to the effort. In tennis, the Australian Open and its seven lead-up tournaments will raise funds to help the victims, Tennis Australia said. Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova has already given 10,000 dollars (5,200 pounds) to Thailand's prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra while she was in Bangkok for an exhibition match. Swedish tennis player Jonas Bjorkman will donate his entire earnings from next week's ATP Chennai Open. "As tennis players, we can support India and the surrounding area in the way that we play the tournament in Madras (Chennai) as planned," the world number 69 said ahead of Monday's 400,000-dollar event in the southern Indian city. Bjorkman's native Sweden is among the European countries to have suffered the greatest number of deaths in the tsunami disaster. A total of 44 Swedish tourists have been identified among the dead in Thailand but that number will most certainly rise to the hundreds and possibly even exceed 1,000. The ATP, governing body of the international mens professional tennis circuit, will donate the 25,000-dollar sanction fee for the Chennai event for relief work. Meanwhile, the world's top three men - Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt - will auction autographed racquets with proceeds directly benefiting the UNICEF relief effort. |
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