France striker Thierry Henry will fly into Barcelona on Sunday evening prior to signing a four-year deal with the Primera Liga club.
Barcelona said the 29-year-old would arrive at the city airport in a private jet and have a medical on Monday morning.
If he passes the medical he will put pen to paper on his contract with the Catalan club and be presented to fans and the media at the Nou Camp at 1500 GMT.
Sources at the club have said Barcelona will pay 24 million euros ($32.29 million) for the striker who has been at Arsenal since 1999.
If the deal goes through Henry will compete with Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o and Ronaldinho for a place in one of the most feared forward lines in world football.
Barca are also reported to be close to signing Romanian centre-back Cristian Chivu from Roma and Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure from Monaco as they bid to strengthen their side after losing out to arch-rivals Real Madrid in the title race.
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Blog: Henry to arrive in Barcelona on Sunday
Blog: Chinese badminton stars to attend Thailand Open GP gold
A number of top badminton players led by world number two Chen Jin and third-ranked Chen Hong will take part in the 2007 SCG Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold next month.
The Chinese stars head the 120,000 U.S. dollars tournament, which will be held at Bangkok’s Nimibutr Gymnasium from July 3-8, local newspaper the Bangkok Post reported on Wednesday.
It has attracted 400 shuttlers from 40 countries and regions and it is the biggest event ever held by the Badminton Association of Thailand, said the association’s president Charoen Wattanasin.
“The tournament attracts many world class players because it is one of the 2008 Olympic qualifying events,” said Charoen.
Apart from Chen Jin, who was the 2007 Swiss Open champion and last year’s Thailand Open runner-up, and world number three Chen Hong, the Chinese squad also include Thailand Open defending champion Chen Yu, who is ranked fifth in the world.
Thailand’s challenge will be led by world number eight Boonsak Ponsana who is seeded fourth in the tournament. The Thai star will take on Malaysia’s Pei Wee Chung in the first round of the men’s singles
Blog: Late starters face uphill task in China
As the widespread coverage of Yi Jianlian’s NBA move reaffirmed China’s love affair with basketball, a first-round pick from the 2004 NFL draft was in Beijing on Friday to promote “America’s favorite sport.”
New England Patriots tight end Ben Watson and a delegation of NFL and Patriots officials are aiming to raise the profile of a sport barely known in the world’s most populous country.
Aware of the scale of their task, the NFL has so far concentrated on developing the non-contact version of American football in schools.
“We’re here to encourage and support those 5,000 kids who are playing flag football here in China,” Watson told reporters.
“Hopefully with the development one day there’ll be a Yao Ming of the NFL. We know the Chinese have a great tradition in athletics and we hope they can continue it in football.”
Yao and now Yi have helped make the NBA one of the most popular forms of entertainment in China. NFL games, by contrast, are broadcast tape-delayed to tiny audiences in the early hours of the morning.
“We are late but that just means we have to work twice as hard,” Gordon Smeaton, NFL vice president international, told reporters.
The postponement until 2009 of the inaugural China Bowl between the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, which had been scheduled for this August, was not a blow but a two-year window to develop the league’s profile, Smeaton added.
It also presents them with the possibility of playing the game at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, currently under construction for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Smeaton conceded, however, that the league would have a lot of work to do over the next two years to fill all 91,000 seats.
Well-educated, affluent young men in China’s main urban centers would be the league’s targets and new television deals and the use of other more cutting-edge broadcast platforms would play a role in the growth of the league’s profile, he said.
