Last season's Dutch champions are having a radically different campaign this year. Derek Brookman looks at an economic crisis
When PSV hammered Ajax 6-2 on April 19 this year, AZ Alkmaar became Dutch champions by default; the Amsterdam side could no longer catch AZ at the top of the table. They were many reasons for this monumental event – the first title not to go to Ajax, Feyenoord or PSV for 28 years – but without doubt the biggest was Dick Scheringa.
A phone-tapping scandal has reached into most aspects of Italian society and football in particular. Matthew Barker listens in
Christian Vieri announced his retirement from football last month in typically gruff and to-the-point fashion. “I’ve had enough. I don’t want to do it any more,” he told journalists at the Milan Palace of Justice. Vieri was in court to give evidence against Inter, one of his 11 former clubs who he’s suing for €21 million (£18.7m) along with Telecom Italia (€9m from the former, €12m from the latter) after they apparently authorised the tapping of his private phone calls during a two-year period from 2002-04.
The most famous export of Ecuador's Chota Valley is footballers, as Henry Mance discovered on a visit to the region
One day, when football wastes as much of academics’ time as it already does of everyone else’s, some PhD student will spend three years working out which area in the world has produced the most professional players per capita. And he or she will eventually conclude what Ecuadorians already know: that the winner is the Chota Valley, hands down.
Carson Yeung's takeover of Birmingham City results in the departure of a notorious trio
In a month of notable returns, including Avram Grant to Portsmouth and chairman Adam Pearson at Hull, there was also the long goodbye of a famous threesome. After a first takeover attempt failed in November 2007, Carson Yeung finally completed his purchase of Birmingham City on October 6. But the former regime, David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady, did not depart quietly.
Newcastle United are in the headlines as Mike Ashley prepares to sell the naming rights to St James' Park
Newcastle businessman Barry Moat has been depicted in the press as the club’s potential saviour for several months now but, like someone running up a down escalator, he never seems to get any closer to his goal. With Moat having reportedly failed to come up with the £80 million required to cut a deal, owner Mike Ashley has now taken the club off the market, appointed Chris Hughton as full-time manager and, to general dismay, auctioned the naming rights for St James’ Park.