Athens  - Greece and visiting Italy Wednesday settled for a 1-1 draw in Athens that gave world champion coach Marcello Lippi a record of 31 unbeaten games at the helm of the Azzurri.

Fanis Gekas put the home side in front on 50 minutes but Italy equalized just four minutes later through Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni, whose 16th goal for his country ended a barren period that lasted almost 700 minutes.

Athens  - Greece and visiting Italy Wednesday settled for a 1-1 draw in Athens that gave world champion coach Marcello Lippi a record of 31 unbeaten games at the helm of the Azzurri.

Fanis Gekas put the home side in front on 50 minutes but Italy equalized just four minutes later through Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni, whose 16th goal for his country ended a barren period that lasted almost 700 minutes.

The draw sees Lippi, who returned to the helm at Italy last summer after winning the 2006 World Cup and following the removal of Roberto Donadoni, improve by one game an earlier record set by Vittorio Pozzo, a winner of two World Cups in the 1930s.

Rome  - Italy's Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola gave the green light Wednesday for the sale "at not less than 1.052 billion euros" (1.328 billion dollars) of struggling state-controlled carrier Alitalia to an Italian private consortium.

Scajola authorized Alitalia's bankruptcy commissioner, Augusto Fantozzi, providing the government's financial terms are met, to proceed with the "transfer of the airline's assets to the Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) by December 1," said an Economic Development ministry statement.

Trieste, Italy  - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel favour a possible partnership between German airline Lufthansa and ailing Italian carrier Alitalia.

"We both view very favourably a collaboration between Alitalia and Lufthansa. In fact we hope it will occur," Berlusconi said during a joint news conference with Merkel in Trieste.

Earlier Tuesday Italy's top financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, reported that a private Italian consortium, CAI, which is in the process of purchasing the state's controlling stake in Alitalia, was on the verge of clinching a deal with French-Dutch airline Air France-KLM.

Rome - Serie A strugglers Bologna Tuesday announced the signing of Brazilian midfielder Cesar, who was without a contract after winning the 2008 scudetto with Inter Milan.

Milan - A pair of lowered shorts and their coach's altercation with a journalist have partly obscured a hat-trick from Catania's flag bearing striker and the good performance of the team in the Italian Serie A.

The Sicily side at the weekend rose to a comfortable seventh place as Giuseppe Mascara scored all their goals in a 3-2 win over Torino.

But the striker's feats and the team's good position seemed to take the back-seat in the Italian media, which on Tuesday devoted space to the explanation provided by Gianvito Plasmati about the lowering of his shorts at a crucial moment of the game.