VAN DER SAR: Manchester United's veteran goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar has signed a one-year contract extension. The Dutchman, who joined United in June 2005, will now be tied to the Old Trafford club until at least June 2011.
NAKAMURA: Espanyol have agreed to loan Japan midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura to his former club Yokohama F-Marinos. Nakamura snubbed his boyhood team to join Espanyol last June but has languished on the bench and wants first-team football with the World Cup less than four months away.
FABIANO: Sevilla striker Luis Fabiano has pulled out of Brazil's World Cup warm-up against Ireland next Tuesday with a stomach muscle injury. The CBF said the same injury had prevented Fabiano from playing for Sevilla in their Champions League match against CSKA Moscow on Wednesday.
FRIENDLY: England will host France in a friendly game on Nov. 17, the French Soccer Federation said yesterday. Les Bleus will take on Brazil at home in another friendly on Feb. 9 next year.
TORRES: Spain coach Vicente del Bosque recalled Liverpool striker Fernando Torres to his squad for Wednesday's friendly against France in Paris. Torres missed the European champions' friendlies against Argentina and Austria in November due to injury and takes the place of Valencia forward Pablo Hernandez.
CLUBS' DEBTS: FIFA will discuss the debt problems facing European clubs at their executive meeting on March 18, general secretary Jerome Valcke said. "It will be discussed... we have an executive committee meeting in March and that is when these types of things will be discussed," Valcke told reporters.
LEAGUE ONE: Southend vs Charlton 1-2.
MFA DIVISION THREE: Marsa vs Mgarr United 2-3; Mtarfa vs Luqa St Andrews 0-3.
BASKETBALL: Women's Louis Borg Cup final (first leg) Hibs vs Depiro 48-45. Division Two (men) KO SF Siġġiewi vs Qormi 80-51.
SOLIDARITY:Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg is auctioning her Olympic race suit to raise funds for the family of late Georgian slider Nodar Kumaritashvili who died in a training crash two weeks ago. The day before Kumaritashvili's death Campbell-Pegg criticised the Whistler track, the world's fastest, saying that she felt like a "crash-test dummy".
TENNIS: Big-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic ground out a 7-6 7-6 win over Germany's Daniel Brands at the Delray Beach Championships to book a quarter-final against James Blake. The 6-foot-10 (2.08 metres) Karlovic blasted 26 aces but was unable to break Brands, who pushed him to 10-8 in the first set tiebreaker and 8-6 in the second.
BASKET, NBA: The Cleveland Cavaliers ended a three-year losing streak in Boston with a 108-88 rout over their Eastern Conference rivals. LeBron James scored 36 points and dished out nine assists to help the Cavaliers snap a nine-game losing run at the TD Garden with their first road win over the Celtics since 2007. Cleveland (45-14) dominated the second half by a 60-32 margin despite losing Shaquille O'Neal in the second quarter, when the starting centre sprained his thumb and did not return.