Thu, Sep 21, 2023 page7

• SPORTS BRIEFS

  • Agencies
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  RUGBY UNION

  Portugal lose Pinto

  Portugal won a case and lost a case on Tuesday when they faced the judiciary for two acts of foul play in their 28-8 loss to Wales at the Rugby World Cup in Nice, France, on Saturday. Winger Vincent Pinto was suspended for three games for his red card, while No. 8 Rafael Simoes was cleared to play immediately. Pinto made a leaping catch in the 77th minute and as he came down, one of his boots clipped Wales wing Josh Adams in the face. The referee issued him a yellow card and a bunker review upgraded it to red. At his hearing, Pinto denied he committed foul play, but the panel said it was reckless, involved poor decisionmaking and showed a lack of care for Adams. The head contact involved a high degree of danger and there were no mitigating factors, the panel said. Simoes was cited after the match for a dangerous tackle. At his hearing he admitted to an act of foul play, but said he did not think it reached the red-card threshold. The panel agreed, saying that the force of the head contact was not sufficiently high enough. The citing was not upheld, and he was freed to play.

  FOOTBALL

  Punches preceded death

  A man who died at a New England Patriots home game last weekend was punched at least twice in the head during a fight in the stands with a rival fan, a witness said on Tuesday. Police and safety personnel responded to the upper deck at Gillette Stadium shortly before 11pm on Sunday and found Dale Mooney, 53, of Newmarket, New Hampshire, “in apparent need of medical attention,” the Norfolk County district attorney’s office said in a statement on Monday. Mooney was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Massachusetts State Police are investigating what the district attorney termed an “incident” at the stadium. Witness Joey Kilmartin shot video of what he said was a brutal fight. In interviews with local media firms, Kilmartin said he saw Mooney, a Patriots fan, confront a Miami Dolphins fan who he had been arguing with during most of the game, which the Dolphins won. “He basically engaged in mutual combat with another fan,” Kilmatin told the Boston Globe. “A lot of people started trying to pull them apart... It looked like somebody was in the middle of them, and then a man in the Dolphins jersey reached over and he connected with two punches to the victim’s head. It wasn’t something crazy or out of the ordinary until, 30 seconds later, the guy wasn’t getting up.”

  SOCCER

  Urawa banned from Cup

  Asian club champions the Urawa Red Diamonds on Tuesday were banned from Japan’s domestic Emperor’s Cup competition next season after their fans rioted following a game last month. A group of Urawa supporters ripped down barriers, shoved over a security guard and threatened opposition fans after a 3-0 loss away to the Nagoya Grampus in the last-16 stage of the competition on Aug. 2. The Japan Football Association’s disciplinary committee handed down an unprecedented one-season ban. The association late last month had already given 17 Urawa fans indefinite bans from domestic games. Urawa have won the Emperor’s Cup eight times. They won the Asian Champions League for a third time last season, beating Saudi Arabia’s al-Hilal in the final.
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