Beckham hopes for     a brighter season
David Beckham believes this week's inaugural Pan-Pacific Championship in Hawaii can provide the catalyst for a successful second season with the Los Angeles Galaxy.
England midfielder Beckham's first campaign in Major League Soccer was severely restricted by knee and ankle injuries, but he is confident of a better showing under new coach Ruud Gullit in 2008.
Asked if he expected major improvement from the Galaxy this year following their failure to reach the MLS playoffs, Beckham said: "There has to be. It is a fresh start with a new manager, a new regime and a new togetherness. Many things have already changed, definitely for the good, and we want to build momentum and start winning things."
Narrow escape for head-butting Adriano
Sao Paulo's on-loan striker Adriano escaped with a two-match ban after a tribunal accepted that he had used his head to push rather than butt an opponent during a state championship match.
A Brazilian disciplinary tribunal found that the Inter Milan player had confronted Santos centre-half Domingos aggressively during his club's 3-2 victory, but ruled that the degree of contact had fallen short of a dangerous head butt.
Adriano had initially been charged with the more serious offence of physical aggression and had faced a ban of between 120 and 540 days. His lawyers showed television footage of the famous 2006 World Cup final incident involving France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi to support their argument.
Anything for a good game of soccer!
Diehard fans of English League Two (fourth division) club Rochdale went to extraordinary lengths to try and thaw out the pitch in time for Tuesday's home match against Notts County.
Around 40 oil drums were scattered around the frozen Spotland playing surface with fans working in sub-zero temperatures throughout the night to burn wood and coal in the hope of keeping the pitch soft enough to play.
Desperate requests for more fuel were made on Tuesday but despite the efforts of the club's groundstaff and fans the match fell victim to the severe frosts and was postponed.
However, the fires will be kept burning to make sure Saturday's match against Wycombe Wanderers survives.
"Our fans have proved they are simply the best and we can't thank them enough," club chairman Chris Dunphy said.
Athletics in danger, warns Coe
Athletics was in danger of being destroyed by drugs cheats, Britain's twice Olympic middle-distance champion Sebastien Coe has said.
He said the sport was reeling from a series of high-profile doping busts and would struggle to cope with any more major scandals.
"We cannot have another five years like the one we've just been through because I'm not sure the sport would survive that," Coe said. in Sydney.
Coe won the 1500 metres titles at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics and is now vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and chairman of the organising committee for the London 2012 Games.
Beijing reveals the correct numbers
Just under 15,000 people were moved from their homes to make way for the venues of the Beijing Olympics and all moved voluntarily with compensation, officials said, countering rights groups' allegations that hundreds of thousands had been evicted.
The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) said last year that up to 1.5 million Beijingers would be evicted from their homes in the run-up to August's Games, often in a brutal and arbitrary manner with little compensation.