The Archive

Boavista, the second club in Porto, have broken the domination of Portugal's big three. Phil Town tries to work out how they did it 

The old David and Goliath cliche was wheeled out for some heavy use by newspapers, TV and radio stations to describe Boavista’s title triumph, but it was a cliche well employed. Boavista are indeed dwarfed by the big three of Benfica, Sporting and Porto. In the week before the game against Aves which decided the title, Boavista proudly announced that their subscription-paying fan base had risen to a club record 15,000. This compares to Porto’s 60,000, Sporting’s 80,000 and Benfica’s whopping 115,000. Those three clubs had budgets for this season of £25 million, £20 million and £25 million respectively. Boavista’s was £4.5 million, of which just £1 million was spent on players.

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David Harrison endeavours to find out exactly who Haig Oundjian is, and discovers more than just a football man 

Distinguishing features Extraordinarily well-preserved and unquestionably handsome, but in possession of distressingly big hair. Generally, every bit as smooth as a chocolate sandwich. Better looking – hell, younger looking – than the entire back four. And that can’t be right, can it?

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Roger Titford looks at the progress of Supporters Direct, the government scheme set up to help fans play a role in running their clubs 

“Who rules the game?” In an attempt to answer that age-old question, here are two extracts from the leading football fanzine of the day. “It is clear where the way to democracy lies but it will only be followed as part of the road to socialism as a whole… Eventually I would like to see democratic supporters’ associations withdraw paying support at the turnstiles in order to force financial crises on the boards until democratic control is handed over to them.”

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FIFA's favourite marketing company, ISL, is in trouble. Alan Tomlinson assesses the damage its demise may do to the world governing body and its leader.

Jean Marie Weber is a tall, imposing man with a mane of white hair. At most big world and European football tournaments and a number of Oly­mpic Games he’s been there, patrolling in the back­ground, making sure the big sponsors are secure in the swankiest hotels of the world’s glitziest cities. He looked pleased in the Paris convention hall in 1998 when Sepp Blatter strolled to election victory to take the FIFA presidency.

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Greece escaped a FIFA threat to throw them out of the World Cup at the end of April. Paul Pomonis explains how they got in such a mess

When the newily appointed junior minister of sport Giorgos Florides declared his intention “to intervene institutionally and dynamically in football” in March 2000, few people took notice. A year later the Greek FA was seriously threatened with expulsion from FIFA. Florides, a 44-year-old lawyer, took over his post with the aim of achieving the often announced katharsi (cleaning up) of Greek football. It soon became obvious that for him katharsi meant the removal of Victor Mitropoulos, head of EPAE, the Greek FA.

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