SPECIAL REPORT: CRIME & SPORTS ’95 : Spanning the Globe

U.S. and Canadian athletes, of course, weren’t the only ones involved in police incidents in 1995. In other countries:

--Romanian gymnastics coach Florin Gheorghe was sentenced to eight years in prison on Feb. 1 after he beat 11-year-old gymnast Adriana Giurca to death for a sloppy training session.

--Argentine soccer player Diego Maradona was found guilty of firing an air rifle at journalists at his home near Buenos Aires on Feb. 2, slightly injuring five of them, and is appealing. On Dec. 12, he was cleared of drug trafficking charges in Rome that dated back to 1989.

--Four prominent French jockeys--Dominique Boeuf, Olivier Doleuze, Pascal Marion and William Mongil--were fined and given one-year suspended sentences for using cocaine or heroin.

--Eric Cantona, a Frenchman who plays soccer for Manchester United in England, was sentenced to 120 hours of community service after assaulting a Crystal Palace fan who had been taunting him during a game on Jan. 25.

--Peter Graf, father of tennis player Steffi Graf, remains jailed Aug. 2 in Bruehl, Germany, for tax evasion related to his daughter’s earnings.

--An Australian rugby player for Wakefield Trinity, Daio Powell, is charged with killing a man after an incident July 19 outside a nightclub in Perth. The case is pending.

--Three English soccer players--John Fashanu, Bruce Grobbelaar and Hans Segers--are charged with conspiring to fix games between Feb. 1, 1991, and March 15, 1995. They also are accused of taking bribes from an Asian gambling syndicate. A hearing is scheduled Jan. 3 in London.

--Ni Zhiqin, the deputy director of the sports commission in China’s Fujian province, was sentenced to eight years in prison after accepting $6,785 in bribes from a Chinese firm.

--The owner of French soccer team Olympique Marseille, Bernard Tapie, was sentenced to eight months in prison for his role in a game-fixing scandal.