African winner at Africa’s cup?

A newspaper claims more than 10,000 people have pledged to shave their heads if Spain win the European Championship. The campaign by sports daily Marca shows how Spain has worked itself into a lather of national enthusiasm now that its team has reached the semi-finals of a major football tournament for the first time since 1984. “I, a hardline fan all my life, do hereby solemnly promise, before marca.com, the country’s fans and the team, to shave every last hair off my Spanish head if the team wins Euro 2008,” reads the pledge on the newspaper’s website. As of Wednesday, the website said more than 10,500 people have signed up.

Ticket touts in trouble

Vienna police say they have seized 300 tickets from scalpers. Leopold Bubak of the Vienna magistrate’s office said police have been patrolling the stadium and public fan zones to crack down on ticket touts. Scalpers face fines of up to euro800. UEFA spokesman William Gaillard said the problem was that different countries had different laws.

Cech lashes out at Czech federation

Just 10 days after the Czech Republic failed to progress to the second round at the European Championship, a bitter dispute has erupted between goalkeeper Petr Cech and a top Czech football official. Cech lashed out at federation deputy head Vlastimil Kostal after he blamed the goalkeeper in Tuesday’s editions of daily newspaper Sport for the team’s 3-2 loss to Turkey on June 15 in Geneva that left it in third place in Group A. “It is necessary to unequivocally say that (Cech) is responsible for the loss to Turkey,” said Kostal, who resigned as team manager after the defeat.