Capello keeps faith with Arshavin

MOSCOW — Russia’s newly-appointed manager Fabio Capello has named controversial Arsenal forward Andrei Arshavin in his 36-man provisional squad to play a friendly with Ivory Coast.

Arshavin found himself on the receiving end of a huge wave of criticism after he had dismissed the team’s poor Euro 2012 performance as a problem only for the fans.

Problems for the 31-year-old began shortly after Russia lost 1-0 in its final Group A match against Greece and failed to make it out of a group in which it was favorite going into the championships.

Mobile phone footage of Arshavin telling a group of Russian lawmakers after the match that “if we did not fulfill your expectations, then honestly, these are your problems,” created a furore in Moscow.

Calls then mounted for the forward to be stripped of the captaincy.

But Italian Capello, who has signed a two-year contract with the Russian Football Union, has held true to his word, after saying last week that he would speak to the player.

The 66-year-old also brought in a set of rookies for the match in Moscow on Aug. 15, including Lokomotiv players Taras Burlak, Andrei Yeshchenko and Magomed Ozdoyev as well as Anzhi Makhachkala trio Arseny Logashov, Oleg Shatov and Fedor Smolov.

Arsenal palyer fined

The English Football Association has fined Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong 6,000 pounds ($9,400) and warned him about his future conduct following comments he made on Twitter.

Frimpong, who admitted a charge of improper conduct, made a remark which the FA said “included a reference to faith” in response to an abusive tweet he had received. The FA said Wednesday that his comments “brought the game into disrepute”.

Last week, the Premier League issued guidelines to its clubs to help players avoid trouble with their remarks on social network websites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The 20-year-old player is recovering from a knee injury that he sustained while on loan last season at Wolverhampton Wanderers. — Agencies