Ukraine: Ukraine have picked the Berlin suburb of Potsdam for their World Cup base, the country's soccer officials said yesterday. "Potsdam is ideally located to become the temporary home for our team," Ukraine's national team manager Oleg Taradai was quoted as saying. "It makes perfect sense because we play our first-round games in Leipzig, Hamburg and Berlin." Ukraine, making their first appearance in the World Cup finals, face Spain in Leipzig on June 14 in a Group H opener before taking on Saudi Arabia in Hamburg five days later. They meet Tunisia in their final group match in Berlin on June 23.
Bundesliga deal: German rail operator Deutsche Bahn has been in talks with the Bundesliga for a 50-million euro sponsorship deal involving the league's name. Newspaper reports did not identify any sources. The German Football League (DFL), which recently awarded the pay-tv and free-tv rights from 2006 to 2009 for 1.6 billion euros, wanted 50 million euros per season for the rights to the league's name. Any such sponsorship deal, modelled after England's Premier League, would require television rights holders to refer to the league only by the name of the sponsor.
Osasuna: Osasuna have become the first Spanish soccer club to change the name of their stadium as part of a sponsorship deal. The club website said it had received approval for its plan to change the name of the El Sadar stadium to "Reyno de Navarra" (Kingdom of Navarra), the slogan used by the regional government to promote tourism in the area. In return Osasuna said they would receive 4.5 million euros from the regional government for the three-year duration of the deal. El Sadar has been home to the Pamplona-based club since 1967.
Burley: George Burley dismissed ideas he and Clive Woodward might clash over the running of Southampton FC. Burley took over from Harry Redknapp, who resigned earlier this month to return to Southampton's south coast rivals Portsmouth, his previous club. Woodward, who masterminded England's 2003 Rugby World Cup victory in Australia, was named director of football having joined Southampton as technical director, his first job in football, before the start of the season. "Sir Clive has been a world class coach in a different sport... but at the end of the day I think with any football club it's a team," former Hearts manager Burley said. Yesterday, Southampton lost 3-0 at Watford.
Auction Relaunched: German decorator Matthias Blume said yesterday he had relaunched the bidding process for the name tags of the 32 World Cup finalists used in the televised draw after receiving bogus offers. Blume, who found the slips of paper in a rubbish bag while cleaning up after the draw in Leipzig on Dec. 9, said bidders must now register with passports before making offers. "We had to cancel the auction because some of the bids were not serious," Blume said. "We've now taken steps to ensure there are only serious bids."