EPL side West Ham has been fined £71,000 ($108,000) by FIFA for breaching rules over striker Diafra Sakho "but no action has been taken over their place in the FA Cup." Striker Sakho withdrew from Senegal's Africa Cup of Nations squad with a back injury "but scored 18 days later in West Ham's Cup 1-0 win at Bristol City." FIFA says that a player cannot appear for his team when he should be on int'l duty. FIFA has reprimanded both the club and the 25-year-old forward. But the Hammers, who got £90,000 ($137,000) from the FA prize fund for winning their fourth-round tie, "have escaped potential expulsion from the FA Cup" (BBC, 2/4). ... An Africa Cup of Nations referee has been banned for six months for "poor performance." Referee Rajindraparsad Seechurn gave Equatorial Guinea a "controversial penalty in stoppage time" as it beat Tunisia 2-1 in the quarterfinals (BBC, 2/4). ... Romanian Football League side CFR Cluj has been deducted 24 points by the RFL because of its "inability to deal with spiralling debts." The Railwaymen, one of Romania's "most successful clubs in the last decade, have fallen on hard times" and owe nearly €20M ($22.8M) to the state, former players and coaches. Last November, current players "threatened to boycott a league game because of unpaid wages and bonuses" (REUTERS, 2/4). ... Asturias, Spain's football body on Tuesday decided to "suspend all games in the regional categories that were scheduled for the weekend." Games suspended include those in the Spanish third division, the National Juvenile League and the indoor football third division, "all of which are organized by the territorial federation." The "motive for the strike is the government's demand that clubs make all owed payments to working personnel, including volunteers and coaches, among others." The federation said that it is "not viable for a club to assume this economic cost" (EP, 2/3).
