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Marseilles club president says midfielder Stephane MBia faces a fine for turning up several days late to preseason training.

The Cameroon midfielder was absent when the club started its training camp earlier this month, and finally turned up three days late when Marseille played Toulouse in a friendly match on July 21.

Coach Didier Deschamps was very angry about it and president Jean-Claude Dassier told the clubs website Thursday that MBia “will be punished, thats clear.”

The 24-year-old MBia, who played for Cameroon at this years World Cup, was an integral part of Marseilles title win last season, playing equally well in central midfield or central defense.

Brazilian defender Andrezinho is joining FC Cologne from Portugals Vitoria Guimaraes on a two-year contract.

Cologne manager Michael Meier said Thursday that the 28-year-old Andrezinho - whose full name is Andre Ricardo Soares - would be a “valuable reinforcement.”

The Bundesliga club didnt give details of the transfer deal.

Zimbabwes soccer federation says it has suspended its chief executive on allegations of match-fixing involving Asian betting syndicates during a tournament in Malaysia.

The federation said it is investigating betting and bribery charges against Henrietta Rushwaya related to the national teams tour of Malaysia in December.

Zimbabwe lost to Syria 6-0 and to Thailand 3-0.

Rushwaya on Thursday denied wrongdoing and said she will cooperate with the federations investigators.

The federation said it has reported the case to world governing body FIFA.

With a few days remaining before the most daunting s many will play seven times in CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and golf writer and columnist Scott Michaux pass the popcorn and do their weekly Siskel-and-Ebert act.

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie . Universally panned upon release and cobbled together with a somewhat ad-libbed script attempting to duplicate the raunchy success of “Animal House,” its got to be the most-quoted sports movie of all time. Whats your favorite scene and why?

ELLING: So they threw in the episode in the cart barn, where Carl Spackler was living, and the two Saturday Night Live alums winged their way through a masterpiece of utterly ad-libbed comedy. Dont believe me? Check out the outtake version of the scene, included on the 25th anniversary DVD. Its unwatchable and awful. They turned on the camera, somebody shouted “action,” and the two went at it, hoping for the best. I still dont know what getting “stoned to the bejeesus belt” means, but its hilarious. Tiger Woods was asked a few years ago to identify his favorite golf movie. After hesitating for about one second, he said, “Theres only on possibly better than ever. By the way, there is no right answer to this question. Pick a scene, any scene. Like when Dangerfield fakes breaking his arm to get out of the money match with Judge Smails. If you think my pick was crazy, well, thats what they said about Son of Sam. Cannonball coming. Double turds. Ahoi, polloi. I could go on. …

MICHAUX: The best part is when Jackie Mason buys the majority stake in Bushwood and turns it into an amusement park. … Oh wait, that’s . Probably the worst sequel of all time (and that’s saying something). I dont think theres a line in the original that I don’t know by heart, having seen the thing at least 60 times in the last 30 years. Any scene with Al Czervik (Dangerfield), Judge Smails (Ted Knight) or Carl Spackler (Murray) are classics. They all carried this crazy tune. Spacklers cinderella story, Dalai Lama and pool-or-pond scenes are legendary ad-libs and probably top my personal faves. Czerviks one-liners ironically turned him into the respected comic legend that never could. (It annoys me that the Caddyshack restaurant near the World Golf Hall of Fame doesn’t serve i “It looks good on you, though.”). And Smails nailed every snooty country-clubber with his many gems including “Youll get nothing and like it!” When was the last time you got through a r “I don’t think the heavy stuffs gonna come down for quite awhile;” “right in the lumberyard;” “Billy-billy-billy-billy-billy;” “you’re a tremendous slouch;” “be the ball;” “thats a peach, hon;” “rat farts;” or “its in the hole!” So weve got that going for us, which is nice

Five of the past six Grand Slam events, and nine of the past 15, have been won by first-time major winners. Is that good or bad for golf?

ELLING: It might be the ultimate double-edged sword. As evidenced by the abysmal television ratings from the British Open, where the final round set record lows on ESPN, having unknowns or less-heralded players atop the scoreboard tends to make the casual fans flip the remote control to another channel. Surely, its a boon for the game in places like South Korea, Ireland and South Africa, which have all produced upset major winners in the past 11 months. But odd as it sounds, from reader feedback alone, its almost as though fans would rather see Mickelson or Woods win by a landslide than watch a close contest between Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington and Ben Curtis, who fought it out at the PGA Championship two years ago. Golf fans will watch regardless and t but the sidewalk viewers who watch only during the Masters, U.S. Open and other biggies want a rooting interest with identifiable players. Louis Oosthuizen seems like a terrific kid who has overcome plenty. Graeme McDowell is underrated and played on a Ryder Cup team. Y.E. Yang took down Woods. A little variety is fine for the growth of the game, especially globally, as long as the big boys are in the mix and they win at least occasionally.

MICHAUX: Golf is one of those weird games where everyone seems to root against the underdogs. We all judge the quality of a tournament by the names on its leaderboard, and if those names don’t include Tiger or Phil or Ernie or some other chosen favorite, than it gets diminished in the eyes of the beholders. Few bothered to behold this year’s British Open simply because a “no-name” ran away and hid with the claret jug. But if the 27-year-old Louis Oosthuizen develops into a multiple major winner (as countryman Ernie Els did after surprising at the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont) then history might look back on this event differently. Having some fresh faces pose with major trophies isn’t a bad thing. We just seem to prefer those faces already being defined before they kiss the prize. McDowell and Stewart Cink were established contenders before breaking through. Lucas Glover, Yang and Oosty were relative interlopers. But so what. We’re the ones with the problem if we can’t respect their achievements on merit instead of popularity. Take it from a guy who has to write epic articles on reigning Masters champions every year. It’s more fun to tell a new tale than try to come up with a new angle on a story told so many times we all know it by heart.

Weve had consecutive first-time major winners with McDowell and Oosthuizen. In their honor, please pick the greatest one-time major winner of all time and defend your position.

ELLING: Im going slightly off the traditional track here. You can have Fred Couples and Lanny Wadkins, guys who would certainly be at the top of most lists given their firepower and considerable gifts. But when I was a (very) young boy, my grandfather was a big fan of Gene Littler, who had a swing that was as smooth at age 60 as it was at 30. Littler, who like titans Phil Mickelson and Billy Casper hailed from the San Diego area, won the 1961 U.S. Open, right in the midst of the rising tide for American golf and the birth of the so-called Big Three. He was a college grad, part of a new breed who attended college before turning pro, establishing a career template that still holds true for most career paths today. He won the U.S. Amateur and a PGA Tour event as an amateur. He later lost playoffs at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. In all, he won 29 times on tour, including five titles after he beat a case of lymph cancer. Needless to say, Couples and Wadkins did not play in the shadow of the Big Three, not to mention the likes of Casper, Floyd, Miller, Trevino and their ilk. In 27 Ryder Cup matches, he lost five times, amassing a 14-5-8 mark. Gene the Machine, indeed.

MICHAUX: As tempted as I am to pick Michael Campbell, I think this argument comes down to two great Hall of Famers – Lloyd Mangrum or Roberto De Vicenzo. Though his only major win was the 1946 U.S. Open, Mangrum ranks 13th on the PGA Tour’s all-time win list with 36 – smack dab between Phil Mickelson (38) and Vijay Singh (34) for those needing perspective. And neither of those guys had careers interrupted by earning two Purple Hearts fighting in World War II. Mangrum lost to Ben Hogan in a playoff at the 1950 U.S. Open and was runner-up in three majors including the 1940 Masters when he opened with a 64 that stood as a scoring record for 46 years. He finished in the top 10 in 25 majors, including 10 straight at Augusta from 1947-56. He also earned two Vardon trophies and won seven times in 1948. But since this isn’t just an American game, De Vicenzo deserves strong consideration as well. More famous for not winning the 1968 Masters because of his scorecard gaffe than winning the 1967 British Open at Hoylake, “El Maestro” is among the all-time greats. He won 231 tournaments around the world (six on the PGA Tour) including 48 national opens in 18 different countries. He had 17 top 10s in majors, which accounted for 40 percent of his career starts. And he did much of this in an era when overseas traveling included ships or short-hop flights that took three days to get from Buenos Aires to Miami. Lets see Couples or Love measure up to that.

Maria Sharapova would have preferred to forget about the last time she played Chinas Jie Zheng. At least she can move forward after settling a score.

Sharapova made a triumphant return to hardcourts, beating Zheng, 6-4, 7-5, in the first round of the Bank of the West Classic on Tuesday night.

Sharapova suffered a loss to Zheng the last time she played on hardcourts, at Indian Wells in March.

“That was a scratchy match,” said the fifth-seeded Russian. “I wasnt feeling good and I didnt want to remember it.”

The 15th-ranked Sharapova missed six weeks right after that loss because of an elbow injury and shoulder problems.

“After you dont play for a while you have to be ready from the beginning,” said Sharapova, who won for the 15th time in her past 18 matches. “I wanted to adapt as quickly as I could. Shes a competitor and a good player and I had to be ready.”

Sharapova will meet Olga Govortsova of Belarus on Thursday in the second round.

“Im just trying to work myself toward the U.S. Open,” Sharapova said. “Im just happy to be back playing.”

Defending champion Marion Bartoli was another of the five seeds to advance, beating American Ashley Harkleroad 6-1, 6-4.

The fourth-seeded Frenchwoman, ranked 14th, beat Harkleroad for the first time in three meetings, though it was their first meeting in six years.

“She played really well, especially in the second set,” Bartoli said. “For someone who hasnt played that much lately, she was giving me a hard time out there.”

Bartoli, who will face wild card Ana Ivanovic in the second round, won 81 percent of her first-serve points to overwhelm the American, who played her second match on the WTA Tour in two years.

“The matches Ana and I have had in the past have been really, really close,” Bartoli said of facing the former top-ranked Serb. “Im definitely looking forward to it. I think this is great preparation for me if I want to do well at the U.S. Open.”

In the final match of the night, American teenager Melanie Oudin recovered from a 5-1 deficit in the second set to beat Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak, 6-7 (6), 7-5, 6-3 in a match that lasted 2 hours, 29 minutes.

Oudin, ranked 44th, gained attention with her run to the quarterfinals of last years U.S. Open. Wozniak became the first Canadian in over 20 years to win a Tour singles title when she captured the crown at Stanford in 2009.

In other first-round matches, sixth-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel beat Slovakias Daniela Hantuchova, 0-6, 6-4, 6-3; No. 7 Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium downed Taipeis Yung-Jan Chan, 6-3, 6-4; Belarus Victoria Azarenka, the eighth seed, topped Japans Ayumi Morita, 6-0, 6-2; qualifier Olga Savchuk of Ukraine knocked off American Jill Craybas, 6-3, 6-3; American Christina McHale defeated Taipeis Kai-Chen Chang, 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, in a match featuring a pair of qualifiers; and Russian Maria Kirilenko beat qualifier Mirjana Lucic of Croatia, 6-1, 6-4.

Eric Abidal says he couldnt wait to get back to his club Barcelona as France imploded during its disastrous World Cup run.

Frances players boycotted training after Nicolas Anelkas departure and eventually left South Africa after the group stage without a victory, a series of events Abidal labeled a “disaster.”

Abidal says he was missing the mood of the Spanish league club during the entire fiasco, when he also asked not to be played in the closing 2-1 defeat to South Africa.

Abidal says “there was a war between the coach and the press and I guess us players paid for it.”

The Barcelona fullback hopes France can now turn the page with new coach Laurent Blanc and says he is still committed to Les Bleus.

A Muslim group and German soccer authorities said Wednesday they have determined that professional Muslim players may break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

The announcement followed a dispute involving second-division club FSV Frankfurt, which last year gave a formal warning to three of its players for fasting.

During Ramadan, devout Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, abstaining even from water. The club had a clause in contracts stating that wasnt allowed without its express permission.

Germanys Central Council of Muslims said it sought advice from Al-Azhar in Egypt, the pre-eminent theological institute of Sunni Islam, and elsewhere.

Al-Azhar ruled that if a player is obliged to perform under a contract that is his only source of income, if he has to play matches during Ramadan, and if fasting affects his performance, then he can break his fast, the council said.

The European Council for Fatwa and Research supported that ruling, it added.

“The Muslim professional can make good the fasting days in times when there are no matches, and so continue to pay God and the holy month of Ramadan honor and respect,” Aiman Mazyek, the general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, said in a statement.

He noted that “keeping the body healthy plays a leading role in Islam.”

“We very much welcome it that an arrangement has now been found that allows players to carry out professionally their work in high-performance sport and in doing so live their faith to the full,” FSV Frankfurt manager Bernd Riesig said.

BERLIN — Longtime Real Madrid forward Raul Gonzalez signed a two-year contract with Bundesliga club Schalke on Wednesday.

Raul joined Schalke on a free transfer after 15 seasons with Madrid, ending lengthy speculation about the move.

The club presented the 33-year-old striker at its stadium in Gelsenkirchen, giving him the No. 7 shirt.

“Im looking forward to starting on a new challenge,” Raul said. “Its an important challenge for me.”

Coach Felix Magath, who secured Rauls agreement on Tuesday evening, said it was “great news for Schalke.”

“Im glad that we succeeded in enthusing such an exceptional footballer and world-class goal scorer about a move to the Bundesliga and to Schalke,” Magath said. “His signing is a decisive step in our efforts to strengthen and restructure the squad.”

Schalke had a gap to fill in its attack after Kevin Kuranyi left for Dynamo Moscow at the end of last season. Kuranyis 18 goals helped the club to a second-place finish in the Bundesliga behind Bayern Munich, qualifying it for Champions League play.

Raul is Schalkes second signing from Real Madrid in the offseason, joining former Germany defender Christoph Metzelder who spent three injury-filled seasons at Madrid and saw little playing time.

Raul announced his departure from Real Madrid on Monday.

“I want to experience another type of football, a different culture - thats an important challenge in life,” he said at the time. “German or English football - those are the only two places I would go … my motivation is to keep playing football.”

Raul was mostly relegated to the bench at Madrid following a spending spree by the club last summer.

He made his Madrid debut as a 17-year-old in 1994 and stayed with the club since then - a span that includes three Champions League triumphs, six Spanish league titles and two Intercontinental Cups.

He leaves with 228 league goals for Madrid, and a record 44 goals in 102 appearances for Spain, though he hasnt played for the national team since 2006.

Raul is also the leading scorer in UEFA competitions with 66 goals, including 64 in the Champions League.

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Go deep or go home

If theres one thing that enlivens an otherwise mundane, middle-tier tournament, its staggering scores being shot by guys breaking records. That has been the case for three killer weeks on the PGA Tour, where records have been eviscerated by a run of scoring usually reserved for the desert courses in Palm Springs or Phoenix. It began three weeks ago with an opening 59 from Paul Goydos in a tournament won by Steve Stricker, who set a tour scoring record for 54 holes. A week later, Rory McIlroy shot 63 at St. Andrews, matching the lowest number ever recorded at a Grand Slam event. Over the weekend, Carl Pettersson lipped out a 25-footer on the 18th hole Saturday and shot 60 but still managed to record the lowest 36-hole stretch in event history, and the Canadian Open dates to 1922. More notably, Pettersson made the cut on the number with a 10-footer on the last hole Friday before making the dizzying run, underscoring the depth of talent on the world tours these days. With the PGA Tour making its first trip to the Greenbrier Resort this week, its hard to predict where the scores will go. But based on play in a scorching July, anything in the range from low to lower seems a veritable certainty.

Citizen pain

This is getting interesting. The internationals are charging so hard that a longtime PGA Tour member, Swedens Richard Johnson, went abroad to play in Europe last week and won. Pettersson, the snuff-dipping Swedish Bubba, won the Canadian Open on the U.S. tour. Whatever the reason, and its possibly just a cyclical deal, but the Yanks are getting crushed lately on their own turf. Throwing out the PGA Tours opposite event held in Reno two weeks ago, which was so thin it didnt fill out the entire field, and foreign-born players have won 10 of the past 13 events, including the past two majors. Bubba Watson, one of the American winners in that stretch, is from the Florida Panhandle, and having lived there briefly, thats like a foreign country in certain locales, too.

International incidents

OK, so I am clearly belaboring the point, but would anybody bat an eye at this point if an international player won the PGA Championship in three weeks? Not here. In fact, the foreign contingent has a chance to make history. The PGA Championship was first staged in 1916 and foreign-born players have never won it thrice in succession. After wins by Irelands Padraig Harrington and South Koreas Y.E. Yang, that distinction seems shaky at best. Moreover, the last time foreign-born players won three consecutive majors in the same year was in 1994, when the Yank contingent went 0 for 4. More about the slam of Uncle Sam: Internationals have won the seasons final major a total of 12 times. A win by a foreign-born player at Whistling Straits would make it four victories in seven years. Thats not a ripple, thats a red tide.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence

While you werent watching, the LPGA was in France last week for one of its bigger events, the Evian Masters, which is a big-money lead-in to this weeks Womens British Open, the final major of the year. While the American troops have been getting uniformly spanked for years in the womens game, theres been a resurgence this summer at the majors, where Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr have won back-to-back titles. A victory by an American this week would give the Yanks three consecutive Grand Slam titles for the first time since Juli Inkster (twice) and Dottie Pepper won three in a row in 1999. By the way, 15-year-old American Lexi Thompson, who wont be eligible for LPGA membership for three more years under current rules, finished third last week in the Evian Masters after turning pro a couple of months ago. If she petitions the LPGA for early membership, its going to be awkward, because shes already proven that she has the chops to contend. Anybody who thinks otherwise is being … as Dennis Miller once noted, Evian spelled backwards is “naive.”

Opening an err vent

Keeping the oh-so-smooth segue string running, heres one last well-intentioned rant about the women and their place at the public buffet table: Its been three years since I covered a womens major, and for darned good reason. The first three womens majors of the year are staged either the week before or the week after a mens major, dooming the trio of tournaments to minimalist national media coverage. The lone exception is the Womens British Open, which could actually by being played consecutively with the mens event, because the American media might actually stick around to watch. The Womens British Open is run by the Ladies Golf Union, whatever that is. It has an office about 100 yards from the famous R&A edifice at St. Andrews. Get together, people. Compare notes. Move the mens senior event and make it work. That goes for the illogical logistics in the three U.S.-based events, too. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Off-ramping up in the right direction

Golf season in the States lasts, what, nearly 11 months? Yet whenever the World Golf Hall of Fame held its annual induction ceremony every November, the offseason had begun and nobody seemed to much notice or care. Hopefully, that will change with the formal move of the ceremonies to Monday of Players Championship week, when the eyes of the global game are on the Jacksonville, Fla. region. The St. Augustine-based hall is and with the media attention the tournament usually draws, the spotlight glare should increase by at least two-fold. Now, if the Hall of Fame can streamline and simplify its confusing and conflicting admissions systems, which have been under discussion for 1½ disjointed years, then it might have a fighting chance of reeling in a few more fans who, at the moment, speed past on nearby Interstate 95 with nary a sideways glance.

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Your weekly Eldrick update

Almost made it through a week without mentioning the Chosen One, but that would mean my readership would take a hit like ESPNs ratings from the Old Course. So were supplying some updated info as Woods prepares for the busiest portion of the schedule, which could include playing seven times in the next nine weeks, if he manages to compete in all four FedEx Cup series events. With his mediocre performance at the British Open, Woods hasnt won in seven PGA Tour starts, his longest drought to open a year since 1998, when he won in his ninth start. However, in that 98 span all better than his top results in 2010. In all, Woods “losing streak” in PGA Tour-sanctioned events stands at nine, dating to last falls win at BMW Championship at Cog Hill, when he was reportedly holed up with a porn actress in a Chicago hotel. That win was preceded by a stretch in which he finished either first or second a total doubtlessly to both fans and Woods.

Least surprising TV news of the month

It took a couple of days, and not because there were many numbers to crunch, but when the ratings for the final round of the British Open were revealed last week, they were met with either a sigh or a gasp. Sundays pitiable numbers on ESPN were the worst on record with a 2.1 rating, which means there were probably as many TVs watching the sermon from the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday as there were watching Louis Oosthuizens baptism at the cathedral of golf. Why the skid? Oosthuizen won in a runaway fashion by seven shots, nobody outside of true golf aficionados knew his identity before the tournament began, no Americans were in the mix, and for the first time, the tournament was broadcast solely on cable TV, with no portion being aired on ABC Sports. ESPN sent so many folks to St. Andrews, the tax base in Bristol must have collapsed, yet despite all the bells and whistles, and largely positive reviews of the Mouses broadcast effort, it mostly went for naught. Because a 2.1 is as close to naught as a major should ever get.

Then again, I could be wrong

After posting an impassioned missive about the centuries-old hamlet of St. Andrews and beseeching the R&A to bring the British Open back to the Old Course in another five years, a few holes in the treatise were fast pointed out by an overseas brother in ink, who isnt exactly caught up in the lore of the place. While St., Andrews represents the cradle of the game, its by no means the best track for watching or covering a British Open, either from a dramatic or logistics standpoint. While I was waxing philosophically about the town itself and intentionally overlooked some of the Old Courses unique shortcomings relative to the modern game, in the spirit of full disclosure, lets lay em out. Spectators cant see much of anything because of the parallel fairways and huge disconnects between the gallery ropes and the putting greens. The first green must be located 65 yards from the nearest spectator. Sadly, the best way to watch at the Old Course is to camp out in the grandstands. Then theres the final result. The past three Opens staged at St. Andrews have been won by eight, five and seven shots, which means that from a theatrical standpoint, there was more drama at St. Andrews when the property served as a WWII airstrip. At least there were some bumpy landings and soaring takeoffs to track. As the ESPN ratings effectively proved, few fans in the States tuned in just because of the name on the historic venue.

Stop the propaganda parade, please

Bragging is unbecoming. Begging might be even worse. Small wonder, then, that when the PGA Tour website last week posted a fan survey asking readers to identify the greatest Nationwide Tour graduate ever, it was cringe-inducing. Among others, it listed Ernie Els, who played in a grand total of on the tours developmental circuit in 1991 and never won. Stewart Cink and Jim Furyk each played one full season on the circuit before cementing their place in the big leagues and also were listed. Conspicuously absent from the on-line ballot was David Duval, who clearly used the Nationwide as a launch pad for his career, playing two seasons before reaching the PGA Tour for good in 1995. Duval, of course, eventually became world No. 1 for 15 weeks, shot 59 in competition and won a major. If you are going to dislocate your elbow while patting yourself on the back, it might be nice to provide some actual context.

Coming up snakeyes

Step aside, Donald Trump, youve been out-publicity stunted by another guy with more ego than common sense. First, we had to sit through receiver Jerry Rices participation in a Nationwide Tour event named in his honor this summer (he missed the cut, then declined to do interviews). Now comes the disquieting news that the CEO of Turning Stone Resort, a casino that sponsors a PGA Tour event staged next week opposite the WGC event at Firestone, has seen fit to award himself a sponsor exemption. Granted, the tour highjacks these companies for mega-money something fierce, but pro-ams are where the corporate types belong, not on the golf course creating havoc for professionals playing for real money. Ray Halbritter, the CEO in question, carries a handicap of around 2, thanks to his which means hes still about six or seven shots worse than an average card-carrying tour player. Halbritter says he regularly shoots around 78-80 on the tournament venue, which means that after allowing for nerves, flop sweat and projectile vomiting, spectators had better wear hardhats. Dumb as the Jerry Rice appearance was, at least wed heard of the guy and it created a spark of public interest, right? Then again, maybe Halbritter is crazy like a fox, because nobody would drive me back inside the casino faster than watching some guy scrape it around in 84.

Roger Federer has hired Paul Annacone, a former coach of Pete Sampras, for a test period as he seeks a return to winning ways.

Federer has slumped from No. 1 in the ATP rankings earlier this season to third following his quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon - his lowest position since November 2003.

The 16-time Grand Slam champion announced Monday on his website that he has “decided to spend some days” with Annacone.

The American is leaving as head coach of mens tennis in Britain in November.

Federer says that “as Paul winds down his responsibilities working for the Lawn Tennis Association, we will explore our relationship through this test period.”

Federer adds that Annacone will work alongside his existing team.