Soccer Digest: Shamrock Rovers officials have apologised to Drogheda United defender Simon Webb for the taunts to which he was subjected on Friday night in relation to the death last year after a long illness of his wife Anneli, reports Emmet Malone.
"On behalf of the club's membership and the entire Shamrock Rovers community, we wish to issue a public apology to Simon Webb for the heartless and highly personal verbal abuse he was subjected to from a tiny minority of the attendance at the Shamrock Rovers-Drogheda United game at Tolka Park on April 20th," said the club in an official statement.
"Those responsible should be ashamed of themselves and are certainly not welcome at Shamrock Rovers. An investigation into the incident has begun and those responsible will be dealt with in an appropriate manner," the statement concluded.
New contract for Doyle
Birmingham are to reward Cork-born goalkeeper Colin Doyle with a new contract after his heroics helped push the club to the verge of promotion back to the Premiership. Doyle has been in impressive form since he replaced Northern Ireland number one Maik Taylor between the posts and produced an injury-time penalty save to earn a vital 3-2 win at Wolves on Sunday.
Bruce said of Doyle: "Colin has got a bright future ahead of him and there is no doubt that we want to keep him here."
Nakamura vows to stay
Shunsuke Nakamura has vowed to stay at Celtic next season and boost their hopes of securing a hat-trick of Premier League titles. Speculation has been rife that the 28-year-old midfielder will quit in the summer after scoring the goal that wrapped up the championship at Kilmarnock on Sunday.
Nakamura's importance to Celtic was highlighted further later when he was voted SPFA Player of the Year by his fellow professionals at an awards ceremony in Glasgow.
Eusebio has operation
Portugal's most celebrated former player Eusebio underwent surgery on his cartoid arteries yesterday, a hospital spokesman said. The aim of the surgery was to unblock the arteries in the neck that carry blood to the brain and diminish the risk of the 65-year-old having a stroke. The spokesman said the operation had gone to plan. He scored some 1,000 goals during his professional career from 1960 to 1975 with Benfica and Portugal. He twice won Europe's Golden Boot as Europe's top scorer.
Intertoto draw
Cork City, the League of Ireland's representatives in the Intertoto Cup, will face Icelandic opposition after the draw was made in Nyon, Switzerland, yesterday. The identity of the clubs involved will not be confirmed until the end of the 2006/07 campaign but the draw has been made, pairing associations. The first round, which will unfold over two legs on June 23rd-24th and June 30th-July 1st, features 28 nations vying for 14 places in the second round, when 14 more sides, drawn from the likes of Ukraine, Russia and Belgium, enter the fray. The eight seeded contestants come in for the decisive third round in July.
