Book reviews

Religion and football remain a potent and unpleasant mix. Dianne Millen finds the Old Firm may have ulterior reasons to distance themselves from bigotry.

When is an orange not an orange? When it’s a tang­erine, of course – or so the Rangers fans who gleefully donned the club’s notorious 2001-02 away strip would have liked the rest of Scotland to believe. At best ill-judged, at worst inflammatory, the strip drew an outcry from anti-sectarian groups. Few outside Ibrox believed the club was unaware of its connotations.

Read more…

Nottingham council have called Forest’s bluff over their cash crisis, leaving Al Needham and many fellow fans in no doubt  as to who is to blame for the problems at the City ground

It’s no fun at all being a supporter of Nottingham  Forest these days, but their latest twirl on the morbid carousel of financial mismanagement takes the bis­cuit, if not the whole packet. You’ll remember Forest – big club last century, won a few things, endearingly bonkers manager, held the world’s most jubilant relegation party, yo-yoed be­tween the Premiership and the First Division for a bit under assorted bosses. At time of writing, they have just hauled themselves out of a winless streak spanning 18 games and are staring relegation to the Second Division squarely in the face – but at least we could take comfort in the fact that we weren’t as financially ravaged as Notts County.

Read more…

Tributes have been pouring in after the very public death of Miklós Fehér, but Phil Town believes Benfica's mourning smacked more than a little of hypocrisy.

Miklós Fehér’s untimely death at the age of just 24 set into motion a wave of popular feeling not seen in Portugal since fado diva Amália Rodrigues passed on in 1999. The fact that it all happened live on television, and that it involved someone playing for Benfica, by far the best sup­­­ported club in the country, went a long way to stoking up the hysteria.

Read more…

Though the extent of Leeds’ problems fluctuates from minute to minute, Duncan Young has tried to get a grip on it all

The conspicuous problem for Leeds is that not only do they not have the money to pay back their debts, they do not even have enough to maintain the obligations that must be met now. As recently revealed by chief executive Trevor Birch, a £60 milli0n loan is already secured against the stadium, a £3.5m debt is secured against the training ground and most of the key players are leased from a company in Jersey. Foot­ball finance expert Professor Tom Cannon of Checksure, an organisation that provides credit ratings on companies, describes this not unreasonably as “test­ing securitisation to its limits”. Even the status of the three valuable players that Leeds might actually own is in doubt, though selling even one would be tantamount to run­­ning up a white flag in the eyes of Leeds fans.

Read more…

Exeter City are trying to get to grips with their financial crisis, with potentially serious effects for all Conference clubs and football rules, as Howard Pattison writes

Watching Exeter play football may be un­rewarding, but the club’s adventures off the pitch are rich with in­cident, controversy and intrigue. Hav­ing seemingly headed off their most pressing financial worries by entering into a corporate voluntary ar­rangement (CVA) with their creditors, whereby they agreed to pay just ten per cent of their debts, they were immediately ser­ved notice of a 12-point penalty, the punishment set by the Conference at the be­ginning of the season.

Read more…