Zurich- The global television rights sale for the 2010 football World Cup has been completed ahead of schedule with a deal in Nigeria, the governing body FIFA said on Wednesday.

FIFA said in a statement that a contract with the Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria (BON) will ensure free-to-air TV coverage and radio broadcasts of all 64 World Cup games in South Africa.

World Cup organizing committee chief Danny Jordaan welcomed the announcement as "another major milestone" which was completed "well ahead of schedule.

Zurich - The ruling football body FIFA on Wednesday banned Peru from international compe

Zurich - European champions Spain remain top of the world football rankings issued Wednesday by the world governing body FIFA while England jumped four places to return to the top 10.

Spain lead the way with 1,657 points from Germany, who moved up one place to second on 1,413 points. World champions Italy dropped to third on 1,356 points.

The Netherlands moved up one spot to fourth, ahead of Brazil with Argentina up one to sixth and Croatia down one to seventh.

Zurich - FIFA president Joseph Blatter called Monday for professional referees as a measure to protect football from the threat of match-fixing.

Blatter told a congress of football's world governing body in Zurich on sport betting that there appeared to "no limits" on what people were prepared to bet.

In reference to a recent match-fixing scandal in Germany which led to the jailing of a former referee, Blatter said there were still no professional referees in the Bundesliga.

"Nobody can say that the money is not there. We have to protect those who could be or already are the targets of such methods," he said.

Zurich - Switzerland's two leading banks were forced Thursday to seek out new capital injections as the nation became the latest country forced to unveil a bail-out plan in the wake of the global financial crisis.

While UBS AG, the nation's biggest bank, turned to the government for 6 billion Swiss francs (5.2 billion dollars) in additional capital, Credit Suisse Group AG said it was raising 10 billion Swiss francs from private investors and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Credit Suisse's announcement came as Switzerland's second biggest bank posted a 1.3-billion-franc third-quarter loss following further writedowns resulting from the world financial crisis.

Zurich  - Zurich's main train station was transformed into an opera hall for a special production of the opera La Traviata.

Tuesday night's three-hour production, sponsored by Swiss television, was viewed by train station patrons, but was also broadcast on Swiss television and Arte, a French-German cultural television station.

Performers and producers said they were pleased with the performance. No technical problems were reported and the audience of several thousand applauded enthusiastically.