Sports Shorts: Facebook to livestream UEFA Champions League

A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday

Fox Sports said on Tuesday it had partnered with Facebook Inc to livestream UEFA Champions League matches during the 2017-18 season.

The sports network, owned by Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, said that some matches from Europe's top-tier club soccer tournament will be exclusive to Facebook and Fox Sports GO, while others will be simulcast on television.

Social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter Inc have beefed up their focus on signing live-streaming sports deals as young audience increasingly rely on the internet to watch sports ditching the traditional cable services.

Fox Sports will stream UEFA Champions League matches in the United States on its Facebook pages, starting in September, according to the deal.

The partnership includes two live matches per day in the group stage, four round of 16 matches and four quarterfinal matches, Fox said.

As an attempt to further push into live video, Facebook also struck a deal, last month, with Major League Baseball to show 20 of the league's games live this season.

Twitter also chalked out a live streaming deal with the Canadian Football League (CFL) on Tuesday to stream a 30-minute live show featuring football news, player interviews and stories about the league, the CFL said.

The microblogging website had signed a multi-year deal, last month, with the US National Football League to live-stream pre-game coverage as well as a 30-minute show.

Defender Alves confirms Juventus exit

Defender Dani Alves has confirmed that he has left Serie A champions Juventus after one season in Italy, with ManchesterCity the most likely destination for the Brazilian, according to media reports.

The 34-year-old joined Juventus on a two-year contract from Barcelona last June and made 33 appearances as the club sealed the domestic double for the third successive year but fell to Spain's Real Madrid in the Champions League final.

Alves's relationship with the club has deteriorated after the 4-1 loss to Madrid in Cardiff last month and the Italian side's chief Giuseppe Marotta told reporters last week that the defender had asked to leave the club.

"I would like to thank all the Juventus fans for the year I've had, to my team-mates who welcomed me like the professionals they are, for a club that wins and reaches finals...," Alves wrote on Instagram.

"Today our professional relationship ends and I will carry with me all of those who with love and a true heart make Juve a great club."

Media reports have linked Alves with a move to Premier League side City for a reunion with former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola.

IOC says Tokyo budget efforts key for future bidders

International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates praised efforts by Tokyo organisers to lower the budget for the 2020 Summer Games, saying cost control was important for attracting future bid cities.

Figures released last month showed organisers had trimmed budget estimates to 1.685 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) including contingencies, from 1.8 trillion yen in their initial budget unveiled in December.

Coates, speaking Wednesday at a meeting of the IOC Coordination Commission on its fourth visit to Tokyo, said the IOC was pleased with the reduction as well as organisers' emphasis on reducing costs further.

"It is important to us that with these costs of the Games and the final analysis that become public, they are going to be a reason to attract candidate cities," he said. "To attract them to bid, rather than to scare them off."

In September last year, a Tokyo city government panel had warned that expenses could balloon to 3 trillion yen.

That would have been some four times the estimate Tokyo had made when it won the bidding in 2013, and prompted a worried IOC and local organisers to form a working group on cutting costs.

Portuguese cyclist Cardoso suspended after failing drugs test - UCI

Portuguese cyclist Andre Cardoso of Alberto Contador's Trek-Segafredo team has been provisionally suspended after failing a test for the banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO), the International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Tuesday.

Cardoso had been included in Trek-Segafredo's team for the Tour de France that starts on Saturday in Duesseldorf, Germany.

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that Portuguese rider Andre Cardoso was notified of an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) of Erythropoietin in a sample collected in the scope of an out-of-competition control on 18 June 2017," the UCI said in a statement.

Cardoso will be replaced by Spain's Haimar Zubeldia in their nine-man squad for the Tour, which is spearheaded by twice champion Contador and German John Degenkolb, the team said.

Zubeldia is set to start his 16th Tour de France.

Cardoso, 32, who had managed top-20 finishes in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana, was to be one of Contador's domestiques in the mountains on the Tour de France, which runs from July 1-23.