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FOOTBALL

FIFA extends bans on Austrian footballers

FIFA, the international federation of football associations presently meeting in Brazil, extended the bans for two Austrian players in a press release on Monday.

Published: 2 July 2014 12:34 CEST
FIFA extends bans on Austrian footballers
Photo: Steindy/Wikimedia

The bans were initially imposed by the Austrian football association (ÖFB), after allegations of attempted match fixing were upheld in the case of two players, Dominique Taboga and Thomas Zündel.

Taboga has now received a global lifetime ban from participation in the sport, while Zündel is suspended for a period of one year.

Taboga, a player for the Salzburg regional town of Grödig, sought to manipulate games in the Austrian national league, and encouraged Zündel to participate in his scheme. The latter was censured for his failure to report this activity.

Previously, the bans applied only in Austria, but have now been extended by FIFA to the rest of the world.  In November 2013, Taboga claimed that he was being blackmailed by his former Kapfenberger teammate Sanel Kuljić to fix the matches.  Later, Taboga admitted that he had tried to convince four other players to manipulate a match.

Similar sanctions were applied to Iran, where coach Mohammed Reza Molaei was banned for six months and referee Mohsen Ghahreman for eight months for trying to fix a match in the Iranian League.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Austria ‘likely to be ice-free within 45 years’

Austria is set to become largely "ice-free" within 45 years, the country's Alpine Club warned Friday, as two of its glaciers last year melted by more than 100 metres.

Published: 6 April 2024 12:17 CEST
Austria 'likely to be ice-free within 45 years'

Amid growing concerns over the effects of extreme warming on glaciers around the world, the latest report by the Austrian Alpine Club (OeAV) showed that rapid glacial retreat over the past seven years had accelerated.

The study found that 93 Austrian glaciers observed by the organisation retreated by 23.9 metres (78.4 feet) on average last year, marking the third-biggest glacier melt since measurements began in 1891.

Two of the glaciers showed especially drastic declines, with the Pasterze shrinking by 203.5 metres and the Rettenbachferner by 127 metres.

The 2023 readings came after the worst year on record for glacier melt in Austria, with glaciers shrinking by 28.7 metres (94.2 feet) on average in 2022.

Faced with extreme warming in the Alps, glacial ice in Austria could largely disappear within 45 years, the Alpine Club warned, adding that restrictive climate protection measures were introduced too late.

“In 40 to 45 years, all of Austria will be pretty much ice-free,” Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, head of the Alpine Club’s glacier measurement service, told reporters on Friday.

The OeAV urged increased protection of glaciers as part of overall efforts to sustain biodiversity, noting that expansions of ski resorts had put Alpine regions “under constant pressure”.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), major glaciers worldwide suffered the largest loss of ice since records began in 1950, “driven by extreme melt in both western North America and Europe”.

In Switzerland, where the WMO is based, Alpine glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past two years alone.

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