• Bosnia Herzegovina has lodged an appeal against a European Handball Federation (EHF) decision that Switzerland should progress to the next round of the Men’s World Championship, overturning its victory against Switzerland after ruling that an ineligible player had been fielded. The EHF initially ruled that a player fielded by Bosnia Herzegovina did not appear on the match report signed by both teams ahead of the match. ‘The EHF Court of Handball found that responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of the match report, and therefore confirming the list of players eligible to play in the match, lies with the match officials of the respective national federations’, read an EHF statement. ‘In signing the match report, the official from Bosnia Herzegovina therefore confirmed its accuracy and the federation was responsible for the fact that an ineligible player took part in the match’. 

• The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has confirmed that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has accepted applications from four of its athletes to compete as neutrals at the World Indoors, which take place in Birmingham from 1-4 March. The approved athletes are Mariya Lasitskene and Danil Lysenko (high jump); Anzhelika Sidorova (pole vault); and Viktoria Prokopenko (triple jump).

• The National Anti-Doping Agency of India (NADA India) provisionally suspended five athletes after carrying out 404 anti-doping tests during January, it said in a statement (PDF below).

• Former football coach Barry Bennell has been sentenced to 31 years in prison for 50 counts of child sex abuse at Liverpool Crown Court, reports the BBC. Bennell was named by several footballers as being behind sexual abuse, after revelations by former footballer Andy Woodward prompted a flood of similar complaints, which UK police investigated via Operation Hydrant. Bennell worked for clubs including Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City and Stoke City. He was given a four-year sentence for sexually abusing a boy during a tour of Florida in 1994 and a nine-year sentence in 1998 for 23 offences against six boys in England. In 2015, he was sentenced for a third time after admitting abusing a boy at a football camp in Macclesfield in 1980.