Clubs want more power over UEFA
At a time when the Olympics, the Champions League and World Cup qualifying matches are all taking place in quick succession, the conflicting demands of clubs and national associations are making headlines once again.
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Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Saturday 2 The sensible sensation comes off the bench to score as England draw 1-1 in Paris. “Michael was disappointed to be left out but he provided the answer,” says quizmaster Kev. Michael, however, is appropriately huffy: “I don’t think I have anything to prove in international football.” Arsenal and Chelsea players on both sides are involved in scuffles during and after the match. Sadly, no one is injured. In World Cup qualifiers, Scotland beat Latvia with a last minute goal from Neil McCann (“I can only describe our first half performance as pathetic,” says Craig Brown), Wales lose 2-1 in Belarus, Northern Ireland survive a few scares in a 1-0 win over Malta. Best performance comes from the Republic of Ireland, who take a two goal lead in Holland before drawing 2-2. Roy Keane is cross: “We should have won. I am sick of hearing that the Irish have a good time whatever the result.” Walsall hold a four-point lead in the Second Division after their fifth successive win, 2-0 over Wigan. Relief at Oxford, where the last pointless team in the League break their duck with a home draw against Cambridge.
The dispute over the steamlining of non-League football is producing more bad blood than solutions, reports Gary Boswell
Observers of politics will be familiar with the ambiguous answer from a minister who has not been involved in the policy changes on which he is being questioned. There is a distinct feeling of such woollyheadedness in the current dispute over streamlining the Conference and its feeder leagues.
Refs, whines and videotape
Was that really the first week of the Premiership season, or was it an “ironic” imitation? All the familiar elements that we have come to take for granted from the shoutiest league in the world were present: refereeing controversy, managers up in arms, foreign players as victims and/or villains, and everything monitored in excruciating slow-motion by Sky.
Football's new money needs to be managed sensibly to keep the game sustainable, says Matthew Garrahan
When Alan Sugar spoke of the “prune juice effect” in his address to the Oxford Union in 1997 he was not talking about how his stomach felt after seeing Darren Anderton limp off the field for the umpteenth time. Sugar used the term – cogently and correctly – to describe the inability of professional football clubs to manage the huge amounts of money coming into the game.