Sporting briefs

Mancini: Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has been fined £20,000, suspended until the end of the 2011/12 season, after being found guilty of improper conduct, the Football Association have announced. The Italian was charged following City's Premier League clash against Everton at Eastlands on March 24 when he clashed with Toffees counterpart David Moyes.

In Italy: A minute's silence will be held before all weekend games in Italy to pay hommage to the victims of Monday's train crash, the Italian Football League said yesterday. Respects were also paid during midweek games including Inter's 1-0 win at Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia. Nine people were killed and 28 injured after a landslide derailed the train in rugged mountain terrain near the city of Bolzano in the north of Italy.

Vermaelen: Arsenal's Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen will be out of action for up to three weeks after suffering a calf injury against north-London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday. The 24-year-old lasted only 19 minutes of the 2-1 defeat and will sit out Sunday's trip to Wigan Athletic and the home match against Manchester City.

Petric: Croatian striker Mladen Petric will miss Hamburg SV's Europa League semi-final first leg at home to Fulham next Thursday due to a thigh muscle injury. "If all goes well he will be missing for two weeks but the normal recovery period is a full three weeks," coach Bruno Labbadia told reporters yesterday.

MFA Division Two: Lija vs Żebbuġ Rangers 1-0; Żurrieq vs Għargħur 2-1.

Cricket: International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat has ruled out the possibility of international cricket returning to Pakistan soon. Lorgat said that until teams had the confidence to visit Pakistan and were satisfied with the security environment it would not be possible to resume international cricket in the country. "I can only advise Pakistan to follow the example of South Africa who focused on their domestic cricket when they were isolated from international cricket and managed to return with a bang," Lorgat said.

Tennis: World number three Rafa Nadal continued his destruction business at the Monte Carlo Masters with a 6-0 6-1 demolition of German Michael Berrer to reach the quarter-finals yesterday. Nadal will next face fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero who beat France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-1 3-6 7-5.

Basketball: The National Basketball Association will play exhibition and possibly even some regular season games in Brazil within the next six years as the league seeks to build its presence outside the United States. NBA Commissioner David Stern said he expected the league would play exhibition games in Brazil before Rio de Janeiro stages the first South American Olympics in 2016.

Motor racing: Former BAR and Benetton team boss David Richards has ruled out seeking a return to Formula One with his Prodrive company next year. "Our current focus is on Prodrive's return to the World Rally Championship in 2011 and that alone takes significant resource to design and develop a totally new car," he said. Richards is chairman of British sportscar maker Aston Martin as well as engineering company Prodrive who formerly ran Subaru's world rally team.