Real pair can expect stiff fines

MADRID, Spain -- Real Madrid will discipline Brazilians Robinho and Julio Baptista because of their delay in returning from international duty last week.

"The board of directors are determined to speed up the enquiry and make their decision on the case as soon as possible," the club said on their Web site.

The pair are likely to receive stiff fines after failing to inform Real that they would miss Friday's training when their flight was delayed.

Neither was selected for the Primera Liga game at Espanyol on Saturday. Real suffered their first league defeat of the season.

There were reports that Robinho was amongst a group of players celebrating into the early hours of Thursday after the 5-0 World Cup qualifying victory over Ecuador.

Bayern Munich club president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge expects coach Ottmar Hitzfeld to sign an extension to his contract which runs to the end of the season.

The 58-year-old Hitzfeld rejoined Bayern last February after Felix Magath was sacked. He accepted a contract till the end of the 2006/07 season at first before extending it till June 2008.

"I believe that Ottmar will stay at Bayern," Rummenigge told Tuesday's daily newspaper AZ.

"When you are coaching a team such as us, you can only be happy. He has a fantastic job and we will discuss everything with him calmly during the winter break in January

German national coach Joachim Löw is also poised for a contract extension, according to the president of the German Football federation, Theo Zwanzinger.

"On the major questions we have reached an agreement with Joachim, but that has not been formalized yet. Before it becomes official we have to answer certain questions raised by him," Zwanzinger told the German sports news agency SID.

Löw, whose contract expires after Euro 2008, is expected to prolong his time as national coach to 2010, the year of the next World Cup.

Former assistant to Jurgen Klinsmann from 2004 to 2006, Löw, 47, took over as coach after the 2006 World Cup and under his direction the German side was the first nation to qualify for Euro 2008, winning 12 of its 16 matches.

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