Video

mlb move for another japanese star. blatter to push for foreign player cap. and costly falls at swiss parallel slalom. baseball fukudome japanese outfielder kosuke fukudome jetted out of tokyo on tuesday bound for the formalities of his move to the chicago cubs. soundbite (japanese) "the cubs showed they were really keen to have me on their team. after i became a free agent, the cubs revealed a strong desire to get me from the beginning to the end. i really appreciate that. i decided to go to the cubs, because i thought it would be good to join the team that wanted me the most." supercaption: kosuke fukudome the 30-year-old left-hander is due to officially sign a four-year 48-million us dollar deal after nine seasons with the chunichi dragons. fukudome hit .305 with 192 home runs in his time with the dragons. he was named most valuable player of japan's central league in 2006 and he helped the nagoya-based side clinch the 2007 japan series title. the cubs will hope his switch brings a similar level of success to wrigley field. soccer blatter fifa boss sepp blatter has made the clearest indication yet that his federation is willing to force european football clubs to field a majority of home players in their teams. at a news conference at the club world cup in japan last week, blatter suggested fifa will propose a cap of five foreign players in a team's starting 11. soundbite (english) "we will come out with a proposal and i suppose, i cannot assure it, that such decision - six plus five, can be, will be or must be accepted by the fifa congress." supercaption: joseph 'sepp' blatter, fifa president. ac milan won sunday's club world cup final, newly-installed beating fifa world player of the year kaka scoring in their 4-2 win over boca juniors in yokohama. more importantly for blatter milan started that final with seven italian players in their line-up. soundbite (english) "so this is already for the first time a european team playing here, they have so many players from the country they are from. it was not the case with liverpool, it was not the case with barcelona last year." supercaption: joseph 'sepp' blatter, fifa president. conversely, english premier league leaders arsenal had no english players in their line-up, nor on the substitute bench, in their 1-0 win over chelsea the same day. also at blatter's news conference, it was revealed former japanese international star hidetoshi nakata has been offered a role as a fifa ambassador. nakata, who retired from international football after the 2006 world cup, enjoys great popularity in japan. snowboard switzerland two second-placings followed by a win in italy, heidi neurerer had to be the strong favourite coming in to the parallel slalom final in nendaz. however, the austrian was slow out of the gate, handing an immediate advantage to compatriot, julia dujmovits. the latter hadn't made the most auspicious of starts to the new snowboard world cup campaign. but all that changed here in the swiss mountains. neururer's fall effectively ended the contest, allowing the 20-year-old to cruise to victory and improve to eighth place overall. mathieu bozzetto hadn't been quite as dominant over the three events of the new season as neururer. but he still came to switzerland holding a healthy advantage in the men's overall standings. despite his good form, when number one met two in the final, the frenchman really should have been well beaten by rok flander. the slovenian left bozzetto trailing well in his wake at the start and led all the way until falling, metres from the finish line. bozetto was gifted another 1000 points, which could prove significant in the fight for the title come the end of the season.