EPL side Queens Park Rangers defender RIO FERDINAND "has decided not to appeal against the severity of his three-match ban for using the word 'sket' after examining the written reasons for his punishment." Despite "being furious over his sanction for using the word -- slang for a promiscuous woman -- in an exchange on Twitter, Ferdinand is understood to believe it is all but futile to challenge the verdict" (London TELEGRAPH, 11/4). ... Hyundai Motorsport announced that Spanish driver DANI SORDO signed a two-year agreement to remain as one of the team’s drivers in the FIA World Rally Championship in '15 and '16 alongside THIERRY NEUVILLE (Hyundai). ... RAFAEL NADAL has undergone appendix surgery, “with the operation passing off smoothly, according to his management company.” B1PR tweeted on Monday, “Rafa feeling well, surgery went well, if everything goes as planned out of the hospital tomorrow.” Nadal “has been taking antibiotics to treat appendicitis since early October” (AFP, 11/4). ... Former cyclist IVAN GOTTI is “ready to give up” his 1999 Giro d’Italia win if a new investigation centered on MARCO PANTANI’s expulsion from that race “shows foul play linked to the mafia.” Gotti: “I’ll accept the decision that arrives.” The ‘99 win came under a “cloud of scandal as Pantani, winner of the 1998 Giro and Tour the year before, was excluded the morning before the final mountain stage, following an anti-doping test.” The public prosecutor in Forlì, in the region of Emilia-Romagna near Pantani’s home in Cesena, is “examining if the mafia and sports fixing had a hand in Pantani’s exclusion that morning” (VELO NEWS, 10/30).
