Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua "has recalled" Argentine coach SERGIO BATISTA "after a poor start to its 2014 Chinese Super League campaign." Batista previously coached the team from May '12 until last June. Shanghai Shenhua Chair WU XIAOHUI said, "We took the decision to have our old friend Batista back as the head coach after discussions." SHEN XIANGFU "will be the assistant coach for the rest of the season" (SHANGHAI DAILY, 3/31). ... Brazilian singer EDU KRIEGER used NEYMAR's name in the title of his "controversial" song -- "I'm Sorry, Neymar" -- which "heavily criticises the economic and social situation in Brazil," which will host the World Cup starting in June (MARCA, 3/30). ... Last week, National Rugby League player ANDREW FIFITA said that "he wished he never signed" the A$3.5M ($3.2M), four-year deal with the Canterbury Bulldogs "that made him the highest paid prop forward in the history of the world, ever." Instead, "he wished he had signed with rugby union." After the Bulldogs announced on Monday that the deal with Fifita was off, the game "is suddenly an option again" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 3/31). ... National Rugby League club Newcastle Knights player ALEX MCKINNON, who was injured in a tackle in the match against Melbourne Storm last Monday, "has been diagnosed as a quadriplegic." McKinnon, 22, suffered the injury in a tackle. Since then, "he has undergone two operations to have a disc removed and to fuse his C4 and C5 vertebrae." The second operation "involved a bone graft with a piece taken from his hip to support his neck" (THE AGE, 4/1).
