Verona: Verona players will wear a black armband in today’s Serie A match against Parma as a sign of respect for former club vice-president Giovanni Martinelli, who died last week. There will also be a minute’s silence before kick-off and the home players will don special shirts with the message ‘Giovanni Martinelli, grazie Presidente’.

Forest deal: Nottingham Forest manager Billy Davies has signed a new contract with the club until June 2017. Davies returned for a second spell in charge of the Reds in February and oversaw a tremendous turnaround in fortunes which saw the midlands club narrowly miss out on the Championship play-offs on the final day of last season. The Scot had guided Forest to successive play-off campaigns during his first stint at the City Ground.

Dubious vote: A five-member commission appointed to oversee last week’s Thailand FA presidential election has refused to approve Worawi Makudi’s victory over former national team manager Virach Charnpanich. Worawi, a member of the FIFA executive committee, polled 42 votes to Virach’s 28 during the election. One club was disqualified from the election while there was another ‘no vote’. Three members of the commission were not convinced with the eligibility of all the voters and felt that the election was not clean.

Record: Salzburg set a record for the longest unbeaten run in the Austrian Bundesliga yesterday when the runaway leaders thrashed second from bottom Wacker Innsbruck 6-0 to make it 31 games without defeat. Last year’s runners-up have not been beaten since Nov. 24 when they lost 3-1 to Ried. Salzburg have now overhauled the previous record set by Rapid Vienna in 1987. The Bundesliga was launched in its current form in 1974.

Dawkins: Derby County have signed Tottenham forward Simon Dawkins on a 93-day emergency loan deal. The 25-year-old becomes Steve McClaren’s first signing since he was appointed the new head coach at the Championship club at the beginning of this month.