■ENGLAND
Fulham sign Nigeria’s Etuhu
Fulham said late on Friday they had signed Nigerian international midfielder Dickson Etuhu from fellow English Premier League club Sunderland for an undisclosed fee. The 26-year-old has signed a three-year contract with the London club to end manager Roy Hodgson’s summer-long search for a defensive midfielder. “It feels great to have signed for Fulham Football Club. These are exciting times at the club and I’ve joined to become an integral part of Fulham’s future success,” Etuhu said. “The club has made some terrific signings over the summer, adding to an already talented pool of players. Last Saturday’s win over Arsenal shows just how competitive Fulham are in the Premier League. I’m looking forward to meeting up with my new teammates over the next few days, settling down and preparing for the club’s next home game against Bolton Wanderers in a few weeks’ time.”
■GREECE
Teenager Ninis called up
Teenage midfielder Sotiris Ninis was included on Friday in Greece’s squad for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Latvia. The 20-year-old Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Avraam Papadopoulos were also called up, but 70-year-old coach Otto Rehhagel avoided making major changes for the matches, to be played on Sept. 6 and Sept. 10. The 18-year-old Ninis and Papastathopoulos were dropped for this year’s European Championship, where Greece suffered three straight defeats and scored just one goal in the defense of their 2004 title. Midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos, who remains unsigned after his summer release from Bolton Wanderers, was not included in the team. Greece also face Israel, Moldova and Switzerland in their qualifying group.
■ENGLAND
Olsson to sign for Baggies
Former Sweden under-21 international defender Jonas Olsson has joined English Premier League side West Bromwich Albion from Dutch club Nijmegen. Pending a medical, the 25-year-old central defender is expected to sign and seal the move over the weekend. Olsson is renowned for being a tough-tackling defender, good in the air and comfortable on the ball. After moving to Holland from his home-town club Landskrona in 2005, he has been a regular in the Nijmegen side for the past three years.
■ENGLAND
Sonko inks deal with Potters
Premier League club Stoke signed Senegal defender Ibrahima Sonko from Reading on Friday in a £2 million (US$3.6 million) deal. Sonko, 27, agreed a three-year deal to complete a move that will be worth a maximum fee of £2.25 million if certain clauses in the contract are met. Stoke chief executive Tony Scholes told the club’s official Web site: “We are delighted to make Ibrahima the club’s latest signing. He is a quality addition to the squad and comes with plenty of Premier League experience having played in the top flight with Reading.”
■SPAIN
Josico joins Fenerbahce
Turkish club Fenerbahce have signed Villarreal midfielder Jose Joaquin Moreno, where he will join his fellow Spaniard Dani Guiza, the Spanish first division club announced on Friday. “Villarreal and Fenerbahce have reached an agreement on the transfer of Josico” on a two-year contract, Villarreal said, using the player’s nickname. “Josico,” 33, has played at Villarreal since the 2002-2003 season.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier