This week American magazine Forbes released its annual list of the world's top earners in sport. There are few surprises in the 1997 top-40, which is topped by basketball and Nike superstar Michael Jordan.

The planet's best paid wearer of sneakers picked up a cool $78.3 million over the past 12 months, which was comfortably better than Evander Holyfield, a man whose earning potential is severely curtailed by the distaste bigtime advertisers have for boxers.

Jordan's money comes mainly from the commercial area, with Nike and his various other endorsements bringing in just under $50 million, the balance representing his Chicago Bulls wage packet.

Last year Mike Tyson was second on the list, but since then the former world champion lost his title and took to biting his opponents - neither of which does much for a man's earning potential.

Still, Tyson did manage to bring in $27 million, around half the amount which Evander Holyfield, second on the list, banked over the course of the year. Holyfield's plight highlights the problems which boxers face when attempting to capitalise on their fame. The world champ picked up just $1.3 million of his $54.3 million from endorsements (although even that was $1.3 more than Iron Mike managed).

Arnold Palmer and Andre Agassi still make the list despite rather light competitive workloads. Palmer bagged around $100,000 from seniors tournaments this year, but made 160 times that amount by lending his name to a vast array of products. Agassi, with a total of $14.1 million for the year, earned just $400,000 less than Pete Sampras - despite the fact that the world number one made $6.5 million on courts around the world while the Olympic champion made much the same amount as Palmer for using his racquet.

Tiger Woods comes in at six on the list (behind Oscar De La Hoya, Michael Scumacher and Tyson), with $24 million and $2.1 million from endorsements and winnings respectively. Naseem Hamed, who did quite well on the advertising front, made around $12 million, of which around 80 per cent came from promotions.

One man who has damaged his chances of making next year's list is Latrell Sprewell, the disgruntled Golden State Warriors guard who was this week suspended for 10 weeks after "physically assaulting" head coach PJ Carlesimo at practice on Monday.

The suspension will cost Sprewell around a million dollars in lost wages, but the players has little cause for complaint given that the coach subsequently appeared at a press conference with deep cuts on both sides of his neck, while there were reports that 15 minutes after the pair had fought Sprewell returned for more and had to be restrained by a number of other coaches from attacking Carlesimo again.

Carlesimo, in his first year as Warriors' coach, substituted Sprewell in the third quarter of a November 9th game at Los Angeles after spotting him laughing with Lakers centre Shaquille O'Neal while the team was losing by 35 points. Even that was an improvement on one or two of his other performances. When Golden State were due to play in Utah, the 27-year-old, who is their top scorer, missed the team flight and the game.

The Greek football league has been going through a fairly rocky spell of late with accusations of bribery and match-rigging prompting more than 100 MPs to sign a statement calling for an official government investigation.

More than 6,000 police were be drafted in for Monday night's game between Olympiakos and Panathinaikos because of fears that crowd violence would be used to influence the outcome of game.

That suspicion may seem ridiculously far-fetched, but the recent Ionikos versus Olympiakos match had provided a warning shot.

Live television pictures showed fans, wielding iron bars and other weapons, fighting a pitched battle with players, officials and police. Two Olympiakos players and one policemen were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.

Now many of the country's leading politicians feel that something has to be done with deputy Alexandros Akrivakis of the ruling Socialist party remarking that "this situation can't go on any longer".

"The fans have realised that results are decided behind the scenes and not on the pitch. Greek soccer's self-governing body has failed. The legislation must change."

In France, meanwhile, residents of St Denis, the area of Paris where the new national stadium has been built for next year's World Cup, will have to buy tickets for games if they want to see any of the tournament. The reason? The roof of the new stadium is so high that it blocks the signal on the televisions of 3,500 local residents. They are apparently attempting to get refunds on their TV licences as well as some free tickets to matches.

Back at home, the National League, which is suffering from a bit of a shortage of referees just now, may be heartened to hear that some of those promoted up to break the strike by Spanish officials have been thriving on the big stage.

Last week Alfonso Pino, a 25year-old army sergeant, sent Spanish international Alfonso Munoz off and booked 10 others as Real Betis beat Sportig Gijon 3-2.

"I wasn't scared," said Pino afterwards, "the rules are the same in the top bracket as at my level."

Bookmakers Paddy Power have launched a search for the 18 worst greyhounds in Ireland with a special race being lined up for December 20th at Shelbourne Park to find the country's slowest hound of them all.

"This race is about recognising those owners who have never known the joy of the winners' enclosure and who are shackled with a mutt that won't go the distance in 30 minutes never mind 30 seconds," said Power's managing director Stewart Kenny.

While many of the competitors in the recent two-man rowing race across the Atlantic fell by the wayside due to exhaustion, pulled muscles and any number of other entirely understandable injuries, it seems that sunburn was the biggest fear of winners Phil Stubbs and Rob Hamill.

The pair ran away with the race, completing the crossing in just 41 days - 32 better than the old record - and surviving the ordeal in remarkable good shape.

One of the secrets of their success was that they spent most of the six weeks naked in an attempt to cut down on the discomfort caused by the rubbing of clothes as they went through their highly repetitive motions.

"We had a lot of problems with chafing and sores during four-day rows in practice," said Stuffs after he and fellow New Zealander Hamill had finished. "We experimented with seats and tried rowing shorts with sheepskin pads in them," he said, "but in 35 degrees of heat, that's a bit like wearing a sheepskin nappy. So we just put the sheepskins on the seats and rowed naked except for gloves. Our fingers are a bit numb, but apart from that we're still very fit."

Please send any correspondence to On The Sidelines, Sports Dept, The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail emalone@irish-times.ie