A British comedian on Monday gate-crashed Sepp Blatter's efforts to defend FIFA's reputation, showering the football leader with fake dollar bills at a press conference.

The 79-year-old Swiss official looked shaken as the notes thrown by Simon Brodkin fluttered around him in a conference hall at the FIFA headquarters. He was taken away in a Swiss police car after the stunt.

Zenit St. Petersburg's Brazil marksman Hulk on Monday dubbed as "disgraceful" the latest racist incident in Russia and expressed fears racism could raise its ugly head at the World Cup the country will host in 2018.

Russian football was hit by a new race storm on Friday when Ghana midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong, playing for Ufa in the season opener of the Russian Premier League against Spartak Moscow, was sent off after just 30 minutes for reacting to a stream of racist abuse.

Prince Ali bin al-Hussein wants Sepp Blatter to leave now as FIFA president, and let a leader from outside the sport oversee the next election and reforms of soccer's scandal-scarred governing body.

The former FIFA presidential candidate urged the executive committee, which meets later Monday, not to rush into an early election date.

Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford has repeated calls for greater transparency amid new doping allegations against Tour de France leader Chris Froome.

Brailsford was invited onto French television to discuss Froome's power data as an expert suggested the 30-year-old Briton was not riding cleanly.

The logistics of Barcelona's North American tour are tough enough, coach Luis Enrique makes no apologies for letting stars including Lionel Messi skip the pre-season excursion.

The Spanish giants landed in Los Angeles on Sunday to begin preparations for a three-match tour that opens with a game against Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday.

Restoring full diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States could lead to Major League Baseball pre-season games on the Communist island by next year and a safer pipeline for Cuban talent.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said exhibition games in Cuba ahead of next April's start of the 2016 season "would be my best guess, based on the state of the conversations with the government," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

FIFA's leadership meets on Monday to decide the date of a vote to replace president Sepp Blatter as a corruption storm inflicts ever worsening damage on world football.

The meeting takes place just two days after Jeffrey Webb, until May a FIFA vice president, made his first appearance in a New York court to deny charges that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes for marketing deals. He was released on $10 million (£6.4m, 9.2m euros) bail.

If tackling 3,600km of road including seven mountain stages over three weeks wasn't hard enough, the weather has proved to be the toughest challenge at the 2015 Tour de France.

The Tour began with a heatwave in Utrecht two weeks ago and since then has been hit by crosswinds and driving rain as early as the second stage to Zeeland, when overall contenders Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana lost a minute and a half to Chris Froome and Alberto Contador.

Carlos Tevez was overshadowed on his return to Boca Juniors after 11 years away on Saturday when teammate Jonathan Calleri scored a spectacular “rabona” goal in the 2-1 win over Quilmes.

Sebastian Palacios gave Boca a first-half lead before Calleri grabbed the crucial second for the league leaders after his first attempt was blocked.

Josep Maria Bartomeu was re-elected as president of European and Spanish champions Barcelona after seeing off rival Joan Laporta.

Bartomeu, 52, polled 25,823 votes (54.63%) with Laporta, a former president, winning 15,615 votes (33.03%).