Sporting briefs

Mladenov: CSKA Sofia coach Stoycho Mladenov said he has asked the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) to terminate his contract from the cash-strapped Bulgarian champions. CSKA lost their place in next season's Champions League after failing to meet the BFU's licensing criteria over debts owed to the state and creditors and have been forced to sell top players including Bulgarian internationals Velizar Dimitrov and Alexandar Tunchev and Romania's Florentin Petre.

Hamburg: Hamburg are set to release former Argentina captain Juan Pablo Sorin, 32, after he played in just 24 Bundesliga matches in two years. Sorin, who has one year remaining on his contract, joined Hamburg two years ago from Villarreal but his time in Hamburg has been plagued by injury.

Liberopoulos: Greece striker Nikos Liberopoulos has left AEK Athens by mutual consent, the Greek Super League club said. The 32-year-old, who has been capped 60 times and was a member of the Greece squad at Euro 2008, joined AEK in 2003 after spending seven years at Panathinaikos.

Fiorentina: Fiorentina will play a pre-season friendly against Barcelona on July 30 at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Fiorentina are looking forward to Champions League football this season and coach Cesare Prandelli is planning a serious build-up to the competition. The friendly will be a charity event with money donated to the Artemio Franchi Foundation, the FC Barcelona Fund and the Fiorentina Onlus Foundation.

Manchester City: Derek Fazackerley, Manchester City's first-team coach, decided to quit the club and part with new manager Mark Hughes. Fazackerley, 56, joined City in 2001 and worked under managers Kevin Keegan, Stuart Pearce and Sven-Goran Eriksson. Eddie Niedzwiecki is City's new first-team coach. Fazackerley was linked with Newcastle in January when Keegan took over.

Viola dies: Italy and Juventus are mourning the death of former goalkeeper Giovanni Viola at the age of 82 on Monday. Viola made 246 Serie A appearances for the Bianconeri and was three times a scudetto winner. Capped 11 times, he played at the 1954 World Cup.

Girls' brawl: China has suspended eight players from the national U-18 women's league for their part in a mid-match brawl last week, the sport's governing body said. Local media reported that more than 40 players were involved in a melee that broke out during the Beijing-Henan match in Wuhan last Thursday, but a Chinese FA official said it only involved eight girls and was over quickly.

Cafu: Marcos Cafu could sign for Brazilian side Santos after five years with Milan but is still mulling over his future. Cafu's contract at the San Siro expired at the end of last season but the 38-year-old is still undecided. "I don't know what I will do yet," Cafu told TV Globo. "Other good offers have arrived from Brazil. I am on holiday here and I will make a decision within 15 days. At the moment I want to relax and be close to my family." Cafu is currently mourning his father's death.

Ref banned: Vietnam have banned a referee for life for attempting to bribe six other national league match officials, state media has reported. Luong Trung Viet was arrested in 2005 and jailed for five years, but the country's soccer federation elected to ban him for life because of the severity of his crime, which involved payments of tens of thousands of dollars to fix matches.

German Cup: The draw for the first round of the German Cup earlier this week has sent holders Bayern Munich to third division side Rot-Weiss Erfurt. The 2008 runners-up, Borussia Dortmund, will play a Ruhr derby against Rot-Weiss Essen while Werder Bremen and Schalke both meet fifth-tier opposition in the form of Eintracht Nordhorn and FC Homburg respectively.

Rugby: The International Rugby Board will decide on the host nations for the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups at the same time and consider bids from developing markets. "We recognise that Rugby World Cup has to be held in one of our senior core markets on a regular basis," IRB and Rugby World Cup Ltd. chairman Bernard Lapasset said in a statement, adding that bidding begins this month with the final decision scheduled for July next year.

Cricket: England will face Sri Lanka in two test matches and three one-day internationals in the build-up to next year's Ashes contest against Australia, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said. Sri Lanka have stepped into the breach following the ECB's decision last month to cut bilateral ties with Zimbabwe, the originally planned opponents for May 2009.

Rallying: Rally Bulgaria organisers have said they are ready to host a round of the World Rally Championship under the new rotational system set to start in 2010. "We know that a lot of work still has to be done but we'll make every endeavour and we are confident that we'll be able to host a competition of such magnitude," Bulgarian Automobile Sports Federation's president Georgi Yanakiev told a news conference.

Tour de France: German Stefan Schumacher caught the favourites out to snatch the Tour de France overall leader's yellow jersey with victory in the fourth stage, a 29.5-km time trial around Cholet yesterday. The Gerolsteiner rider clocked 35 minutes and 44 seconds on a windswept course at an average speed of 49.534 kph to beat Luxemburg's Kim Kirchen of Team Columbia by 18 seconds. In the overall standings, Schumacher leads Kirchen by 12 seconds.