FA Cup: The Football Association have confirmed an increase of almost 22% for the top price tickets for next month’s FA Cup final. After pegging the tickets at £95 since the showpiece occasion returned to Wembley in 2007, anyone buying the most expensive ticket for this season’s clash will have to shell out £115. Other tickets will be available at £85 and £65, with the cheapest at £45, which is £5 higher than last term.
Cisse: Freiburg admitted yesterday they are receiving plenty of interest from top clubs – both inside and outside Germany – in Senegal striker Papiss Cisse, the league’s top-scorer. The 25-year-old has scored 20 goals in 27 league games this season. “A few interested clubs have been testing the waters,” Freiburg’s director of sport Dirk Dufner told German magazine Kicker and confirmed there have been official transfer requests, without naming clubs. Cisse is under contract until 2014.
In Russia: Jose-Maria Garcia Aranda, the former chief of FIFA’s referees panel, was yesterday appointed as an advisor to Russian Football Union (RFU) president Sergei Fursenko. “We have signed a three-year deal until the end of the 2014 World Cup. But our agreement could be prolonged,” Fursenko told the press. “Garcia Aranda’s main task will be to prepare Russian referees for the 2018 World Cup, which will be staged in Russia.”
Sold out: All available tickets for the home leg of Schalke’s Champions League semi-final against Manchester United on April 26 sold out in just two and a half hours yesterday. Schalke beat holders Inter 2-1 at the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen on Wednesday night to complete a 7-3 aggregate win. A sell-out crowd of 54,000 is expected, with some 2,500 tickets already allocated to United for their fans.
Schweinsteiger: Bayern Munich’s Germany star Bastian Schweinsteiger is doubtful for Sunday’s key Bundesliga clash against second-placed Bayer Leverkusen after spraining ankle ligaments. The 26-year-old twisted his ankle in training yesterday and faces a race against time to be fit for Sunday’s clash at Munich’s Allianz Arena.
Cricket: India and Pakistan have agreed to resume direct sporting ties and an Indian cricket tour of its neighbour could be on the cards. The decision comes two weeks after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani watched together as their teams played in the semi-final of the Cricket World Cup in northwest India. Several Indian newspapers cited unidentified government sources as saying the question of precisely when and where the first cricket series between the rivals might take place would be decided by the two national cricket boards.
Basket, NBA: The NBA fined Kobe Bryant $100,000 for using an anti-gay slur after he was slapped with a technical foul in the Lakers 102-93 victory over San Antonio on Tuesday. “Kobe Bryant’s comment was offensive and inexcusable,” NBA commissioner David Stern said. “While I’m fully aware that basketball is an emotional game, such a distasteful term should never be tolerated. Accordingly, I have fined Kobe $100,000.”
Athletics: Rising Ethiopian star Bazu Worku has been forced out of the London Marathon by a bout of food poisoning. The 20-year-old, third in the Berlin Marathon last September and due to make his London debut on Sunday, was hoping to become the youngest winner of the race. “Bazu is very upset that he can’t run this year and has had to make a difficult decision,” said a spokeswoman.
Cycling: Australian Cadel Evans will miss the Ardennes Classics campaign, beginning on Sunday at the Amstel Gold Race, due to a knee injury he suffered in a training ride crash at the end of March. The BMC rider, a former two-time runner-up in the Tour de France who was crowned world champion in 2009, had been hoping to race Amstel and follow up with the defence of his Fleche Wallonne crown on Wednesday. Evans, however, has been ruled out of both races after an MRI scan revealed a small bruise on the knee bone that requires at least five days to heal, according to BMC’s chief medical officer, Dr Max Testa.