Brazilian star Rivaldo on Wednesday escaped a ban for his self-confessed faked injury which got a Turkish World Cup opponent sent off but insisted he had no regrets.

FIFA's disciplinary committee said it would only fine Rivaldo 11,500 Swiss francs (7,350 dollars) for the first major case of what it calls "simulation" in the Group C match on Monday which Brazil won 2-1.

The Brazilian said he had no worries about his action and that football's international governing body would never be able to clampdown on soccer's cheats.

The case caused a major World Cup controversy.

But a FIFA statement said only: "The FIFA disciplinary committee today announced that they had imposed a total fine of 11,500 Swiss francs on Rivaldo (Bra) for an incident in the June 3 match between Brazil and Turkey."

It said there was a basic fine of 10,000 Swiss francs with 1,500 Swiss francs in expenses.

The fine is less than half a day's wages for the Barcelona star whose

contract with the Spanish club alone is worth six million dollars a year.

FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said no further comment on the punishment would be made on the case until a regular briefing on Thursday.

But a top FIFA official said, on condition of anonymity, that Rivaldo's simulation had been the subject of "tremendous pressure" from all sides involved.

Rivaldo admitted after the match that he had deliberately exaggerated an injury, collapsing to the ground holding his face after Turkish defender Hakan Unsal had kicked the ball at his legs, in a bid to get Unsal sent off.

But at training in Ulsan on Wednesday, Rivaldo said: "I'm calm about the punishment.

"I don't want to talk much about it to avoid creating more headlines. This is something from the past. I'm now looking ahead.

"These things happen in football and if I spend time thinking about what happened it's not going to help anyone."

Asked if he regretted the inci

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