London  - Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon insisted Monday that the club will not be making any new signings in January and has no immediate plans to move away from Stamford Bridge.

A Sunday newspaper had claimed Chelsea were considering a move to a site in Battersea, 5 kilometres from their Stamford Bridge home.

"We are not considering any advanced plans to move away from Stamford Bridge as recent reports have suggested," said Kenyon.

Rio de Janeiro - Away from football stadiums since he resigned as South Africa coach in April, Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira admitted Monday that he misses the thrill of the sport, but noted that he is no longer willing to work away from Rio de Janeiro, where his family lives.

London - Manchester City's owners insisted Monday that they support manager Mark Hughes, despite a string of poor results.

City lost 2-1 at home to Tottenham on Sunday, their seventh defeat of the season seeing them slide to 13th in the table.

"We are calm and under control, and we on the board have the highest regard for Mark," said chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak after the first meeting of the new City board.

City was bought by a consortium representing the Abu Dhabi royal family in September.

Madrid - Spanish champions Real Madrid have signed up Alipio Duarte Brandao, a 16 year-old Brazilian winger, his agent was on Monday quoted as saying.

The agent, Helder Daniel, said that Alipio will start to train this week with Real's third division nursery side, called Real Madrid Castilla.

News reports quoted Daniel as saying that the teenage winger "is very happy" with the deal.

Alipio was on the books of Portuguese side Rio Ave, who will receive around 550.000 euros (699.925 dollars) from the deal.

Hamburg - Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann has escaped the wrath of German football authorities following some outspoken criticism of a referee, but two others may not be so fortunate.

The German Football Federation (DFB) said its control panel would be investigating both Borussia Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp and Werder Bremen striker Claudio Pizarro following incidents in the weekend's Bundesliga matches.

Zurich - FIFA president Joseph Blatter called Monday for professional referees as a measure to protect football from the threat of match-fixing.

Blatter told a congress of football's world governing body in Zurich on sport betting that there appeared to "no limits" on what people were prepared to bet.

In reference to a recent match-fixing scandal in Germany which led to the jailing of a former referee, Blatter said there were still no professional referees in the Bundesliga.

"Nobody can say that the money is not there. We have to protect those who could be or already are the targets of such methods," he said.