Warner Joins Club Criticism

FIFA vice president Jack Warner fired the latest volley Wednesday in the ongoing club vs. country debate.

Warner, from Trinidad and also the president of the region encompassing North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), criticized Europe’s top clubs for keeping their players for exhibition tours instead of releasing them to play in events sanctioned by world soccer’s governing body.

Those events include the FIFA Confederations Cup in France last month and the recently completed CONCACAF Gold Cup.

“It shows the hypocrisy of the top clubs who are critical of having their players participate in FIFA competitions on the grounds that their players need a rest,” Warner told Associated Press.

Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and Juventus are among the teams on tour.

Club officials in Europe and elsewhere have complained over the years that FIFA’s calendar is too crowded and creates too much of a physical demand on players.

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FIFA Rankings

Mexico’s 1-0 victory over Brazil in the final of the Gold Cup last Sunday vaulted the team to No. 5 in the FIFA world rankings, its highest standing since May 1998.

Brazil, which had sent its under-23 team to the tournament, retained the No. 1 spot, followed by France, Spain and the Netherlands, which moved up one spot. The United States, which lost to Brazil in a Gold Cup semifinal, remained No. 9.

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Bora Gets Offer

Rafael Leonardo Callejas, president of the Honduras soccer federation, has made a formal offer to Bora Milutinovic to become the country’s next national-team coach with an eye on the 2006 World Cup.

“I sent Bora the offer. I hope he answers me soon,” Callejas said at a news conference in Tegucigalpa. “ ... Honduras needs to go to a world championship again.”

Milutinovic, a Mexico City resident who turned down a chance to coach his native Serbia and Montenegro earlier this month, has not commented on any coaching possibilities.

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Recber Injured

Turkish goalkeeper Rustu Recber, who transferred this summer to Barcelona from Fenerbahce, has a partially torn ligament in his left ankle that will force him out of the club’s exhibition season.

Recber suffered the injury in practice in Washington and did not play in Wednesday night’s exhibition against European champion AC Milan at RFK Stadium.

In Wednesday’s game, Barcelona made it two for two against Italian clubs on its American tour with a 2-0 victory over AC Milan in front of 45,864.

Brazilian midfielder Ronaldinho assisted on Ricardo Quaresma’s 11th-minute goal and later scored in the 51st minute on a shot that curled inside the left post.

Barcelona began its tour with a 3-2 penalty-kicks victory over Juventus last Sunday at Foxboro, Mass.

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Quick Passes

D.C. United forward Hristo Stoitchkov, a native of Bulgaria, has received his green card and will no longer count against the Major League Soccer team’s allotment of three senior foreign players.... Juan Sebastian Veron, Manchester United’s Argentine midfielder, is on the verge of joining Chelsea on a transfer of about $24.3 million, his agent, Fernando Hidalgo, told the Guardian newspaper.... Real Madrid midfielder Flavio Conceicao of Brazil, plagued by injuries since his $22.5 million transfer from Deportivo La Coruna in August 2000, will play on loan this season for Borussia Dortmund of the German Bundesliga. The team also announced it signed French goalkeeper Guillaume Warmuz from Arsenal, which recently acquired former Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper Jens Lehmann.

Times wire services contributed to this report.