Basketball: Rodman joins in exodus from Bulls

DENNIS RODMAN, the controversial Chicago Bulls forward, has decided to retire from professional basketball, his agent said last night.

Rodman won three National Basketball Association championships with the Chicago Bulls and two with the Detroit Pistons prior to that. He is now said to be considering pursuing a full-time career in acting and showbusiness.

Rodman's announcement comes in a traumatic week for the Bulls, following Michael Jordan's retirement and yesterday's decision by Scottie Pippen to join a new team, with the Houston Rockets his most likely destination.

The England international Ray Carter has been fired by his Austrian club, Oberwart, following a dispute which arose when they deducted his wages for the 10 days he spent with the England team for their European Championship games in November and December.

The 26-year-old Carter, who starred on his debut in the win over Denmark in Birmingham, was left out of Oberwart's Saporta Cup quarter-final in Spain last night against Badalona.

"They fired me," said Carter from Austria yesterday. "Other things have been going on at the club, but the situation with England was the biggest part of the problem. They just didn't accept that I was a national team player and they more or less gave me an ultimatum: play for us or play for England."

Carter is one of nine members of the current England team playing with Continental clubs and illustrates the marketability of English players post-Bosman. He is represented by an agent in every basketball-playing European country and they were already making calls for him yesterday.