BRIEFLY : NO TITLE FOR NEXT TYSON FIGHT?

Promoter Don King said on Wednesday that Mike Tyson might not defend his WBC heavyweight championship in a proposed bout with WBA champ Bruce Seldon in July.

``We would be willing to fight without the WBC title at stake, since this is the argument of Lennox Lewis,'' King said.

Last month, a Passaic County (N.J.) court judge ruled that Tyson must fight Lewis next after winning the WBC crown from Frank Bruno six weeks ago.

Lewis argued that by sanctioning the Tyson-Bruno fight, the WBC was ignoring its own ruling that he should fight for the title after having beaten Lionel Butler in an title elimination bout nearly 12 months ago.

But now, King said, if Lewis doesn't challenge the Tyson-Seldon fight, he would finally get his title shot regardless of the outcome.

``If Mike wins, then the WBC title goes back into effect and the first defense of the WBC title will be with Lennox Lewis,'' King said. ``If Mike loses, then the WBC title is vacant and Lennox Lewis has the opportunity to fight for that title against whoever.''

That scenario is not acceptable said Mike Boorman, a spokesperson for Lewis' promotional company, Main Events.

SOCCERWorld Cup qualifying opened in Europe and South America, with Greece beating Slovenia 2-0 and Argentina playing Bolivia.

Colombia played host to Paraguay in the other game involving teams who qualified for the 1994 tournament. For the first time, South American teams will play throughout the 1-1/2 years of qualifying rather than every weekend during a two-month span near the end.

In other qualifiers, Yugoslavia beat the Faeroe Islands 3-1 and Macedonia defeated Liechtenstein 3-0. In later games, it was Peru at Ecuador and Uruguay at Venezuela.

Most of the top teams in Europe played exhibition games rather than World Cup matches in preparation for the European Championship in June. Among those, Germany beat the Netherlands 1-0 in a game marked by about four dozen arrests and clashes among riot police and fans.

Defending World Cup champion Brazil rallied from a two-goal deficit to win 3-2 at South Africa, and England played a scoreless tie against Croatia.

Also, Bosnia-Herzegovina played a scoreless tie at home against Albania in Bosnia's first home game following the 4-1/2-year civil war with Serbia.

TENNIS A prosecutor in Frankfurt, Germany, disagreed with a report that Steffi Graf knew what happened to her earnings, allegedly funneled out of Germany for years by her father to avoid paying taxes.

Asked about the story that is to appear in the weekly Stern magazine today, prosecutor Peter Wechsung in Mannheim said that based on his office's investigation, ``we disagree with its conclusions.''

The story says that Graf family tax adviser, Joachim Eckardt, who is in jail and charged in the case, had provided prosecutors with information that Steffi Graf knew the details of what was happening to her money.

ETC. The NBA Board of Governors officially approved the sale of the Philadelphia 76ers by Harold Katz to telecommunications giant Comcast Corp., a month after the papers were signed. . . . A team billed as one of the best Canada has sent to the World Ice Hockey Championships is in danger of being bounced out of the 12-team tournament in Vienna after a 5-1 loss to Germany. Travis Green of the New York Islanders scored the Canadians' only goal on a rebound after Paul Kariya of the Mighty Ducks had moved in with the initial shot.

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Photo: MIKE TYSON: Promoter Don King has proposed that thenext fight for Tyson, left, not be for the WBC title because of a lawsuit by Lennox Lewis.