Sporting briefs

McCarthy: World Cup hosts South Africa have dropped leading goal scorer Benni McCarthy for next month's Confederation Cup, leaving him out of a preliminary squad for the eight-nation tournament. McCarthy's omission comes after he missed South Africa's two friendly matches against Norway and Portugal in March with a hamstring injury but was controversially back in action for Blackburn a few days later.

McManus: Celtic captain Stephen McManus has been ruled out of tomorrow's potential title-decider against arch rivals Rangers because of a knee injury. The Scotland centreback was forced off during last weekend's 3-1 win at Aberdeen, which kept Celtic a point clear of Rangers in the Scottish Premier League title race.

Bilic: Croatia coach Slaven Bilic is the choice of Real Madrid presidential candidate Eduardo Garcia to replace Juande Ramos at the club if he wins next month's election. "His greatest virtue is that he controls the dressing room, generates a team spirit, and... likes his teams to play an attractive, attacking game," Garcia said.

Hull: Hull City's hopes of avoiding relegation from the Premier League were hit yesterday when scans showed skipper Ian Ashbee has a serious knee injury. Ashbee, who was injured in Monday's 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa, is likely to miss the rest of the season after rupturing his posterior cruciate knee ligament.

In Scotland: Premier League - Hearts vs Hibernian 0-1; Dundee United vs Aberdeen 1-1.

In England: League Two promotion play-off SFs - Rochdale vs Gillingham 0-0; Shrewsbury vs Bury 0-1.