Search: ' Bosman'

It sounds like a dream. A young man plucked from a building site and now scoring goals freely in the Football League. Scott Anthony recounts the story of Charlie Austin

When Charlie Austin swept in Swindon Town’s opener in their 3-0 victory over Leeds United it marked a truly remarkable ascent through the football pyramid. After arriving at the County Ground from Wessex League Poole Town in the summer, 20-year-old Austin has become a scoring sensation. At the time of writing he had notched 15 goals in 23 games, a ratio that bears comparison with much-hyped peers such as Jermaine Beckford and Jordan Rhodes. Austin is “constantly pinching myself”, League One defences are consistently being shredded. For Swindon promotion is a possibility, for Austin there is talk of an England Under-21 bow.

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Scott Anthony looks back on Blackburn Rovers' Premier League triumph

The long-term significance
Kenny Dalglish’s Blackburn Rovers remain the only club outside the current Big Four to win the English title since the 1992 breakaway of the old First Division. Arsenal and Chelsea not only finished below Tottenham, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, but also QPR, Southampton and Wimbledon.

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Neil Rose looks at a ruling which looks to have given clubs some power back from the players

When Andy Webster used an obscure FIFA rule to buy himself out of his contract with Hearts for a relatively nominal sum and then sign for Wigan, it was seen as a contract-breaker’s charter. But a recent ruling involving Brazilian Matuzalem appears to have restored some balance in the never-ending power struggle between players and clubs.

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There is a section of Italy that it using football as a way of campaigning for independence. Matthew Barker tells all

Last month’s European and local elections saw the Lega Nord increase its support base beyond the traditional heartland of the Veneto and Lombardy in the north-east of Italy, reaching as far down as Emilia Romagna and the northern edges of Tuscany. The Lega, seeking to break away from the national government in Rome and the Mezzogiorno south, forms a strong coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling People of Freedom party, and has been steadily winning over disgruntled voters with far-right policies based exclusively around twin obsessions of immigration and security.

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An Argentine investigation into players claiming Italian heritage could stem the flow of transfers to Europe, says Rodrigo Orihuela

In 2003, Leganés, a small Segunda División club from the suburbs of Madrid, made headlines by signing 16 Argentine players, most of whom held EU passports (Spanish clubs are permitted to field a maximum of three players from countries outside the EU). Results were bad and the Argentine businessman who bankrolled the team dropped out at mid-season, with most of the players leaving by year’s end. The Leganés case was the most extreme illustration yet of how the Bosman ruling has brought about an influx into Europe of South America players claiming EU citizenship.

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