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The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

Official complaints

Brian Simpson reports on the growing problem of violence against referees in amateur football

The odds against newspapers as diverse as the Oldham Evening Chronicle, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Buckinghamshire Examiner reporting similar local football stories over the same few days are pretty slim. Yet that is what happened in mid-October, when all three covered attacks on referees in amateur and lower-league football.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Breno Vinícius Borges

A struggle to adjust to life abroad and cope with a career-threatening injury led to a dramatic fall from grace for one young Brazilian star, as Paul Joyce recounts

When Bayern Munich signed Breno Vinícius Borges for €12.3 million (£9.6m) in December 2007, they appeared to have landed a major coup. The 18-year-old central defender had just been voted “Discovery of the Year” by journalists after helping São Paulo FC to become Brazilian champions. Already an Under-20 international, Breno had been nominated captain of Brazil’s 2008 Olympic team by national coach Dunga.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Golden balls

Paul Kelly looks at how the award for the world’s best player has evolved since 1956

In Paris three years ago, after Cristiano Ronaldo became the fourth Manchester United player to win the Ballon d’Or presented by France Football magazine, Alex Ferguson was asked which Old Trafford legends he considered unlucky not to have lifted the prize. “Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs,” he replied. No Roy Keane? No David Beckham? Ferguson’s wrong side is a lonely place to be.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Balance of power

The continent’s richest clubs are attempting to wrestle wealth and influence from more traditional places, reports Alan Tomlinson

In the context of Sepp Blatter’s stated intention to push through reform of FIFA practices, various groups have been claiming to be the true voice of football, none more robustly than the European Club Association (ECA). This is the self-proclaimed “nuclear family of the football society”, the successor to the elite G-14 group established in 2000, which was expanded to 18 in 2002 and disbanded six years later.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Champagne supernova

A man with new ideas and a “clean” reputation could have a major football future, writes Steve Menary

On October 21, FIFA president Sepp Blatter unveiled a series of plans to combat the seemingly endemic problem of corruption in international football. Blatter proposed to reopen an investigation into the collapse of former marketing partner ISL, raising the possibility that senior FIFA figures could be shown to have taken bribes. Last year, FIFA paid CHF 5.5 million (£3.9m) to settle the case, but Blatter has now said: “We will give this file to an independent organisation outside of FIFA so they can delve into this file and extract its conclusions and present them to us.”

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

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