Newslines: Sutton Celtic bound

Chris Sutton underwent a medical at Parkhead yesterday and will fly to Denmark today to join his new Celtic team-mates, assuming…

Chris Sutton underwent a medical at Parkhead yesterday and will fly to Denmark today to join his new Celtic team-mates, assuming there are no problems stemming from it.

Celtic will not learn the results of the tests until this morning, but that is now the only remaining formality standing in the way of Sutton's £6 million switch from Chelsea.

Sutton, who becomes Martin O'Neill's first signing for the Parkhead outfit, would then be in contention to feature for Celtic tomorrow in a friendly fixture in Copenhagen.

Sutton joins Celtic as a replacement for Australian international Mark Viduka, last season's Scottish Premier League top goalscorer, whose transfer to Leeds is currently being held up by work permit problems.

READ MORE

Ben Thatcher has fixed his sights on an England call-up after completing his £5 million move to Tottenham.

The Swindon-born defender made the expected switch from Wimbledon and joined George Graham and his new team-mates yesterday. Graham has already splashed out £11 million on Sergei Rebrov and lured Neil Sullivan from Wimbledon on a free transfer.

Reports that French international Nicholas Anelka had agreed terms with Paris Saint Germain were firmly denied by the player's brother yesterday.

The sports newspaper L'Equipe claimed that Anelka had signed an agreement which would pave the way for him to leave Real Madrid and sign a five-year contract with PSG. But his brother, Didier, who also acts as his agent, dismissed the report as "rubbish".

South African officials have laid the blame for the Zimbabwe stadium tragedy on police over-reaction. Policemen fired tear gas into the 60,000 crowd at the National Stadium in Harare which caused a stampede in which at least 13 people were killed.

"It was not crowd violence, but rather the response from the police forced them to try and get out from under the tear gas canisters fired into the crowd," claimed Danny Jordaan, chairman of South Africa's failed bid for the 2006 World Cup. The match was called off before full-time but the 2-0 score stands.