Close shave for City officials

Manchester: Manchester City’s board of directors considered themselves fortunate to survive an engine blowout in a plane on their way home from an English Premier League match in Portsmouth on Saturday. No one in the 14-strong group was injured after the pilot made an emergency landing at Farnborough Airport in Surrey just 10 minutes into the flight.

“It was terrifying. I was frightened to death. We all consider ourselves lucky to be alive,” club chairman John Wardle was quoted as saying by the Manchester Evening News. “I don’t drink that much but I’m having a double whisky now.”

Wardle and his fellow board members flew back to Manchester later on Saturday on a different plane. City lost their match to Portsmouth 4-2 and are 15th in the standings.

Fifa suspends Guatemala

Zurich: Fifa’s emergency committee has suspended the Guatemalan football federation, citing “governmental interference.”

Fifa said in a statement it had made the move after a body acting for the Guatemalan government took control of the federation’s headquarters on December 23. Federation president Jose Mauricio Caballeros and executive committee members have been barred from the building, Fifa said.

The decision means that Guatemalan clubs and national teams are banned from all international competitive and friendly games.

Solution for body odour

Vancouver: A Canadian sports apparel designer has come up with a novel way to help rid the game of ice hockey of the pungent odours that make locker rooms an olfactory ordeal.

Greg McMillan’s new underwear, dubbed ‘puckskin’ (a play on ‘buckskin’), does not promise to leave players smelling like roses after 60 minutes of gruelling work on the ice, but he claims it does control body odour caused by heavy perspiration.

Pele ordered to pay $ 42,400

Rio de Janeiro: Pele has been ordered to pay $ 42,400 for libelling his former business partner Helio Viana in a newspaper article.

The three-time world champion had accused Viana of embezzling $ 700,000 designed to be used for a Unicef fund-raising event. Pele, also a former sports minister, ordered an investigation into his business partners two years ago after the money designated for Unicef was found in his company’s accounts.

He said he would investigate the activities of his business partners, Viana and Creso Rocha, in relation to the money.

Ferrari date

Maranello: Ferrari will unveil its new car for the 2004 Formula One season here on January 26, the Italian team has confirmed. In the past two seasons six-time world champion Michael Schumacher has had to make do with the previous year’s car for the opening rounds of the championship.

But with McLaren and Williams already testing their new cars, Ferrari are determined to keep up with their rivals.

Schumacher and teammate Rubens Barrichello, will be present at the ceremony at Ferrari’s headquarters near Bologna.

Sven future

London: Sven-Goran Eriksson’s agent believes the Swede will still be England’s manager in 2006 and has dismissed the speculation linking him with Chelsea. Asked if Eriksson would be England manager in 2006 Athole Still said: “He has a contract until then and I have no reason to believe that he’s not .”

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