Bellamy to appear in court in Cardiff

Craig Bellamy, the Wales and Newcastle United striker, will appear in court later this year over an alleged incident at a Cardiff nightclub.

The 23-year-old has not been charged, but has been summonsed to appear before Cardiff Magistrates for an alleged public order offence. A date is yet to be fixed for the hearing, although it will not be before the Premiership season ends and probably not until well into the summer.

A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: "He has not been charged. The incident has been reported and he will be summonsed to attend court, but, because of the process which has to be gone through, that won't be before July."

The alleged incident happened after he met up with the Wales squad for their Euro 2004 qualifier against Azerbaijan at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. Bellamy initially headed back to Newcastle but returned to the Welsh camp and voluntarily presented himself to police investigating the matter.

Through his solicitor, Bellamy later denied the alleged offence and particularly suggestions there had been a racial element to the incident, but was later reported for summons. Bellamy scored the first goal in a 4-0 victory over Azerbaijan.

Fifa has revealed that Azerbaijan's international ban could be lifted if the country's government stops interfering in the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan's affairs.

Football's world governing body suspended the AFFA on Tuesday following alleged repeated violations of the Fifa code of conduct, throwing the national team's Euro 2004 qualifying campaign into doubt.

"We just don't want the [Azerbaijani] government interfering with AFFA's affairs," a Fifa spokesman, Nicolas Maingot, said. "If it stops interfering, then we can go back to supporting the country."

Maingot did not know if the investigations would be completed by the time of Azerbaijan's next Euro 2004 qualifier against Serbia and Montenegro on 11 June. "The ban is one thing and Euro 2004 is another. We cannot do anything about the knock-on effect there," he said.

Wales are waiting to see if Azerbaijan are allowed back into Euro 2004 or if the ban leads to them being thrown out and their results being expunged from the competition.

The AFFA said yesterday it would write up a new charter, elect a president and restart its national championship in an attempt to overturn the ban.