Arsenal: Arsenal's best-ever European Cup campaign helped the London soccer club's footballing turnover hit a record £132 million in the year to end-May. But less cash from property development, together with increased employment costs and other outlays, offset gains from selling players, and the club reported an 18 per cent fall in pretax profit to £15.89 million. Arsenal's Champions League run, culminating in a 2-1 defeat to Barcelona, garnered the club £32.6 million in revenues, £12.5 million more than a year earlier. That helped pretax profit from soccer almost double to £16.8 million, the club said in a statement yesterday.
Managerial Changes: Leeds United and Queens Park Rangers, former Premier League clubs now occupying the bottom two places in the second division, changed their managers yesterday. Leeds, who are 23rd in the 24-team division, sacked Kevin Blackwell, their manager since May 2004, while QPR appointed former player John Gregory, his first management job since leaving Derby County in 2003. Blackwell's sacking came the day after Leeds beat Barnet 3-1 in the League Cup on Tuesday while QPR went out of the competition after being beaten 3-2 by Port Vale.
Collymore: Former England striker Stan Collymore has ruled out a move to Australian A-League team Newcastle Jets, his agent said. The Australian club had said they talked to the 35-year-old Collymore about the possibility of making a four-match guest stint in the fledgling competition. But Collymore's agent Simon Kennedy told the BBC the player was unlikely to accept the offer. "We've had interest from Australia but it's not at the forefront of our mind," Kennedy said. "In the last year we've had offers from a Premiership side and five Championship clubs (in England), but it must be right."
Lucescu: Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu has been fined $5,000 by Ukraine's soccer authorities for using bad language during a league match, the Professional Football League (PFL) said. A PFL statement said the "blunt language" of Lucescu and another Shakhtar official in the match against Vorskla Poltava on September 9 "attracted the attention of the fourth official and a report was made to the Ukrainian soccer federation".
Nantes: Nantes coach Serge Le Dizet was sacked yesterday after Tuesday's defeat to Toulouse in the French League Cup sealed a poor start to the season for the club. Rudi Roussillon, the chairman of the Ligue 1 club, said yesterday that Le Dizet, 42, a player in Nantes championship-winning side in 1995, would be replaced by his assistant George Eo. The latter will take charge of the team for the first time in Sunday's home league match against Marseille.