Gelsenkirchen, Germany - Struggling Bundesliga club Energie Cottbus is to repay fans the cost of their tickets after a 4-0 thrashing at Schalke 04 on Friday evening.

Around 600 fans who travelled to Gelsenkirchen for the match will get their money back from the players' kitty to compensate for the poor performance, the club said after the game.

"The real restitution will have to come in the next few matches," club general manager Steffen Heidrich said.

Berlin - Leaders of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) met in Berlin on Saturday to approve an election manifesto designed to win over voters with promises of more cash.

Key points of the platform are tax cuts and state handouts for low income groups and families with children to be financed in part by a tax on the rich and a levy on stock transactions.

Gelsenkirchen, Germany  - Schalke 04 routed Energie Cottbus 4-0 in the German Bundesliga on Friday night to keep alive their ambitions of playing in Europe next season.

Christian Pander opened the scoring three minutes into the game with a deflected 18-metres shot high under the bar.

Halil Altintop got the second from the edge of the area in the 23rd and set up Jermaine Jones for the third on the hour before Kevin Kuranyi wrapped up matters with his 12th season goal in the 87th.

Bremen, Germany  - Croatian footballer Ivan Klasnic on Friday rejected a settlement in a dispute with his former club Werder Bremen over his kidney problems which eventually led to a transplant.

Klasnic said he reject an offer of 350,000 euros (462,000 dollars) made by a Bremen judge not because the sum was too small but rather because he wants Bremen team doctors to acknowledge that they did not treat him properly.

"I could have died on the pitch ... I want justice to win and the truth to be revealed," Klasnic said.

Eislingen, Germany - A 19-year-old youth has admitted to taking part in the killings of four members of a family in south-west Germany, prosecutors said on Friday.

The teen told police that he and his friend, 18, gunned down the friend's parents and two sisters at the family's apartment in Eislingen a week ago, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in nearby Ulm said.

Wiesbaden, Germany  - German trade with South Korea declined markedly last year, statisticians said Friday, just three days before South Korea opens a major trade promotion at the annual Hanover Fair.

The data showed German exports to South Korea off by 16 per cent in annual terms in the fourth quarter of 2008, while South Korea's exports in the other direction declined 6 per cent.