Eastern Europe

Polish soccer clubs has voted to suspend their league strike despite an unresolved conflict with the soccer federation (PZPN).

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch has praised Athens for accelerating progress in its preparations for the 2004 Olympics.

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.

Alexandru Siperco, veteran Romanian member of the IOC who persuaded Communist authorities to compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Games, died on Monday. He was 78.

Andreea Raducan, the Romanian gymnast stripped of a gold medal in Sydney for taking a banned substance, has said she will sue the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to clear her name.

Ice hockey fans at Bratislava's ice hockey stadium saw two exhibition matches last weekend involving stars from the NHL and Europe.

International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch said he would serve his full term until 2001, dismissing suggestions he might resign at the end of the year.

The World Championship 2003 Executive Council is to inform the International Ice-Hockey Federation (IIHF) board of problems surrounding the planned construction of an arena in Hagibor in Prague, which is to host the 2003 world ice-hockey championship.

Entertainment, sports and media group ENIC plc has offered to buy most of the 40% stake in Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur held by its chairman Alan Sugar, the Independent on Sunday reported.

World athletics chief Primo Nebiolo has assured British Sports Minister Tony Banks that London would have a good chance of staging the 2003 world championships if proposed renovations to Wembley Stadium are completed.

At least 11 foreign teams will take part in a soccer tournament beginning in Dhaka on August 27, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) has announced.

Russia's individual Olympic gold medal-winners at the Sydney Games in September can expect a $100,000 bonus, the country's leading sports official have said.

British fans are set to bet more than #100 million pounds ($149m) on Euro 2000, making it the world's biggest single sports betting event, bookmakers Ladbrokes said on Friday.

Italian sport swear company, Lotto Sport Italia, has signed up AC Milan and Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko on a three-year deal..