Sporting briefs

Subotic: Borussia Dortmund defender Neven Subotic has opted to represent Serbia and will make his debut in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. Subotic was born in the Bosnian city of Banjaluka while it was still a part of the former Yugoslavia and played for the US U-20 national side after spending his childhood in Germany and the United States.

In Uruguay: The Uruguayan championship was suspended yesterday for the second time in just over a month because of security problems. Uruguayan FA president Jose Luis Corbo said the weekend games had been postponed indefinitely. He said the decision was made because police refused to allow Danubio to host Penarol in their stadium, the site of a riot last month that resulted in the match being suspended for two weeks.

FIFA lifts bans: FIFA has lifted bans on the national associations of Peru, Samoa and Kuwait. Peru and Kuwait were suspended for political interference, while Samoa was punished for mismanagement in October. "We are not the police but we have our statutes and we ask that that they are correctly respected," president Sepp Blatter said.

Mallorca: New Real Mallorca president Joaquin Garcia, appointed after the resignation of Vicenc Grande, has a mandate until the end of January to find a new owner for the financially-troubled Primera Liga club. "My mission is to establish a new board so that Mallorca can find a new investor for the club," Garcia said. Grande was close to selling his majority shareholding to businessman Paul Davidson for a reported €38m but the deal fell through just over a month ago.

Swimming: French swimmers Gregory Mallet, Fabien Gilot, William Meynard and Frederick Bousquet set a world short-course record for the 4x100 metres freestyle relay in three minutes 04.98 seconds yesterday. The quartet set the mark at the French club championship at Istres, beating the previous record of 3:08.44 set by the United States on April 9 in Manchester.

Tennis: Marat Safin, who contemplated retirement after a disappointing season, has decided to prolong his career for at least another year. Twice Grand Slam winner Safin, 28, will start the season at next month's Hopman Cup in Perth with his younger sister Dinara Safina before heading to Melbourne for the Australian Open.

Cricket: India batsmen Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid compiled a record 314-run partnership before spinner Graeme Swann led an England fightback in the second test yesterday. India were 453 all out late in the evening following a slump after lunch in which the last nine wickets fell for 133 runs.