Rooney: Man. United manager Alex Ferguson dismissed a newspaper report yesterday that Wayne Rooney had gambling debts of £700,000. "It's absolute rubbish," Ferguson said. The Sunday Mirror said Rooney had run up the debts since the start of the season. He and four international team-mates were part of what had started as a "light-hearted school" but had run out of control, the paper said. The other players had enjoyed some success, but Rooney had lost heavily, betting on horses, dogs and soccer matches he was not involved in, The Sunday Mirror said.
Hagi U-Turn: Former Romania great Gheorghe Hagi has decided to stay on as coach of Politehnica Timisoara just hours after announcing he was quitting. Hagi yesterday wanted to severe his ties with the club as he felt his players were not trying hard enough. Timisoara came back from 2-0 down to draw with CFR Cluj on Saturday but Hagi was critical of the performance and only agreed to return to the helm after midfielders Gabriel Caramarin and Alin Stoica were expelled from the squad.
Houllier: Lyon have effectively already won a record fifth consecutive title as far as coach Gerard Houllier is concerned. "Objectively, with 15 points to be distributed, it's won," Houllier told reporters yesterday. Lyon, who beat Nice 2-1 on Saturday, enjoy a 14-point lead over second-placed Girondins Bordeaux with five games remaining and have a much better goal difference. They need just two points to be sure of beating St Etienne and Olympique Marseille's record of four successive Ligue 1 titles.
Iran: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no plans to travel to Germany to support his country's World Cup campaign, an official said yesterday. Ahmadinejad labelled the Holocaust a myth and German diplomats feared he could become a controversial distraction from the tournament. "It is not on his agenda," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, when asked whether Ahmadinejad was planning to support Iran in Germany. Iran's opening match against Mexico on June 11 is in Nuremberg, a city closely associated with Nazism.
Kahn: Bayern Munich manager Uli Hoeness has criticised Juergen Klinsmann for dashing Oliver Kahn's World Cup hopes the day before Saturday's important league match against Werder Bremen, which the champions lost 3-0. "To come up with such a decision just a day before the most important game of the second half of the season is very unusual," Hoeness said. "We could also have sat down in peace and quiet on Sunday morning in Munich but maybe there was already a plane on the way to California."
In France: Ligue 1 - Auxerre vs Le Mans 0-0; Rennes vs Sochaux 2-1.