Sporting briefs

Van Buyten: Bayern Munich will be without Daniel Van Buyten for up to two weeks after the Belgian defender picked up a knock to his right ankle. Bayern sports director Christian Nerlinger said Van Buyten will be out “10 to 14 days” after suffering the injury in a match against third division side Wacker Burghausen on Saturday.

Goian: Palermo defender Dorin Goian is set for over a month on the sidelines after sustaining serious leg injuries in a friendly on Monday. The 29-year-old returned to Italy for further tests after preliminary checks at the team’s training camp in Austria revealed he had not broken anything during the game against Dinamo Tirana.

Suarez: Ajax will be without Luis Suarez for the first two games of the Eredivisie season after his sending-off in the Johan Cruyff Plate clash with FC Twente on Monday. The Uruguay striker, infamously dismissed for his country in the World Cup after a last-minute handball on the goal-line in the quarter-final against Ghana, saw red once again after a reckless lunge at Cheik Tiote.

Ablett: Ipswich coach Gary Ablett has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer. The 44-year-old former Liverpool and Everton defender was taken ill last week and has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Ablett was in charge of Stockport as they were relegated to League Two last season.

Ramires: Chelsea are closing in on the signing of Benfica midfielder Ramires. The Londoners expect to tie up a deal for the 23-year-old before the end of the week.

Europa League: Third qualifying round (second leg) – R. Vienna vs Beroe 3-0 (Rapid win 4-1 on agg).

Cycling: Three-times Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has signed a two-year contract with Danish cyclist Bjarne Riis’s team, sponsored by SaxoBank-Sungard. “Alberto (Contador) is a world class rider and it’s with great pride that I can welcome him onboard the team for the next two years,” Riis said. The 27-year-old Contador, who will leave the Astana team at the end of the season, said he was “excited about signing a two-year contract with Riis Cycling.”

Cricket: Andrew Flintoff has been ruled out of competition for the rest of the season by his county Lancashire as he struggles to recover following knee surgery. The 32-year-old all rounder was due to make his comeback this week from a year on the sidelines after two knee operations. However, he was pulled out of both a limited-overs game and a three-day match, starting yesterday, for the second team against Yorkshire.

Tennis: Former world number one Ivan Lendl will end a 16-year exile from tennis by joining the ATP Champions Tour. The eight-times Grand Slam winner from the Czech Republic will make his Tour debut at the Jean Luc Lagardere Trophy in Paris on October 1-3, the scene of his three French Open victories. The 50-year-old will come face-to-face with the man he defeated to win his first Grand Slam title in the same city in 1984 – John McEnroe.

Basket, NBA: More than two million people follow the NBA on Twitter, a record for any US sport league on the social networking site. NBA followers push the league ahead of the National Football League, which has almost 1.7 million followers on Twitter, or Major League Baseball, which needs about 30,000 more just to reach half of the NBA’s total. The NBA also ranks atop sport league popularity on Facebook and YouTube.