Mourinho: Barcelona fans insulted and spat at Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho when he and his players arrived in Spain yesterday for their Champions League clash. The Premier League club said about 50 Barcelona fans were waiting for Chelsea at the city airport and some spat at the bus when Mourinho and the team were on board waiting to leave. Barcelona are 2-1 up going into tomorrow's second leg of the first knockout round tie at the Nou Camp after winning the first leg at Stamford Bridge on Feb. 22.

Andrade: Deportivo La Coruna's Portuguese international centre-back Jorge Andrade is likely to miss the World Cup after tearing the patellar tendon in his left knee during his side's 3-2 defeat at Barcelona on Saturday. Deportivo said that the 27-year-old, who is a regular in the Portugal national team, was expected to undergo surgery on the knee yesterday, but they did not give an estimated recovery time.

Giresse: Former France midfielder Alain Giresse has been named coach of Gabon's national team, the Gabon Football Association said. Giresse replaces Brazilian World Cup winner Jairzinho, who was sacked last September after a series of poor results. Giresse, 53, partnered Michel Platini in the France side that reached the semi-finals of the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. He coached Georgia from 2001 to 2005.

'Bungs' Inquiry: England's Premier League appointed former London police chief John Stevens to lead its independent inquiry into illegal transfer payments. All transfers to English Premier League clubs from Jan. 1, 2004, will be examined and the findings will be reported in September. The so-called 'bungs' inquiry was announced in January. It followed a report in the News of the World newspaper quoting England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson as saying three unnamed Premier League clubs had been involved in bungs.

Rallying: World champion Sebastien Loeb, driving a Citroen, won the Rally of Mexico yesterday. The Frenchman beat Norwegian Petter Solberg, last year's winner for Subaru, by 48.9 seconds with Austrian Manfred Stohl third for the OMV-Peugeot Norway team. The victory was Loeb's first of the year after Finland's Marcus Gronholm had won the opening two rounds of the championship for Ford.

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