The Archive

A decade after their defeat in the Bosman case, UEFA are back with regulations they claim will promote home-grown players rather than restrict foreigners. Matthew Taylor outlines the rules and the clubs’ likely response

UEFA president Lennart Johansson clearly relishes a fight. His plans to try to restrict the number of foreign players included in squads for his club competitions from the 2006-07 season was always bound to provoke the wrath of the continent’s premier clubs. Lined up against him are most of the big hitters of the European game: the G-14 clubs and representatives of the more influential national leagues and federations. Behind them stand the financial backers, sponsors, corporate interests and media groups who have helped to make top-level European football such a lucrative business. Among the potential adversaries are those clubs who would have broken away from UEFA a few years ago had the governing body not agreed to expand the Champions League.

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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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Lower-division clubs up against the big boys have their eyes firmly on the prize these days.  the prize being financial survival rather than a serious chance of glory. David Harrison reports

Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and… well, Watford actually. The last four of the Carling Cup surely comprised precisely the mix that the sponsors would have ordered up. Three of the self-styled Big Four, plus one of those lovable minnows – lauded and patronised by the media in roughly equal proportions.

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Eighteen months after selling Chelsea, Ken Bates has kindly stepped back into the game to save Leeds – though strangely, as Duncan Young explains, not everyone at Elland Road is happy.

The outgoing board at Leeds United moaned about the complexities of doing a deal to safeguard the club, yet within days snatched at Ken Bates’ offer ahead of two other bewildered consortiums who were poised to make bids after painstaking analysis of the books. As the dust settles only one person has resigned, citing the complete irres­ponsibility of it all. John Boocock, chairman of the supporters’ trust, clattered Ken from behind and, sensing the exile that would follow, carried on straight down the tunnel as his senior colleagues lined up to disassociate the trust from his views.

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Steve Menary tells us why Australian constructors Multiplex may be cursing the name Ken Bates for years to come

So, Ken Bates, why is one of Australia’s biggest construction companies rebuilding Wembley Sta­dium? Leeds’ saviour knows only too well as he was the Football Association’s choice to find a contractor for the job. With strike ballots, delays, pollution fines and a High Court battle, Multiplex could be forgiven for wishing they had stayed in New South Wales.

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