Sporting briefs

Boateng: Manchester City’s Germany defender Jerome Boateng is expected to be out for at least six weeks after undergoing a knee operation. The 22-year-old went under the knife in Augsburg, Germany, after damaging his right knee in the warm-up for Germany’s 4-0 win over Kazakhstan in a Euro 2012 qualifier on March 26.

Fan dies: A Standard Liege fan who fell from a stand during Wednesday’s Belgian Cup semi-final with Ghent has died, a police source told local media yesterday. “The supporter lost his balance and fell head first. He lost consciousness. Doctors attempted to revive him but he died shortly after arriving at hospital,” the source told newspaper La Derniere Heure/Les Sports.

Abbas: Iraqi international Ali Abbas has re-signed with Australian A-League club Newcastle Jets for next season, club officials said yesterday. Abbas, 24, who has scored twice in 41 games for the Jets over the last two seasons, has been given an extended contract through to the 2011-12 A-League season. “I am so happy to have another season with the Jets,” Abbas said.

Zidane: French football legend Zinedine Zidane will visit Russia’s war-torn republic of Chechnya next month, where he will attend the opening of a new stadium. Akhmad Kadyrov stadium, named for the late Chechen leader who was killed in a 2004 bomb blast while attending a ceremony in the republic’s current main stadium, is due to open in the capital Grozny on May 9.

Waterpolo: European Junior Championships qualifying tourn-ament – Malta vs Israel 7-8 (Malta scorers – Dino Zammit 4, Luke Caruana 1, Michael Paris 1, Aleandro Mifsud 1). Playing today: (morning session) Malta vs Russia; (afternoon session) Malta vs Ukraine.

Cycling: Britain’s Mark Cavendish sprinted clear of the field to claim his third career victory at the Grand Prix l’Escaut. The HTC-Highroad sprinter, a 15-time stage winner on the Tour de France, steered clear of danger in a crash-marred finale to finish ahead of Denis Galimzyanov and Yauheni Hutarovich.

Basket, NBA: Manu Ginobili scored 25 points and San Antonio secured the top seed for the NBA Western Conference play-offs with a win over Sacramento and the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss to Golden State. The Spurs defeated Sacramento 124-92, improving their league-leading record to 60-19. The Spurs have won three straight matches after losing six in a row – a skid that had them in danger of losing the top seed to the Lakers.

Golf: Asia’s biggest golf tour insisted it was business as usual yesterday after a senior official allegedly embezzled a large sum of money and then disappeared. The Asian Tour said Singapore police had been alerted after long-time finance and human resources manager Adrian Lee was sacked last month, and then apparently fled. Tour officials would not confirm media reports that Lee made off with US$1 million in company funds.

Skiing: Estonia’s Andrus Veerpalu, a former Olympic cross country skiing champion, failed a doping test a week before retiring aged 40 in February. The sample was taken out-of-competition on January 29 in his hometown Otepaa in southern Estonia.