Soccer Shorts

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Republic up to 19th in world rankings

THE Republic of Ireland have moved up one place to 19th in the latest world rankings while two of their rivals in the group stages of this summer’s European championship in Poland have slipped slightly on the Fifa ladder.

Spain remain number one in the list this month but the Netherlands have moved up to two, replacing Germany who drop one place following their defeat by France. England are also down one to sixth while Italy and Croatia have slipped slightly too, to ninth and 10th respectively.

Scotland, meanwhile, are down three to 51, Northern Ireland are down one to 87 and Euro 2012 co-hosts Ukraine are amongst the biggest movers, climbing 10 places to 49.

Torres reluctant to take penalty

FERNANDO TORRES turned down the chance to take Chelsea’s penalty in their FA Cup replay win at Birmingham City, which might have allowed him to end his near five-month scoring drought.

Chelsea were 2-0 up and coasting into the quarter-finals on Tuesday when Torres was fouled by Guirane N’Daw inside the area. Juan Mata, the designated penalty taker, offered the kick to Torres only for the 27-year-old to decline.

Although Daniel Sturridge subsequently tried to claim the ball, Mata stepped up to the spot and saw his shot saved by Colin Doyle.

The St Andrew’s crowd chanted “We want Torres” upon the award of the penalty. The forward, who has scored five goals in all competitions for Chelsea, has not found the net in 23 matches.

“I asked him if he wanted to take it because he won the penalty,” Mata said. “He said: ‘I’m not first on the list to shoot’, so that’s what happened.”

GuardianService

English FA charge north-east rivals

NEWCASTLE and Sunderland have been charged with misconduct by the Football Association following last Sunday’s 1-1 draw.

The charges stem from an incident prefaced by a first-half challenge from Sunderland’s Irish winger James McClean on Danny Simpson.

The Newcastle right-back was incensed and he and McClean subsequently touched foreheads before being separated. By then they had sparked a 21-man melee, which concluded with Mike Dean booking the two original protagonists.

The referee also sent off Sunderland’s Stephane Sessegnon and, for foul and abusive language after the final whistle, Lee Cattermole, in addition to sending Andy Woodman, Newcastle’s goalkeeping coach, to the stands at half-time. Both clubs have until 4pm on Monday to respond.

Wenger facing further touchline ban

ARSENAL manager Arsene Wenger was charged with improper conduct by Uefa yesterday for comments made about the referee following Arsenal’s Champions League exit to AC Milan.

Wenger, who is now facing the possibility of his third Uefa touchline ban in a year, accused referee Damir Skomina of awarding their opponents too many free kicks in Arsenals 3-0 win on Tuesday.

Wenger confronted the Slovenian official at the end of a disappointing night when Arsenal were eliminated 4-3 on aggregate despite their emphatic victory at the Emirates Stadium. The case will be heard on March 29th by Uefas control and disciplinary body.

Wenger was hit with a one-match ban by European soccer’s governing body for berating Swiss referee Massimo Busacca following his team’s Champions League last-16 exit to Barcelona last March.

He was then handed a further two-match touchline suspension for violating that ban by communicating with the Arsenal bench from the stands during a play-off tie against Udinese earlier this season.

Rangers face liquidation as talks on pay deal fail

RANGERS have been warned they are sliding towards liquidation after the bleakest prognoses of their future arrived both from the club’s administrators and a current director yesterday. Having failed to agree a crucial and significant pay-cut deal for the squad, the administrators admitted the club may be unable to fulfil their remaining fixtures this season, triggering a desperate plea for new investment.

Duff Phelps, the Rangers’ administrators, threatened if that was not forthcoming then they would need a significant batch of redundancies just to allow the team to complete this campaign.

Paul Clark, Whitehouse’s fellow administrator, later confirmed Rangers have “no realistic hope” of being granted the licence which would allow them to compete in European football next season.

Clark added: “If a company voluntary arrangement is not possible for any particular reason, any buyer of the club and its assets would complete that purchase through a sale by the administrators allowing the football club to continue to operate, with the old company then being placed into liquidation prior to dissolution.”

The desperate situation was spelled out by the administrators after Dave King, a Rangers director, labelled liquidation as a foregone conclusion: “I do not believe that there is a reasonable prospect that the company can come out of administration . . . liquidation is inevitable.”