Tag Archives: Player

Raging official assaults player in Russian reserve soccer match

April 29, 2013   Odd News

MOSCOW | Mon Apr 29, 2013 6:51am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Match officials often face a torrent of abuse from angry players and on some occasions the attacks can turn violent.

Rarely are the roles reversed, yet Chechen linesman Musa Kadyrov lost his composure in a Russian fixture on Sunday and launched a vicious assault on one of the players.

The incident occurred at the end of a Russian league reserve game in Grozny between Amkar Perm and local side Terek when a raging Kadyrov dropped his flag and ran onto the pitch, attacking startled defender Ilya Krichmar.

“The ref blew the final whistle and I started walking to our bench, when suddenly someone came from behind, pushed me to the ground and began kicking and punching me,” the 18-year-old Amkar player told reporters.

“Terek players then joined the attack. Someone grabbed me by the throat, another hit me… bloodying my face.

“Thank God, my team mates came to the rescue. Special thanks to Vlasov from Terek. We had known each other from a youth academy in St Petersburg and he helped me escape.”

Kadyrov said Krichmar had insulted him but the player denied the allegation.

“We weren’t happy with the officiating, words had been exchanged but I had never said anything personal about him or his mother,” he said. “I know how sensitive Chechen people are.”

Former FIFA referee Alexei Spirin, who was working as an assessor of Sunday’s match, was left shocked by the episode.

“In all my refereeing career I have never seen anything like it. This guy (Kadyrov) should not be a referee,” Spirin said.

“He had no clue about rules, even worse, attacked a player. On a scale of one to 10, I’d give him a zero and I’m writing a special report. He should not be allowed to officiate again.”

Krichmar was asked if he would attend the Russian Cup final in Grozny on June 1 if invited by Chechen officials.

“No, I would not go. I could still feel some hatred there after the (Chechen) war, although we had no problem with security in Grozny,” Krichmar said. “We always had bodyguards with machine guns around us. The food was good as well, but…”

Sunday’s incident was the latest in a series of violent attacks on players in Russian soccer.

Krasnodar striker Spartak Gogniyev suffered a broken nose and fractured ribs after being attacked by Terek officials at a reserve game in Grozny in November 2011.

Gogniyev was handed a six-game ban and $ 1,600 fine by the Russian FA for pushing the referee. The world players’ union FIFPro, however, slammed the decision to punish the player.

Former Montenegro striker Nikola Nikezic lodged a complaint with FIFA and UEFA in 2011, saying he had been forced to end his contract with Kuban Krasnodar after being beaten up and threatened with a gun.

(Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov; Editing by John O’Brien)



Reuters: Oddly Enough

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University of Florida football player arrested for marijuana possession

February 8, 2013   Marijuana News

The University of Florida football team – like thousands of other college-age students around the country – clearly enjoys smoking herb now and then. According to ESPN.com, seven members of the team have been arrested for marijuana-related offenses in the last 25 months.

The latest arrest of cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy happened just after midnight last Sunday morning. According to the police report, cops pulled over the 2001 Honda Accord with three people inside for a “violation of right of way”. Before the car stopped, someone allegedly threw a joint out the window. Purifoy was in the back seat, according to the police report.

Inside, cops found a baggie of nuggets near the parking break in the front seat and “marijuana residue” on the lap of one of the other people in the car (editors note: roll your joints outside of the car, fellas). Interestingly, Purifoy doesn’t seem to have been connected to the marijuana in any way, but was still charged with possession after he and the other two refused to claim ownership for the herb itself.

The school has remained mum on the issue other than issuing a statement that Florida “coach Will Muschamp is aware of the incident and is handling it”. Other players busted for herb have previously been dismissed from the team or left on their own accord. Currently, the NCAA penalty for marijuana use is a full-season suspension – the same as for performance enhancing drugs.

Purify was cited and will appear in court later this month. Here’s hoping for the best, as possession of 20 grams or less is considered a misdemeanor charge in the Sunshine State, with up to a year in jail and $ 1,000 in fines. Any marijuana conviction suspends your driver’s license for up to two years.

More links from around the web!

Toke of the Town

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PVSTAR+ for Android gives you YouTube in media player form

November 1, 2012   MP3 News

By: Andreas Ødegård on October 31, 2012 10:00 pm

Sure, the quality is awful and all that, but who here doesn’t ever go to YouTube to find music? I find myself doing it quite a bit, sometimes just to listen to some old pop songs for the laughs, but most often to listen to artists you don’t find anywhere else. Be it true cover songs or someone playing the Game of Thrones theme on a violin, YouTube is full of music you don’t get elsewhere, and I frankly prefer a lot of it to what comes out of the studios these days. Justin Bieber may have been discovered on YouTube, but I won’t hold that against it.

A very neat app for these situations is PVSTAR+ for Android. It allows you to create playlists of YouTube videos, and then play them using many of the same controls you get in a normal media player. It even supports background play, so you don’t have to keep the screen on. Using the app fully requires an internet connection, however there is a caching system in place for offline use. It’s not all there, unfortunately, as you have to play the videos for them to be cached, and even then I’ve had mixed results. The app also has a few quirks, like some videos simply failing to play without a good explanation, and the need to “catch up” when just switching back into the app from using background play/the screen being off (due to it switching video back on – there should be a delay on this in my opinion).

Despite a few issues, it does what it claims, and it does it pretty well. I’ve found myself using it more and more simply because of the convenience factor, as it’s much easier than downloading videos using video downloaders (which isn’t complicated, but takes time). The app is available in both a free ad-supported version and a $ 4.40 ad-free version.

Download: Google Play

Anything But iPod

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Sasung Galaxy Player 5.8 now official

August 27, 2012   MP3 News

By: Andreas Ødegård on August 27, 2012 11:56 am

Samsung is apparently trying to get an Android device on the market for every screen size ever theorized, and the just announced (but long since leaked) Galaxy player 5.8 fits into that plan very well. The name comes from the 5.8-inch screen that the device features, which has a rather low (comparatively speaking) resolution of 960 x 540. Android 4.0 is onboard, and you have Bluetooth 4, a VGA front camera, 16 or 32GB of internal memory, and a microSDHC expansion slot. A dual core 1GHz chip and 1GB of RAM was rumored, but the official information doesn’t mention that part of the hardware.

This player is hard to place in today’s market. The argument for existing Galaxy Players has been that they’re portable than tablets, and cheaper than phones. 5.8 inches is closer than before to the 7-inch tablet market, which consists of budget devices like the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. With the Nexus you get a much higher resolution screen and much better performance, but it seriously lacks in the storage department. The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 doesn’t have as impressive a screen or chipset, but has more bells and whistles like a microSDHC slot and camera.

Even so, a 5.8-inch device is still more pocketable than a 7-inch tablet, so the new Galaxy Player isn’t necessarily doomed right away. I guess it will all depend on the price, which isn’t yet known.

[Samsung Tomorrow via Android Central]

Anything But iPod

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Cowon’s X9 is obviously a “Super Player”

July 13, 2012   MP3 News

By: Martin Sägmüller on July 13, 2012 2:31 pm

Cowon announced the X9, which would make sense as a logical upgrade to last year’s X7 – but actually it’s more of a rehash of the ancient O2 PMP (ignoring the newer V5?s existence in several aspects).

The X7 is a HDD player with Bluetooth capabilites, the new X9 – nicknamed “Super Player” – is a flash memory player without Bluetooth, but a MicroSD slot instead. Internal capacities of the X9 go up to 32GB – same as the ancient O2. Both the X7 and X9 have embarrassingly bad screen resolutions of 480×272 at 4.3? – same as the ancient O2. Seems Cowon had a few old resistive touch screens left over to recycle (the slightly less ancient V5 HD in comparison had a much more reasonable 800×480 resolution at 4.7?, but by today’s standards that is the extreme lower limit for comparable screen sizes as well).

Additional tactile buttons for FFWD/REW/skip might make the X9 a more desirable player for on the go than the X7, which only had a unified menu/play/pause and two volume buttons. Cowon claims a battery life of up to 110 hours for audio and 13 hours for video on the X9. If real-life usage comes close to these synthetic benchmarks, it would be quite amazing for nomads and globetrotters. Cowon’s usual plethora of supported file formats and BBE sound enhancements are of course not missing from the X9. An additional annoyance is Cowon’s use of a proprietary USB connector instead of a standard mini/microUSB port.

iAudiophile moderator Kizune posted a comparison chart of the X7?s and X9?s differences, for your perusal.

[Cowon Korea via iAudiophile]

Anything But iPod

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