The captain of Belgium club Ghent, Ilombe Mboyo, has apologised to fans and given up his post following an embarrassing penalty miss at the weekend.
Mboyo, a 25-year-old striker, had the chance to level the score in the 15th minute of Saturday’s match at home to Waasland-Beveren, but gently side-footed the spot-kick wide.
Mboyo confronted fans at the end of the match, which Ghent lost 2-0, and appeared to lose his cool.
“Maybe I would not have reacted if I wasn’t captain. To show that I shouldn’t have done so, I will no long wear the captain’s armband,” he said.
Chelsea players mobbed in Japan
Chelsea players Petr Cech and Paulo Ferreira popped into a Starbucks for coffee after training at the Club World Cup in Japan yesterday and were mobbed as they waited in line.
Defender Ferreira purchased a ‘Yokohama Starbucks’ mug as a souvenir but goalkeeper Cech opted to save his money as dozens of fans in Chelsea shirts swarmed around them.
Picking up a small size coffee, Cech asked his team-mate: “Do you want to drink here or go back (to the hotel)?”
Closely watched by security, the players signed autographs and posed for photos with fans as they waited before Ferreira ner-vously replied: “Go back.”
More arrests in linesman’s death
Amsterdam police investigating the death of a linesman last week arrested four more suspects yesterday.
Richard Nieuwenhuizen, 41, was assaulted after an U-17 match between Buitenboys and Nieuw-Sloten on December 2 and died the following day.
Last week, police arrested four teenagers, two of them aged 15.
Yesterday, they arrested three more teenagers and the 50-year-old father of a Nieuw-Sloten player, they said.
Some 12,000 people joined a silent march through Almere on Sunday in tribute to the volunteer linesman.
Matches off due to cold weather
The Romanian Professional League have postponed next weekend’s domestic champion-ship matches because of the cold weather in the Balkan country, its president Dumitru Dragomir said yesterday.
The decision was taken by an Emergency Committee following requests from 12 clubs. New dates for the matches, which were due to be played on Dec. 14-17, are yet to be announced.
Late on Monday, Steaua Bucharest, chasing their first league title since 2006, beat second-placed FC Astra 2-0 to go 10 points clear at the top of the standings.
McClaren not leaving FC Twente
The position of Steve McClaren as FC Twente head coach is not under threat, according to club chairman Joop Munsterman.
Twente have taken only six points from their last five games, including a 3-0 defeat to title rivals PSV Eindhoven on Sunday besides finishing bottom of their group without a win in the Europa League.
But they remain third in the Eredivisie, level on points with second-placed Vitesse Arnhem and two behind PSV Eindhoven, and Munsterman is playing down suggestions that the former England manager is under pressure.
He said: “McClaren’s contract has half a year left on it and we intend for him to serve that, as we have always done.”
Long ignoring transfer rumours
Leading West Bromwich scorer Shane Long has shrugged off speculation about a January move.
The Republic of Ireland international has been in impressive form which has seen him linked with several clubs, including Liverpool.
But Baggies head coach Steve Clarke has stated Long is going nowhere and the striker is adamant he is enjoying life at the Hawthorns.
He said: “I’m just concentrating on my football, I’m enjoying playing up front, I love my job.
“It’s very enjoyable at the moment and I’ll let the rumours take care of themselves.”
Hillsborough disaster inquests
Britain’s attorney general applied for fresh inquests into the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters in the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster.
Dominic Grieve applied to the High Court to have the verdicts of the original inquests into Britain’s worst sporting disaster quashed so that fresh ones can be held.
The original inquests returned verdicts of accidental death but Grieve wants to bring new evidence forward after an independent inquiry published in September exposed a police cover-up following the crush at the stadium.
In England, inquests are held to examine sudden or unexplained deaths.