West Ham’s Davenport denies assault charge

November 10, 2009

West Ham defender Calum Davenport pleaded not guilty Tuesday to assaulting his sister in an incident in which both he and his mother were stabbed.

The 26-year-old appeared in court in Bedford, north of London, on a charge of causing actual bodily harm to Cara Davenport, 28, on August 22.

The footballer spoke only to confirm his name, address, date of birth and to deny the charge.

His sister’s boyfriend, 25-year-old Worrell Whitehurst, has been charged with attacking the footballer and his mother, 49-year-old Kim Stupple, and will appear in court next Monday.

Davenport required surgery on both legs after the incident outside his family home in Bedford on the same day, August 22. However, he has since been able to return to light training and swimming.

Davenport is a former England Under-21 international, who cost West Ham three million pounds (five million dollars, 3.3 million euros) when he joined from English Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur in 2007.

The centre-back, who started his career at Coventry City, spent a spell on loan at Sunderland last season and has also been loaned out to Watford.

His case was adjourned until January 12.

LONDON (AFP)

Tags: actual bodily harm, assault charge, Calum Davenport, Cara Davenport, coventry city, date of birth, England, English Premier League, footballer, Kim Stupple, league rivals, legs, london, million dollars, Sunderland, west ham, whitehurst, worrell

Nigeria grabs age cheats by the wrists

July 16, 2009

The decision by Nigeria to test their under-17 players to eliminate age cheats is the first step in ridding African soccer of a long-standing blight.

Nigeria Football Federation president Sani Lulu Abdallah has said this week his organisation will take the unprecedented step of measuring the bone density of players by use of an MRI scan, usually done around the wrist area, to approximate whether they are roughly the right age or not.

They will start before Nigeria put an under-17 side together for their hosting of the world championships later this year.

It has long been suspected that past sides (and Nigeria have won three World under-17 Championships) have had age cheats but Nigeria is among the first associations to have shown any willingness to try to tackle the issue.

There have been past admissions of cheating, almost all of them long after the fact, while some teams have been caught trying to change the date of birth of players, who had been previously registered for other competitions.

Similar scans to those proposed by Nigeria have not been implemented because they are not 100 percent accurate. But FIFA’s own findings have attached a 90 percent credibility to the tests…certainly much more credibility than the World Junior Championship will enjoy if age cheats go unchecked.

PHOTO: FIFA president Sepp Blatter, keen to root out age cheats, in Seoul Sept. 9, 2007. Blatter visited Seoul to watch the final between Spain and Nigeria at the FIFA U-17 World Cup. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak

Go to Source