SPORTING DIGEST Football

Football

Matthew Le Tissier may require surgery after a heel injury sustained in a friendly for Southampton at the end of last season failed to respond to treatment.

Rangers have signed Stephen Wright, Aberdeen's utility defender. The fee for the 23-year-old Scottish international, likely to be in excess of pounds 1.5m, will be decided by an independent tribunal.

Benfica have paid Paris St-Germain pounds 1.25m to re-sign the Brazilians, Valdo and Ricardo Gomes.

Birmingham must pay Southend pounds 400,000 for the centre-back Andy Edwards, an independent tribunal ruled yesterday. Southend had asked for pounds 1.8m, with Birmingham offering pounds 150,000.

Dynamo Dresden, who won the old East German championship eight times, were demoted to the regional leagues from the Bundesliga yesterday for financial irregularities.

Kennet Andersson, Sweden's top scorer at the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States and a recent transfer target for Birmingham City, is set to move from the French club, Caen, to the Italian first division side, Bari.

Next season's Anglo-Italian Cup, the final of which is scheduled for Wembley on 16 or 17 March, will feature Birmingham, Ipswich, Luton, Oldham, Port Vale, Southend, Stoke, West Brom, Ancona, Brescia, Cesena, Foggia, Genoa, Perugia, Reggiana and Salernitana.

TRANSFERS: Graham Alexander (midfielder) Scunthorpe to Luton (pounds 100,000); Jimmy Carter (winger) Arsenal to Portsmouth (free); Robert Codner (midfielder) Brighton to Birmingham (trial); Chris Lightfoot (defender) Chester to Wigan (pounds 87,500); Jim McInally (midfielder) Dundee United to Raith Rovers (pounds 150,000); Philip Morgan (goalkeeper) Ipswich to Stoke (free); Mark Prudhoe (goalkeeper) Stoke to Bradford (tribunal); Gary Strodder (defender) West Bromwich to Notts County (tribunal); Darren Ward (goalkeeper) Mansfield to Notts County (pounds 100,000 plus increments); Billy Woods (striker) Cork City to Tranmere (pounds 50,000).