Balkans

The Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) has had its licence revoked and been ordered to replace several leading

In a rare show of European unity, French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn joked that France and the Netherlands should share the World Cup, predicting their soccer teams would meet in the July 12 final.

Spanish soccer club ? and Champions League finalist ? Real Madrid has signed an exclusive marketing contract with Global Sportnet.

Colombian leftist guerrillas toasted Brazil's and Mexico's World Cup victories and vowed to fight for the right of every Colombian to enjoy "happiness, fiesta and football."

Sunday night's World Cup final between France and Brazil set a new television audience record in host country France with an average of 23.626 million people watching, a spokesman for audience measurement body Mediametrie said on Monday.

Yugoslavia will be excluded from this year's UEFA Intertoto Cup starting on June 19 and Macedonia will take its place instead, the European soccer body UEFA has said.

Crvena Zvezda Belgrade has said they planned to ignore an order by UEFA to play a European match at a neutral venue because of political tension.

TF1, France's biggest private terrestrial television station, had receipts of 52 million francs for advertising it carried during the World Cup final on Sunday, an advertising executive at the station said.

Czech police have arrested the country's top soccer boss Frantisek Chvalovsky and charged him with credit fraud, the CTK news agency reported. Police suspect Chvalovsky, who heads the Czech-Moravian Football Association, of a 640 million crown ($17 million) fraud connected with debts of a company he leads, the agency said. Police were not available for comment.

Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski has said he wanted to help Bulgarian soccer out of its chaotic state by becoming leader of the sport's governing body in Bulgaria.

The World Cup failed to boost advertising revenue for Britain?s ITV network which saw June figures fall some #8 million ($12m).

Moldova has been given permission by UEFA to use their main stadium for international matches this season, the country's soccer chief said.

The Bulgarian arm of Russian oil firm LUKOIL is in talks to buy a majority stake in Bulgarian soccer club Neftochimik Bourgas, Neftochimik's president said on Tuesday.

Germany's disastrous showing at soccer?s World Cup finals has not dampened the enthusiasm of fans, who have bought more tickets than ever for the Bundesliga season starting this weekend.

FIFA has given Azerbaijan a deadline of next Monday to settle its internal disputes or be banned from all international competition, a spokesman for the Azeri Soccer Federation (ASF) has said.

World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. has renewed key distribution deals in Australia and the UK and signed a new deal in the Czech Republic.