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TENNIS

Tennis: Italian pair get life ban for match-fixing

Italian match-fixing pair Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali were banned for life on Friday by the Italian Tennis Federation (FIT).

Tennis: Italian pair get life ban for match-fixing
Potitio Starace (R) and Daniele Bracciali (L). Photo: Michal Cizek/AFP

The pair are accused of corruption having fixed matches for financial gain. Bracciali, 37, was also handed a €40,000 ($43,473) fine while Starace, 34, was penalised €20,000.

The sanction relates to an investigation conducted by the public prosecutor in Cremona, originally into match-fixing in football known as 'Calcioscommesse'.

Although the FIT tribunal decided to ban the pair, federation president Angelo Binagi said he hoped they would nonetheless one day prove their innocence.

“We can only hope that Bracciali and Starace manage to demonstrate that they haven't committed these serious acts that the tribunal has convicted them of,” he said.

Both players were provisionally suspended for 40 days in February by FIT. They had already served short bans – six weeks for Starace and three months for Bracciali – in 2008 over another betting scandal.

Starace is suspected of having thrown his ATP Casablanca final against Spain's Mariano Andujar in 2011 when he lost 6-1, 6-2.

Several bets were placed on a quick victory and Starace winning only a few games, despite the fact his record against Andujar at that point was five wins from five.

Investigators say they have text message and 'chat' exchanges that point to possible match-fixing.

The Calcioscommesse scandal has seen numerous footballers and officials banned, including most notably current Italy coach Antonio Conte, who was handed a four-month suspension while he was Juventus boss for events that occurred when he was in charge of Siena.

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ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

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