Ah, the glorious irony of it all.Over the past year or so we have, on more than one occasion, had cause to mention the name of Diego Maradona in this space. He gets thrown out of Chelsea's VIP area for not wearing and then refusing the offer of a tie, his (alleged) son signs for a big Italian club at a ridiculously tender age, he offers to play a benefit football match for a nation recently accused of torturing members of their own national side when they don't win and, of course, now and again he gets caught taking drugs.
Then, a couple of weeks ago when the finest footballer of his generation tested positive for another banned substance after a club game in Argentina, it hardly seemed worth a mention. The 36year-old had teamed up with Ben Johnson to get fit for his latest comeback and, well, there are a lot of dodgy athletes out there who have never tested positive for anything but, with Ben, you're sort of removing the doubt from the equation.
Anyway, since the positive test - the validity of which Maradona is contesting - Ben and his buddy have apparently had a falling out.
Johnson it seems, went on national television to defend his pal and did so on the basis that this latest episode was not the fault of the former Argentinian captain but rather the result of the "bad company" he was keeping.
Maradona reacted to the claim by telling Argentinian television station America 2 that Johnson, himself banned for a second time in 1993 following another positive drug test, should "keep his mouth shut."
The new manager of Costa Rica, meanwhile, had a few difficulties of his own when he and his team embarked on their first away trip together last week.
Jose Luis Hernandez is a Spaniard who was brought in ahead of the World Cup qualifier in the United States and the new man made an immediate mark by insisting that his players be up for training at 6.0 a.m. which then went on each day, with a couple of rest periods until eight o'clock in the evening. He subsequently explained his approach by remarking that "I want them to sweat blood".
Anyway, the fact that the American press were covering his team's preparations annoyed Hernandez because he said it gave the Americans an advantage. If it continued he said he would (and any reasonable man in the same position would surely do the same) "go to the White House with a missile to kill Bill Clinton".
Now most folks know that Americans have a bit of a thing about people a) burning their flag, and b) threatening to kill their president. So, to most observers it did not come as much of a surprise when first the US Soccer Federation went bonkers and then the White House demanded an apology.
Hernandez promptly gave one but a miserable trip was rounded off when his side lost their match by a single goal.
A Maori rights protester who flattened the America's Cup, the world's oldest sporting trophy, with a sledge-hammer was jailed this week by a New Zealand court for a total of 34 months.
Benjamin Peri Nathan, 28, attacked the trophy at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron headquarters on March 14th and earlier this month a jury found him guilty of wilful damage. On Wednesday Judge Barry Morris of the Auckland District Court sentenced Nathan to two years and 10 months in prison.
Handing down sentence, Morris said the 150-year-old trophy was not a mere "bauble" but something that represented the best efforts of a New Zealand team of men and women. Nathan's lawyer, Lorraine Smith, said it stood for everything Nathan despised and that he believed he had a moral and legal right to attack it under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, under which Maori chiefs ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria of Britain in return for guaranteed rights.
In America, meanwhile, Don King has been picking up a string of awards from civil rights groups in the build up to his long awaited retrial on charges of insurance fraud which was this week postponed once again.
The NAACP awarded King their President's Prize in July, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow-PUSH Coalition gave the 66 year-old its Trailblazer award a few weeks later, while there have also been honours from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Council of Negro Women.
The verbal tributes at the ceremonies have been even more bewildering with NAACP President Kweisi Mfume telling guests that "few have done more for the community," than King and Jackson paying homage with the words "besides feeding more hungry people than anyone you know, Don King has made more money for boxers than any other promoter".
This, of course, is the same man who got started in the promoting business by running a benefit card for a hospital and then stealing all of the proceeds, the man who has fleeced just about every boxer he has ever dealt with by tying them into unfair and illegal deals; the one who has forced fighters to abandon managers who truly had their best interests at heart in favour of his puppets, by depriving them of the contests or rankings they deserved; the tycoon who built his fortune by agreeing fees with great fighters like Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes and then made improper deductions for millions of dollars in "expenses" from their purses; and let's not forget, the man who, while he ran numbers and loan sharked (for the community, no doubt), pistol-whipped a man to death on a street pavement for non-payment.
Oh, he's a great guy, all right. A really great guy.
Another of the great breed of American fight promoters, Don Eblaum, recently staged one of the sport's less inspiring bills when, at the Scranton Catholic Youth Centre he put on a promotion entitled "The Boxer And The Bride" the main attraction of which was the meeting between the undefeated light heavyweight Chris Mills and one Wayne Holloway, a one and six nobody, whose main role in the proceedings was supposed to be the assumption of a horizontal position within a minute or so of the opening bell.
Instead, Holloway battled his way through the six-round contest and inflicted three major cuts on Mills who hardly looked like an aspiring champion as his arm was raised when his points victory was announced.
None of which was good news for his bride to be, Sandi Yarborough, who was due to marry Mills two days later and who had apparently been talked into agreeing to his going through with the bout on the basis that his face would look much as it had that afternoon.
Worse was to come, when it was realised that Mills had broken his hand during the fight and that all of his fingers were too swollen to take a ring. Nevertheless, once Mills was breathing normally again - he had had quite a lot of difficulty as a result of bleeding in his mouth and nose - the happy couple signalled their intention to go ahead as planned by cutting their wedding cake there and then and distributing slices to some of the hundreds of fans who had paid in to see his last contest as a bachelor. Cute, eh?
In common with a great many of their soccer counterparts, London Irish rugby club are leaping at the opportunity to promote themselves on the internet. The club's site (http://www.londonirish-rugby.com) is quickly developing into one of the better sports sites around.
One of the main attractions is the availability of highlights from the club's most recent game which, with the help of Microsoft Netshow video technology, includes a full audio commentary.
The club have also, in common with Arsenal football club, started to offer supporters access to the net through them as well as personalised, club related e-mail addresses.
Women's sports often suffers from a lack of commercial backing as a result of the small crowds, television audiences and media coverage they attract but there is good news in the United States where the first season of the WNBAS has been quite a success.
One of two national women's basketball leagues to be established in the wake of the Atlanta Olympics, last week's national play-off between the Houston Comets and the New York Liberty attracted 16,285 spectators and a large live television audience.
Average weekly viewing figures for the league, which is shown in various formats on NBC, ESPN and Lifetime (a station targeted at women) have averaged around five million while the average live gate for the season has been 9,669.
The WNBC has benefited strongly from its association with the NBC while the rival American Basketball League with its stronger college roots has been slower to take off.
Please send any correspondence to On The Sidelines, Sports Dept, The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail emalone@irish-times.ie
