Mokhtari makes Köln move

1. FC Köln

While Mokhtari steps up a division, Alexander Ludwig moves the other way after UEFA Cup hopefuls Hertha BSC Berlin released him on loan to 1. FC Dynamo Dresden for a year. Ludwig, 21, scored seven times in 31 matches for Hertha's second string last term and follows team-mate Dennis Cagara to the 2. Bundesliga outfit.

DSC Arminia Bielefeld have signed Radim Kucera for an undisclosed fee from SK Sigma Olomouc. The 31-year-old Czech defender put pen to paper on a three-year deal and will start training with the team on Tuesday, ending eight years at Sigma where he played more than 200 games.

West Ham United FC striker Marlon Harewood has agreed a new five-year deal with the English Premiership newcomers. The 25-year-old, who joined West Ham from Nottingham Forest FC in November 2003, hit 17 goals in 45 matches during the Londoners' promotion-winning campaign.

FK Žalgiris Vilnius have become the fifth Lithuanian side to change coach this season after Saulius Širmelis departed by mutual consent. The move will come as a surprise after the 49-year-old led Žalgiris to the UEFA Intertoto Cup semi-finals – the furthest a Lithuanian club has ventured in Europe. However, that continental success coincided with domestic turmoil, and Širmelis's one-time assistant Viacheslav Sukristov takes over a side lying eighth in the ten-team table.

Nikolai Goryunov has been named coach of FC Gomel after Aleksandr Kuznetsov resigned following a run of poor results for the 2003 Belarussian champions. The club lie eighth after four defeats in six matches and 51-year-old Goryunov, who returns for his second spell at the helm having led the side from 1994-96, has ten games to turn things around.

A foreign official will take charge of a Russian Premier-Liga match for the second time this season after 41-year-old Spaniard Luis Medina Cantalejo agreed to referee the PFC CSKA Moskva-FC Zenit St. Petersburg game on 21 August. Medina Cantalejo follows in the footsteps of German Urs Meier, who officiated at the FC Spartak Moskva-CSKA derby earlier in the campaign. He will be assisted by Pedro Medina Hernández and Luis Alberto Gutiérrez Pérez.