Football news

French giants Marseille ratified their annual accounts on Friday, revealing a loss of some €15 million ($20.8m) for the last financial year. The club’s board confirmed the loss at a meeting in Paris.

The news comes after Marseille owner Margarita Louis-Dreyfus told the daily newspaper Le Monde on October 8 that she had injected a sum of €20 million ($27.75m) into the club over the summer.

In the same interview, Louis-Dreyfus issued a veiled threat that she could sell the club if on-field performances did not improve soon.

Didier Deschamps’s side have won two out of two in the Champions League group stage ahead of their meeting with Arsenal this week.

Jovetic signs but Vargas dropped

Montenegro attacking midfielder Stevan Jovetic yesterday agreed a contract extension at Fiorentina that will keep him with La Viola until 2016.

But Peru winger Juan Vargas has been dropped for today’s trip to Cesena for disciplinary reasons.

“He hasn’t been selected and I would have dropped him (for the previous match) against Lazio too if I’d known he was up until the early hours,” said Fiorentina coach Sinisa Mihajlovic.

“I need the real Vargas, not his brother.”

Ferguson expected Rooney ban

Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson expected Wayne Rooney to be hit with a three match-ban which has ruled the England striker out of the Euro 2012 group stages.

“I expected a three-match ban, I must admit,” Ferguson told MUTV. “Sending offs usually carry that and I didn’t think there was going to be any leniency towards England.

“He is going to miss the group games for England, which is a blow for him and England.”

Rooney was banned after being red-carded in England’s 2-2 draw against Montenegro last week, a result which guaranteed Fabio Capello’s team a place in the finals in Poland and Ukraine next summer.

Forest turn to Pompey’s Cotterill

Struggling Championship side Nottingham Forest on Friday named Portsmouth boss Steve Cotterill as their new manager, two weeks after former England coach Steve McClaren resigned from the City Ground.

Cotterill, 47, put pen to paper on a three-year deal to coach former European champions Forest who are languishing in 21st place in the second-tier Championship.

“I’m very excited – it’s a wonderful football club which has great traditions which should be embraced,” Cotterill told Forest’s website.

“I want us to play good football and play on the front foot. I think there are some very talented players in the dressing room and we’ll be looking to do well with them.”

Bayern can bide time on Heynckes

Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said the club were interested in extending the contract of veteran coach Jupp Heynckes beyond June 2013 but added there was no hurry to close a new deal.

“We are interested as we are totally satisfied with his work – all of the highest quality as you can judge from a look at results in the Bundesliga and the Champions League,” Rummenigge said.

But former star Rummenigge added there was no need to rush an extension as “Jupp Heynckes has been at the helm for a little over 100 days and he has a contract through to 2013. We will hold fresh talks at a mutually convenient time”.

Caribbean chiefs punished by FIFA

A host of Caribbean football officials were sanctioned for their role in the now infamous meeting which sparked the downfall of former Asian football supremo Mohamed bin Hammam.

FIFA’s ethics committee handed out suspensions and fines in its latest ruling over the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) meeting held in Trinidad on May 10 and 11 where Bin Hammam was accused of trying to buy votes in the FIFA presidential election.

On Friday, Franka Pickering, of the British Virgin Islands, was banned for 18 months from taking part in any football-related activity and fined 500 Swiss francs.

Jamaica’s Horace Burrell was banned for six months with three suspended while Osiris Guzman of the Dominican Republic was banned for 30 days, 15 of which were suspended, and fined 300 Swiss francs (242 euros).

Sion players taken to task in EL twist

The Swiss Football League (SFL) announced that they have opened disciplinary proceedings against six FC Sion players as the fallout from the team’s Europa League exclusion took another twist.

The six players – Stefan Glarner, Billy Ketkeophomphone, Mario Mutsch, Pascal Feindouno, Jose Julio Gomes Goncalves and Gabriel Garcia – are accused of breaking the rules of both the Swiss football association (ASF) and the SFL when they took the case regarding their eligibility to a civil court in Martigny last month.

The statutes of the ASF and the SFL, as well as those of FIFA and UEFA, prohibit players from taking any football-related case to the civil courts, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) being the furthest any such matter can go.