Euro lottery

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TICKETS for UEFA Euro 2008 matches that went on sale in March will be distributed by lottery after fans ordered 30 times more seats than were available, organisers revealed.

The demand for 10.36 million tickets was 18 times higher than for the previous UEFA European Championship finals in Portugal in 2004. Some 588,716 people from 142 countries placed orders for next year's competition in Austria and Switzerland by the deadline of 31 March, organisers said in a statement. All matches were oversubscribed.

About 346,000 tickets were available for all 31 matches during the one-month Internet sale. The random lottery will be held in mid-April under the supervision of legal officials, and fans should know the outcome by the end of this month.

All of the applications will be checked before they enter the lottery to prevent black market sales and for security vetting, said UEFA Euro 2008 spokesman Wolfgang Eichler. "This is mainly to see if there are false applications or not. There are also hooligan databases involved, to find if people are registered there," Eichler said.

The last chance to find a seat at Euro 2008 will be early next year, when another 399,000 tickets will be sold through the national associations of the 16 teams that eventually qualify for the finals. On average, each nation will be allocated 19 per cent of the seats available in the matches they play. The rest of the 1.05 million seats at the June finals will be used for VIPs and sponsors.

The biggest demand in the initial phase of sales came from joint hosts Switzerland, who accounted for 29 per cent of the ticket requests, followed by neighbouring Germany with 27 per cent and co-host Austria with 21 per cent.

Loeb in the lead

SEBASTIEN Loeb won the Rally of Portugal and then took a one-point lead in the standings after rival Marcus Gronholm was hit with a time penalty.

Frenchman Loeb won the event by 37.1 seconds with Gronholm in second.

But Gronholm was demoted to fourth after all six WRC06 Ford Focus cars were given a five-minute penalty after technical scrutineering. The scrutineers ruled that the thickness of the rear side windows did not conform to regulations.

"We were disappointed to learn from the scrutineers that the team made an error," said BP-Ford team director Malcolm Wilson. "We will launch a detailed investigation into how this could have happened at M- Sport."

Loeb's victory was his second successive win on gravel after his triumph in Mexico three weeks ago.

"It's important for the championship to be competitive on gravel," said Loeb. "Now we've won the last two rallies, so we're really looking good for the other rallies and the championship.

"The battle with Marcus will be very hard, but really interesting."

The platform for Loeb's win was created on Saturday when the Citroen driver won all six of the day's stages while Gronholm struggled on the wrong tyres.

Loeb, who led by just three seconds after the opening day, was over 40 seconds ahead going into the final day and sealed victory by taking two of Sunday's five stages.

He is now on 38 points after winning three of the five rounds so far with Gronholm on 37.

Bami does it again

BRIXTON's Ted Bami retained his European light welterweight title with a repeat points win over Italian challenger Giuseppe Lauri in Crawley.

The 29-year-old suffered a cut eye after a clash of heads in the fourth round and was deducted a point for illegally using his head in the eighth.

But after putting his opponent down in the 10th round, Bami took a clear decision 116-111, 118-112, and 117- 110.

Bami said: "Now I want Junior Witter or Ricky Hatton -- the guys at the top."

Lauri, out-pointed by Bami for the vacant title at Bethnal Green last September, had been handed his second chance after countryman Gianluca Branco withdrew through injury last week.

But while going unpunished after a series of indiscretions himself, he complained repeatedly to the Spanish referee about Bami's conduct.

Michael Hunter returned from his November world title defeat by Canada's Steve Molitor with a convincing eight-round points win over Ghana's tough Ben Odamattey on the undercard.

The former British, Commonwealth and European super bantamweight champion lost to Molitor after being floored in the fifth round of their vacant IBF super bantam clash.

But he bounced back in Crawley with an 80-73 decision in his first fight after moving up to featherweight.

Former world super middleweight champion Robin Reid returned from 19 months out of the ring with a points win over Jesse Brinkley in Newcastle.

The 35-year-old looked off the pace for much of his eight-round work-out which earned him a unanimous 78-75 78-76 78-74 verdict.

It was one of six contests in the inaugural Sugar Ray Leonard Cup between Great Britain and America, an extension of the popular "Contender" reality boxing series.