Beckham: Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon remains hopeful that David Beckham will sign a two-year contract extension despite admitting that other teams are interested in signing the former England captain. "Beckham is the sort of player that has a lot of suitors and I know that he has a lot of offers because he is a key player in many ways, but especially from the sporting point of view," Calderon was quoted as saying yesterday. "I think he will sign for two more years, that is to say that he will stay here for this season and two more, but we will have to see if he wants to stay or not."
Parallel leagues: FIFA has told Kenya's football federation (KFF) it has no mandate to run the east African nations championship as the release of fixtures for parallel leagues compounded chaos. KFF and its rival Kenya Premier League (KPL) on Tuesday published match schedules for parallel championships - the second time in as many months this has happened amid a battle for control. Kenya's top football clubs have split into two factions but Jerome Champagne, FIFA Delegate of the President for special affairs, said KFF does not have the right to decide which teams should participate.
Schalke: Russia's gas giant Gazprom signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Bundesliga club Schalke 04, the Russian company said. Schalke, who have a large following in Germany's Ruhr industrial region, said the deal would be worth 125 million euros. Gazprom's statement did not give any figures. Sergei Fursenko, the head of Gazprom subsidiary Lentransgaz, is also the president of Russia's Premier League club Zenit.
Ronaldinho: Brazil playmaker Ronaldinho said he had no complaints about starting on the bench for Tuesday's 2-1 friendly win over Ecuador. The Barcelona player sat out the first half in Stockholm as coach Dunga continued to experiment with his team. Ronaldinho came on for the second half and twice hit the crossbar from free-kicks as he attempted to score his first international goal since the Confederations Cup final against Argentina last year.
Cop in trouble: An Argentine policeman has been suspended for 10 days without pay for cheering a goal while on duty at a soccer match and sparking violent protests by fans. The policeman cheered the third goal scored by Estudiantes de La Plata, the city where he is based, in their 3-0 win at Lanus last weekend and was pelted with objects thrown by home team supporters until he was removed.
Women's football: Malta's national team were this week drawn with Slovakia, Luxembourg and Lithuania in Group Three of the UEFA Championship 2009 preliminary round. A mini-tournament between the four teams will be played in Luxembourg between November 18 and 23.
UEFA U-21 Championship play-offs: Bulgaria vs Belgium 1-4 (agg: 2-5); Israel vs France 1-0 (agg: 2-1).