Football: Everton's Short on his way to Forest

WALTER SMITH, Everton's new manager, is prepared to sell Craig Short to Nottingham Forest in an unexpected pounds 1.5m deal.

The fee has been agreed by Dave Bassett and only doubts over Slaven Bilic's fitness have prevented the Forest manager, who sold Colin Cooper to Middlesbrough, from having talks with the centre-back.

Short, who is out of contract at the end of the season, has been in Smith's side this season, but the arrival of Marco Materazzi from Italy and the return of David Unsworth leaves Everton with plenty of defenders.

Lou Macari, the former Manchester United and Scotland player, who has been out of work since leaving Stoke City to concentrate on a court battle with Celtic, has been approached by his friend, Mike McDonald, from the Sheffield United plc board, with an offer to join the club's management.

Macari will be initially on the scouting side, but will also help the manager, Steve Bruce, and the coach, John Deehan. Bruce has been complaining about lack of funds in the transfer market, so Macari's eye for a bargain should be an asset to him.

Macari is still contesting his court case with Celtic, but now has more time to look at football and make a return to the game.

Howard Wilkinson has strenuously denied he has been approached to coach the South African national team. The South African Football Association's chief executive, Danny Jordaan, said he had spoken to Wilkinson as well as Ron Atkinson and the former Brazil coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, about the role.

But Wilkinson, the Football Association's technical director, insisted that he has not spoken to anyone about taking over the post vacated by Philippe Troussier after the World Cup finals. "I can say categorically that I have not to my knowledge spoken to anyone who works for, or is associated with, the SAFA since touring the country with Leeds three or four years ago," Wilkinson said.

The former Leeds manager is in Dublin in his role as England Under-18 coach, where his team take on the Irish Under-18s at Tolka Park tonight.

South Africa need to appoint a coach in time for their African Nations' Cup qualifying match against Angola in Johannesburg on 3 October.

Leicester City are to take disciplinary action against their captain, Steve Walsh, because of his verbal attack on Uriah Rennie, the referee of Saturday's Premiership match against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park.

Walsh criticised Rennie after the official had booked seven players and then denied Walsh what he thought was a late penalty following a challenge by the Rovers midfielder, Tim Sherwood.

The former Tranmere Rovers chairman, Frank Corfe, is asking pounds 7m for his 86 per cent shareholding in the Nationwide First Division club. Corfe walked out on the club at the weekend because he was disenchanted by the attitude of fans. He has denied he is to join the former Tranmere chairman, Peter Johnson, at Everton.