Football: Venables linked with South Africa

South Africa's national football coach, Clive Barker, has resigned just six months before the country's first appearance in the World Cup finals. His decision followed a series of disappointing results for the African champions.

Predictably, Terry Venables is among the candidates being considered to replace Barker. The South African Football Association vice-president, Irvin Khoza, yesterday included the former England coach in a short-list of four foreign and four local coaches: Jo Bonfrere and Clemens Westerhof, of the Netherlands, Victor Bondarenko, of Russia and the domestic coaches, Jomo Sono, Gordon Igesund, Shakes Mashaba and Trott Moloto.

Venables, currently in charge of Australia, was recently linked with the job of Nigeria's national coach, which went to Bora Milutinovic. He has indicated that he intends to stay on as Australia's coach - but that he might be prepared to consider a temporary appointment elsewhere.

Dusan Uhrin, the coach who took the Czech Republic to the final of the European Championship in England last year, has resigned and will join the Dubai-based club, Al Nasr. The Czechs finished beat Uruguay 1-0 yesterday in the third-place play-off in the Confederations Cup in Saudi Arabia.