Real Madrid midfielder LUKA MODRIĆ, who was accused of tax fraud, paid Spanish fiscal authorities close to €1M ($1.2M), a judicial source said. Prosecutors believe the Croatian evaded €870,728 ($1.24M) of revenue from his image rights in '13 and '14 "via a shell company set up in Luxembourg" (AFP, 1/9). ... England cricket coach TREVOR BAYLISS will step down when his contract expires at the end of the 2019 Ashes. He told England Cricket Dir ANDREW STRAUSS of his plans a year ago (BBC, 1/9). ... Former Marylebone Cricket Club CEO KEITH BRADSHAW will "publish the book he was warned would lead to him never working in cricket again." Bradshaw was first going to write an account in '11 "about his frustrating time at Lord’s, where his visionary attempts to renovate the stadium and introduce a franchise T20 competition were blocked by the reactionary MCC blazers at every turn" (London DAILY MAIL, 1/8). ... A Japanese kayaker "has been banned from competition for eight years for spiking the drink of a rival" so that he would fail a doping test. YASUHIRO SUZUKI "drugged his key rival at last year's national championships" (ESPN.com, 1/9).
TROUBLE DOWN UNDER: Australian horse racing "has been rocked by serious charges" leveled against eight racing identities, "all of them trainers or staff" employed by the Aquanita training center. The charges followed a "comprehensive integrity investigation by Racing Victoria." Trainer ROBERT SMERDON is accused of 115 instances of "administration of alkalising agents and/or medications to a horse or horses on a race day" dating to '10. Stablehand GREG NELLIGAN faces charges relating to 123 occasions during the same period. The other six people charged are trainers TONY VASIL, LIAM BIRCHLEY, TRENT PENNUTO and STUART WEBB, as well as DENISE NELLIGAN and DANIEL GARLAND (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 1/9).
