Aikman Expected to Free Cap Money

It looks as if Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones will be asking quarterback Troy Aikman to renegotiate his contract once again to free some money under the salary cap to sign other players.

Two-time Pro Bowl safety Darren Woodson is believed to be the main signing target.

Aikman, who reworked his deal last season to help sign Deion Sanders, is scheduled to count $6.75 million toward the 1996 salary cap. He cost $2.49 million in 1995.

“We have had a discussion in terms of cap sensitivity,” Aikman’s agent Leigh Steinberg told The Dallas Morning News.

Woodson is among seven Dallas defensive starters who will become free agents on Feb. 16.

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NFL owners meet this week, but negotiations between league officials and Cleveland have failed to produce an agreement on the Cleveland Browns.

Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White says that until there is an agreement, the city is preparing for its Feb. 12 trial seeking to hold the Browns to their stadium lease through 1998.

NFL owners are expected to get a set of options this week in Chicago before they vote on Art Modell’s application to move the Browns to Baltimore.

Don Matthews, 56, who coached the Baltimore Stallions to the Canadian Football League championship last season, has received permission to negotiate to become the coach of the Toronto Argonauts.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers guard Terry Long, once suspended by the NFL for steroid use, faces charges of aggravated assault and resisting arrest after a traffic stop in Pittsburgh. Long was apparently stopped for driving without a license plate.

Tennis

Tennis star Steffi Graf admitted that mistakes had been made in the management of her fortune but refused to blame her father, Peter, jailed by investigators as part of a tax evasion probe into her finances.

In her first extensive interview about the charges, a defiant Graf told a newspaper in Bonn, Germany that “I am certainly not going to write off my father or say he is guilty or anything like that. Absolutely not. I will also do everything to make sure he is always as near me as possible and I’ll help him whenever I can.”

Seventh-seeded Iva Majoli of Croatia defeated Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez Vicario to win the $926,250 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. Majoli’s victory will elevate her to fourth in the world ranking, only about four months after breaking into the top 10 for the first time.

Cheered on by the home crowd, top-seeded Goran Ivanisevic won the first Croatian Indoors tournament by downing Cedric Pioline of France, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, at Zagreb, ending a 1 1/2-year drought as a tournament champion.

Winter Sports

German Katja Seizinger won her third consecutive race--and third consecutive super-G--in 1 minute, 6.64 seconds in Val D’Isere, France with another dominating performance that will make her make her a heavy favorite in the world championships next week at Sierra Nevada, Spain.

With the victory, Seizinger also clinched her fourth consecutive season super-G title. Seizinger finished .38 ahead of Italy’s Isolde Kostner. American Picabo Street was 11th.

Gunda Niemann of Germany rebounded after a loss to American Becky Sundstroem in Inzell, Germany to win her fifth all-round World Speedskating Championship in six years. Niemann bounced back from her loss to Sundstroem, who won the 500 in 41.31 seconds, to win the 1,500-meter race in 2:06.13, and the 3,000 in 4:22.59.

Dense fog on the Kandahar course in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany forced the cancellation of a World Cup men’s downhill for the second time in 24 hours.

Miscellany

Haile Gebreselassie of Ethiopia set his second world indoor record in eight days, clocking a time of seven minutes, 30.72 seconds over 3,000 meters at a meet in Stuttgart, Germany. Gebreselassie, who set the indoor 5,000-meter record last week, slashed almost five seconds off the previous record of 7:35.15, set by Moses Kiptanui of Kenya last February.

Mexico’s Culiacan Tomato Growers came back from a four-run deficit to upset the Dominican Republic “Dream Team,” 7-6, on the first day of the Caribbean Series in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In other action, Puerto Rico downed Venezuela, 7-2.