The Archive

Ciudad de Murcia have been taken over and relocated in the manner of Wimbledon moving to Buckinghamshire – while their fans have been ignored, writes Phil Ball

When I was a kid, a mate nicked a bike that was propped up on a lamp-post. I asked him why and he replied: “It’s not tied up. It’s mad not to nick it.” It was a brutal sort of logic, but I shrugged and let him get on with it. I’d forgotten about the incident till this summer, when Carlos Marsá, a 57-year-old industrialist from Granada, bought the shares, footballing rights and contracts of Spanish second-division club Ciudad de Murcia, and changed them into his own Granada 74, thereby effecting an MK Dons-like take-over – or, more prosaically, nicking the bike. Needless to say, as with Wimbledon, various bodies, among them UEFA, have shrugged their shoulders and let him get on with it.

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With local club Hapoel lurching from crisis to embarrassment, left-leaning fans in the Israeli capital had had enough. Shaul Adar reports on their decision to start again after failing in a takeover bid

In May, Uri Sheradsky, the sports editor for a Jerusalem local paper, wrote a column in the weekly edition. There was only one subject on his mind. While Beitar Jerusalem won their first championship for nine years, his team, Hapoel Jerusalem, were dropping down limply to the third ­division for the first time.

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Did Giorgio Chinaglia try to make the president of Lazio an offer he couldn’t refuse? Matthew Barker reports on a playing legend being charged with extortion

Giorgio Chinaglia has never been a man to waste too much time worrying about what others might think of him. Certainly few in Italy are expecting the one-time Azzurri striker to turn up at a Rome courthouse on October 26 to answer accusations of extortion and trying to manipulate share prices.

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To suggest that the French midfielder has an attitude problem would be like saying Tewkesbury has been a bit damp of late. James Eastham reports on a career that has gone nowhere, via pretty much everywhere

Stéphane Dalmat scored a glorious goal in the Champions League last season. Playing for Bordeaux, he picked up the ball on the halfway line, breezed past an opponent and lobbed PSV Eindhoven’s goalkeeper, Gomes, from 25 yards. In the Sky TV studio, Jamie Redknapp, Dalmat’s team-mate at Spurs in 2003-04, described the midfielder along the lines of being “one of the most skilful players I’ve ever seen”, but labelled his attitude “shocking”.

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Gordon Smith takes charge at the SFA, Neil Forsyth reports

When the SFA announced their choice for a new chief executive in June, few expected to hear a name that would cause a flicker of recognition, let alone debate and a degree of bewilderment among followers of the national game.

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