The Archive

With growing doubts over football's dependence on TV, we asked five people from diverse areas of the game where they thought the relationship was going

Michael Dunford – chief executive, Everton
"I think the general assumption – rightly or wrongly – is that it would be unrealistic for any­one inside football to put hand on heart and say they believe that the prices paid for television rights will continue to keep rising. The general belief is that, in terms of price, we have now peaked – and once you have peaked there is only way to go.

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The traditional giants from Madrid and Barcelona are under increasing pressure from the commonsense approach of Galicia's Deportivo and Celta, says Sid Lowe

When Real Madrid beat Manchester United 3-2 at Old Trafford in March 2000, Spain’s best-selling newspaper, the sports daily Marca, threw its arms in the air and declared the players Eleven Di Stéfanos. There were no such plau­dits when Deportivo La Coruña re­peated the feat this year. Marca’s front page led on Steve Mc­Manaman’s goal ag­ainst Anderlecht two nights previously, while the coun­try’s second best seller, AS, broke the shock “news” that it would be virtually impossible to get tickets for the Madrid v Barelona derby. The Barcelona papers El Mundo Dep­ortivo and Sport are every bit as myopic.

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Tuesday 2 Nine Austrian players refuse to fly to Israel for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier. “It is far too dangerous there,” says one of them, Walter Kogler. Joe Royle says he is suing Man City for a £500,000 pay-off, on the basis that they were still a Premiership club when he was sacked in May, even though they had finished in a relegation spot.

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Dear WSC
Whilst sleeping my way through the recent Varteks v Villa game, the aftermath of a rather nasty tackle by George Boateng reminded me fondly of the late Brian Moore. On seeing the verdict of the referee, Barry Davies announced with a resigned air that “the card is red” when, correct me please if I am wrong, it was quite obviously yellow. Either dear Barry is colour blind or he’s taking it upon himself to replicate the obvious inaccuracies that Brian was regularly capable of. Trouble is, I used to laugh at the old planetarium head, but just found myself shouting “That’s crap Barry, it’s yellow” at the screen in a really irritated manner. I suppose it livened up the worst game this millennium though.
Dave Wallace, via email

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For a season at Stoke City he could do almost anything, except pass to a team-mate. Mark Blakemore celebrates a talent before it was made to conform

Earlier this season, while enduring the sight of Exeter City thrashing helplessly about in the bottom division, I beheld something won­d­rous. The opposition’s left midfielder watched a high ball as it fell over his left shoulder, cushioned it out of the air with his instep, and brought it instantly to rest in front of him. Then he immediately placed an inch-perfect pass through the middle of Exeter’s defence, enabling a team-mate to run through and sky it hopelessly over the bar, which didn’t matter be­cause his team was already 4-0 up. It was comfortably the most beautiful thing I’d seen on a football pitch in four seasons of watching Third Div­ision football.

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