The striker's contract ran out in June and he has not returned from playing for the United States in the Copa America. Heald's fee was set at pounds 125,000 by tribunal, but this will rise to pounds 275,000 after 60 appearances.Coventry have accepted that Roy Wegerle's days with the club are over. Their manager, Walter Smith, who has just six days to beat the European Cup signing deadline, yesterday gave up on the pounds 2.7m deal with the Spanish club Espanol after almost three months of wrangling."We are fed up with the messing around that has been involved and our interest in the player has ended," Smith said.Wimbledon have taken steps to safeguard their goalkeeping position by signing Paul Heald, 25, from Leyton Orient after their regular keeper, Hans Segers, was charged with conspiracy and corruption in relation to alleged match-rigging,. Football GUY HODGSON Rangers have abandoned attempts to sign the Romanian striker Florin Raducioiu. King, 29, triumphed over the 55-year-old Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, and collected the winner-take-all purse of $100,000. It was, according to Ted Tinling, one of the sport's historians, "probably the most important event in the history of women's tennis."Seles versus Navratilova, with seating for a 9,000 capacity audience, is a valuable exercise for a different reason But it does have one thing in common with King versus Riggs The top price for a seat is $100.. "I had to play Riggs."The match, over the best of five sets, was arranged for 20 September.

Court, badly affected by nerves, was swept aside by Riggs, 6-2, 6-1.King "went bananas" on hearing the score and felt that Court had betrayed the cause of women's professional tennis at a crucial stage of the Tour's development "Things had gotten out of control," King recalled. King resisted, considering that no good purpose could be served by playing a man 26 years her senior.Margaret Court was Riggs's next target, and the Australian agreed to play him in a nationally televised challenge match in the California resort of Ramona in May 1973. He had goaded King since 1970, when he first challenged her to a match. Each player received $500,000 (pounds 315,000) in appearance money, and Connors picked up an extra half-million for his victory.What made King versus Riggs so special was that the public sensed a genuine grudge match. The largest crowd ever to watch a single tennis match - 30,472 - packed the Houston Astrodome and an estimated 50 million watched on television.Riggs, the winner of the Wimbledon singles title in 1939, and twice the US champion, was the self-proclaimed "king of male chauvinist pigs".

Navratilova double-faulted on set point in the first set and lost, 7-5, 6-2, in spite of being allowed two serves to her opponent's one and hitting into a court four feet wider.At the time, Navratilova was 36, and Connors had just celebrated his 40th birthday. Seles was knifed in the back by Gunther Parche, an obsessive Graf supporter, while sitting down during a change-over. Since then, bodyguards have been in evidence at courtside in tournaments."We never discuss security measures," said Dave Coskey, a media liaison spokesman here "As soon as you do, it's a breach of security. Let's just say that Atlantic City has had a lot of experience in dealing with major performance artistes and athletes."While there is always the element of a gimmick when tennis makes an exhibition of itself, it is far less obvious this time than it was when Navratilova last ventured into the realms of the contrived.

That was on 25 September 1992, when she played Jimmy Connors, who was grunting his way to greatness before Seles was born.The match, at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, was a send-up of the King-Riggs confrontation 19 years earlier. On Saturday, Seles, now aged 21, is due to play the semi-retired Martina Navratilova, 38, in an exhibition match. The build-up to the contest, at the Atlantic City Convention Center, is more in keeping with a prize fight than a tennis event, but that is customary when the sport with a country club image goes gladiatorial. "Return of the Champions", as it is billed, is the most important exhibition match since Billie Jean King struck a mighty blow for the women's game with her victory against Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973.Usually, the stakes are no higher than the pile of cash on offer, but this occasion gives a brilliant young player who has had a traumatic experience the opportunity to discover if she still has the nerve to compete in a big-time atmosphere before she continues her rehabilitation in proper tournaments.Naturally, security is the first thought that occurs. The former world No 1, who has now been reinstated at the head of the rankings with Steffi Graf, is preparing to make her first public appearance since she was stabbed on a court in Hamburg in April 1993. We are here in this American Blackpool, where the chips are for gambling, to witness the return of Monica Seles.