Berlin - Football's ruling body FIFA and streetfootballworld presented a joint project "20 Centres for 2010" Wednesday in Berlin, which will involve the building of 20 football centres in Africa.

The project will take place around the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with each centre having a football pitch and rooms for education and dissemination of health information.

Frankfurt - Germany's powerful IG Metall trade union reached a pay deal with employers on Wednesday, averting a potentially damaging nationwide strike in the engineering and electrical sectors.

Some 3.6 million workers will receive a two-stage increase totalling 4.2 per cent under the terms of the agreement reached after marathon talks lasting 23 hours.

The union staged a week of industrial action to lend force to its original demand of 8 per cent. It also threatened an all-out strike if employers did not budge from their original offer of 2.1 per cent.

Berlin - The Berlin Academy for the Arts plans to offer a speaking engagement to Roberto Saviano, the Italian author who is in hiding for fear of retribution by organized crime, an official said Wednesday.

Klaus Staeck, the academy president, said he had offered a year ago to engage Saviano to speak at a seminar on the Mafia, but the author had ruled he could not travel safely. Staeck said he would try again to book him.

Dusseldorf - The former boss of the Coast cycling team was on Wednesday ordered by a German court to pay Jan Ullrich 340,000 euros (432,000 dollars) plus interest for failing to honour outstanding wages due to the now retired cyclist.

Guenther Dahms refused to pay Ullrich the money due to him because he was of the opinion the 1997 Tour de France winner was doped during his time with the Coast team.

"It is good that truth won out. It was easy for me today, telling the truth is always easy," said Ullrich after the verdict from a court in Dusseldorf.

Hamburg - The English Premier League has the biggest merchandising potential in Europe with an income of 171 million euros (217 million dollars) in the 2007-08 season, a report released on Wednesday said.

According to the European Football Merchandising Report compiled by the German Sport + Markt agency, the Premier League ranks ahead of Spain's Primera Liga (145 million euros), the German Bundesliga (127), France's Ligue 1 (86), Italy's Serie A (64) and the Dutch Eredivisie (22).

Berlin - The German government's panel of economic advisers roundly criticized as inadequate Berlin's plans for spurring growth in Europe's biggest economy, in a report released Wednesday.

In their report presented to Chancellor Angela Merkel, the so-called "five wise men" said that after emerging from a protracted economic downturn three years ago, the German economy will slump into recession in 2009.

This is likely to come amid rising unemployment and a contraction in exports with the advisers calling on the government to press on with much-needed reforms.