The Archive

Europe's big guns are pushing for reimbursement for releasing players for internationals. Steve D Wilson assesses their chances for success

Meaningful internationals are back this month with the resumption of World Cup qualifying. Each round brings murmurs from Europe’s leading clubs about reimbursement for releasing players. The G-14 group have been leaning heavily on FIFA, saying that as compensation national FAs should pay the players salaries for the duration of major international events and have threatened to take legal action if the ruling bodies refuse to negotiate. Their argument is that they make huge expenditures turning players into recognisable names, then see them use that status to create huge revenue for someone else.

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Malcolm Glazer is back for more at Old Trafford, but all he seems to have achieved so far is to build an opposing alliance between board and fans. Ashley Shaw reports

I am sure Malcolm Glazer thought it would be easier than this. In launching his bid for Manchester United he has unwittingly galvanised the club’s fans, management, directors and playing staff into an effective opposition. Has there ever been a precedent for a hostile takeover overcoming such overwhelming odds in football or any other business?

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Ben Lyttleton looks at the corruption scandal rocking Turkish football

Turkey’s national coach Ersun Yanal has been forced to deny allegations that he received illegal payments for fixing matches when he was Ankaragucu coach four years ago. Yanal claimed the accusations against him, made by former Ankaragucu player Cafer Aydin, were part of a plot to oust him from his current post. Yanal is under fire for poor results since replacing Senol Gunes as Turkey coach. The side that finished third in the last World Cup are looking unlikely to qualify for the 2006 tournament: they are currently fourth in Group Two, eight points behind leaders Ukraine. “It is very clear that this has been done for certain purposes,” said Yanal. “I have never been involved in any such dealings.”

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Referee Robert Hoyzer has caused chaos in Germany by admitting that he fixed matches for sex, money and high-value electrical goods, as Paul Joyce reports

Bribery scandals have rocked German football before, not least during the 1970-71 season when more than 50 players were discovered to have manipulated the outcome of Bundesliga matches. Few be­lieved, however, that the man in the middle could be involved in match-rigging until January 2005, when 25-year-old referee Robert Hoyzer admitted receiving €67,000 (and a plasma TV) for fixing the results of four matches, and attempting unsuccessfully to influence the outcome of two others.

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The sun shines on the football in Leith these days, as Tony Mowbray’s young side have become Scotland’s latest third force. But can they build on current success? Dianne Millen reports

Every team in Scotland outside the Old Firm is allowed to have what the papers normally refer to as a “bumper season” – a concept depressing in its acknowledgement that no club can hope to actually claim the real honours. Seven years ago, improbably, it was St Johnstone, now of the First Division, who claim­ed the “third force” honours. Four years ago it was newly promoted Livingston who, rather than dutifully struggling against relegation, instead storm­ed to third place and Europe. Since then, the club with the most credible claim have been the consistent if somewhat stolid Heart of Midlothian, the only club to finish in the lucrative half of the laughable “top six-bottom six” league split every year since it was introduced. This season, however, the third force-elect are their Edin­burgh neighbours, Hibernian. Their youth-fuel­led renaissance under ex-Ipswich man Tony Mow­bray hints that, for the first time in years, genteel Edinburgh may be rising again as a footballing city to challenge its western cousin.

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