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MT 29 July 2018

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31 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 JULY 2018 SPORTS TOUR DE FRANCE Thomas poised to win Tour de France BRITON Geraint Thomas is set to win his maiden Tour de France after he held on to the overall leader's yellow jersey in the penultimate stage yesterday. Barring an accident in the pro- cession to the Champs-Elysees today, the 32-year-old Welsh- man will give Team Sky their sixth title in seven years after Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and Chris Froome in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Froome was the favourite to retain his title but he paid the price for the efforts he made to win the Giro d'Italia in May as he just failed to become the first man in 20 years to achieve the Giro-Tour double. Froome took second place in the 31-km time trial, against the clock, from Saint-Pee-sur-Nivelle, won by a single second by time-trial world champion Tom Dumoulin, with Thomas coming home third, 14 seconds off the pace. Overall, Thomas leads Du- moulin by 1:51 and Froome by 2:24. FOOTBALL QPR get transfer ban after settling Financial Fair Play dispute with EFL QPR have settled their long- running legal battle with the EFL by accepting a January transfer ban and agreeing to pay £42 million after a breach of spending rules. Last October, an arbitration panel ruled that QPR's fine of £41.965 million for over- spending during the 2013/14 season that saw them promot- ed to the Premier League was not disproportionate. The west London club lodged an appeal against the decision and a hearing was scheduled to start earlier this month but, in a joint statement, the two parties have announced they have reached an agreement to effectively restructure the fine. QPR will now pay the league £17 million for the Financial Fair Play breach and £3 million for the league's legal costs, and a payment schedule over 10 years has been agreed. The balance of the original fine, £21.965 million, will be swal- lowed by QPR's owners by converting outstanding loans to the club into shares. Crucially for the club, none of these pay- ments to the EFL will be taken into account when calculating the amounts QPR are allowed to spend on players and wages in the coming seasons but manager Steve McClaren will not be allowed to register any new players in this season's winter transfer window. EFL chief executive Shaun Harvey said: "The outcome vindicates the approach of the EFL Board in defending the challenge to our Rules. "In agreeing to the settle- ment above, the Board was conscious that the finan- cial burden placed on the club had to be manageable, so as not to put its future in doubt when considering that after this season the club will no longer benefit from the promotion that was the catalyst for the dispute in the first place." That is a reference to the EFL's concerns about bank- rupting QPR, particularly as this is the last season they will receive Premier League parachute payments after their relegation in 2015. Harvey added that QPR "re- main a valued member of the EFL and a great community asset" and said the league was "delighted" to end this "long- running dispute". Bournemouth and Leicester fined Earlier this year, Bourne- mouth and Leicester agreed to pay fines of £4.75 million and £3.1 million respectively for overspending during their promotion seasons. QPR's case was always more complicated and contentious, partly because of their ex- pensive relegation and partly because their overspend in the EFL, almost £70 million, was more than Bournemouth's and Leicester's combined. The QPR case hinged on the belief of their owners, airline tycoon Tony Fernandes and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, that they had circumvented the rules by writing off a £60 million loan to the club, an "exceptional item" that brought QPR's losses for the season below £10 million. The EFL rejected this, know- ing it would set a precedent that would make a mockery of its attempts to control spend- ing and clearly feel Friday's an- nouncement is a compromise that punishes QPR without killing them, preserves the in- tegrity of their rules and draws a line under a time-consuming and at times bitter row. Or, as QPR chief executive Lee Hoos put it: "Whilst we felt we had a very strong case on appeal, QPR felt it was best to put this matter behind them to enable all parties to have certainty and allow us to con- tinue focusing on running the Club in a sustainable manner, going forward. "We feel this is in the best in- terests of football as a whole."

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