The Archive

Every August, football pretends it's going to be different and exciting with added oomph. Millions are taken in, but  Cameron Carter likes it just the way it really is, thank you

As far as I can see we fall for it every time. I don’t con­sider myself a gullible person – although I believed for some little while that the Lilt Ladies were a publicly registered company of beach vendors – but every time a new season is about to begin I see my fellows become completely excited and forget all about the pain, suffering and humiliation a year of football brings.

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Heralded as an indicator of football’s rise when launched 12 years ago, it’s the best guide to the game’s health. Roger Titford looks at this year's Deloitte & Touche report

Deloitte & Touche’s annual review of football finances is now in its 12th year. The series will offer the foot­ball historian of the future a far more accurate and detailed source for the football boom-and-near-bust years than the usual run of football/business books.

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The head of the Argentine FA is in trouble after spoiling a good record of tackling anti-semitism. But other abuse goes unchecked and unremarked, writes Martin Gambarotta

In Argentina, a bankrupt nation of 36 million people, everybody knows more than they say they know. Journalists, for example, have a habit of gathering news, usually in the form of gossip, which they rarely use in stories and often only divulge to mates at an asado, the traditional barbecue still common des­pite the economic col­lapse. Football journalists are espec­ially aware that not all the news they have is fit to print.

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Former Brazil coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo has been convicted of not paying his dues, as Robert Shaw  relates. You’d never have a dodgy national coach over here, of course

Is former national team coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo the Jeffrey Archer of Brazilian football? Both have received popular acclaim, been rumbled through du­bious assignations with women and been economical with the truth when it came to documenting their lives – in the coach’s case, taking three years off his age.

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David Beckham wasn’t England’s only footballing export this summer. Neville Hadsley looks at why Jay Bothroyd has attracted both scorn at Coventry and a transfer to Perugia

When Jay Bothroyd left Coventry City for Serie A side Perugia, he was, perhaps understandably, magnanimous. “I will miss Coventry,” he wrote on his personal website. “I hope the club get promoted this season because the Coventry fans really deserve Prem­iership football. The support at the club both home and away is fantastic.”

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