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The Napoli forward Lorenzo Insigne was held up at gunpoint and robbed as he was driving through Naples over the weekend, according to his agent.

Insigne was driving with his wife and two friends late on Saturday when he stopped at a traffic light. A gunman on the back of a motorbike which pulled level with the car then forced the four occupants to hand over their valuables.

As he drove away the thief asked Insigne, who comes from Naples, to dedicate a goal to him at Monday night’s Serie A match with Fiorentina, local media reported.

Italian media said the masked robber got away with a Rolex watch, jewels and €800 in cash. “Lorenzo suffered a terrible experience and told me that it was a really bad moment,” said his agent, Antonio Ottaiano.

Despite being shaken up by the robbery, Insigne joined his team-mates at a training session on Sunday and is expected to play on Monday. He has scored 11 goals in the Serie A this season, with his team lying second in the table.

The Italian government announced this month it was sending additional troops to Naples to help fight an upsurge of violence in the city, with 12 people reported killed this year in murders linked to a mob turf war.

The former Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has been released from prison on suspension after serving half of his three-and-a-half-year jail term for tax evasion, Bavaria’s justice ministry has announced.

Hoeness, a former player for the club who was sports director for 30 years before taking over as club president in 2009, was convicted in March 2014 for evading €28.5m in taxes.

The 1974 World Cup winner stepped down from his post at Bayern and started his jail term in June 2014. From early 2015 he was able to leave prison during the day and work at Bayern’s youth department before returning in the evening. It is not clear whether he will ever return to the club a senior capacity.

Hoeness was initially charged with evading €3.5m in taxes while investing millions of euros in stocks through a Swiss bank account. But when the trial began the Bayern official, adored by team fans, stunned the court by admitting he had actually evaded five times that amount – or €18.5m.

That figure was subsequently raised further to €28.5m – a figure acknowledged by Hoeness’s defence team.

Bayern have continued to be successful in his absence and are on track for a record fourth straight Bundesliga crown. They also reached the Champions League last four in 2014 and 2015 and are in the running for the premier European club title this season.

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Fun fact: Troyes have scored 8 goals at home all season. PSG have scored more goals at Troyes' home ground than Troyes have this season.

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Atletico cracked that dominance by running up some pretty massive debts (almost Man Utd levels), and by using tax avoidance schemes and soliciting sponsorship from pretty dubious places (like Azerbaijan, for instance, one of Europe's last dictatorships). So I'd imagine that the wheels may fall off fairly soon.

La Liga will become less pointless in the future now that the tv deal is negotiated as a league, like the Premiership does.

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13 hours ago, Adam said:

Fair point. I don't think La Liga is pointless though, there are some good quality teams in that league despite the clear dominance of Barca & Real. Plus Atletico have cracked said dominance in the last few years.

The La Liga domination thing is overblown anyway. Real have won the league twice in the last eight years. If there IS a dominant team in Spain, there's only one, and there's always been a team threatening to break through regardless, whether it's Atletico recently, or Rafa's Valencia side, or whoever.

Edit: Though I was surprised to discover Real have only won La Liga five times in the last fifteen years. And seven times in 24 years!

Edited by Social Justice Nerf
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17 minutes ago, Social Justice Nerf said:

The La Liga domination thing is overblown anyway. Real have won the league twice in the last eight years. If there IS a dominant team in Spain, there's only one, and there's always been a team threatening to break through regardless, whether it's Atletico recently, or Rafa's Valencia side, or whoever.

Real are 'dominant' in terms of money and exposure, which is what happens when you're a member based club that practically subsidised by both local and national government

And those teams that threaten to break through either bankrupt themselves doing it (Valencia, Deportivo) or just decide not to pay their taxes like Atletico do. It'll definitely get better in Spain now that there's a collective TV deal, but up until now La Liga has sortof been built around ensuring one of either Barca or Real are dominant.

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