FOOTBALL DIGEST

CARVALHAL AND ARSENE SUPPORT SAFE STANDING

FORMER Lincoln City defender Bradley Wood has been banned from football until 2024 after intentionally getting booked twice in the club’s FA Cup run last year. An FA tribunal ruled Wood, 26, ‘influenced a football betting market’ by earning two yellow cards against Ipswich and Burnley. THE campaign for safe standing gathered fresh momentum last night, as Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger and his Swansea counterpart Carlos Carvalhal added their support to the idea of designated standing areas. ‘The atmosphere is much better when people stand,’ Wenger said. ‘If the safety is right then it has my 100 per cent backing.’ Carvalhal (right) said: ‘I think it’s a nice idea. It’s back to the culture of the past — the traditional English games, especially when people were standing behind the goals. ‘You have more tourists at the games than real fans and we must understand that we need real fans in the stadium at prices they can afford.’ A petition which requires 100,000 votes to trigger a parliamentary debate has hit 73,000 signatures. MICHAEL CARRICK has revealed he asked not to be picked for England. Carrick won 34 caps but said the 2010 World Cup left a lasting impression. ‘It made me really down, so I came to the point after South Africa where I thought, “I can’t do that again”,’ he told the BBC. CRYSTAL PALACE’S proposals for a £100million expansion of Selhurst Park were approved by Croydon Council last night. Palace plan to redevelop the Main Stand, raising overall capacity from 24,000 to 36,000.