Wednesday 1 Chelsea, Ashley Cole and Jose Mourinho are found guilty of meeting in a hotel for immoral purposes and face fines totalling £600,000, with Chelsea also receiving a suspended three-point deduction; all will appeal. “The public don’t expect players to move just at the drop of a wallet,” warns David Dein. Darren Bent joins Charlton for £3 million.
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Stories
Robbie Meredith reports on how teams from the Republic and Northern Ireland are warming up for a new cross-border competition with some amicable friendlies
Appropriately, in an island awash with mythology, the most enduring myth in Irish football is about to be exposed to reality. For a number of years an all-Ireland competition has been prescribed as the cure for the moribund state of domestic football in Ireland, north and south. Now, for the first time since the cross-border Blaxnit Cup was abandoned 25 years ago, competitive all-Ireland football is returning.
Paul Doyle hails Shelbourne's Champions League exploits
To get an idea of Shelbourne’s standing in Europe until recently, consider the sheer contempt with which Croatia’s Hajduk Split prepared for their crucial Champions League second-round clash with the League of Ireland winners. Victory would set up a glamour clash with the mighty Deportivo La Coruña and Hajduk were so convinced that honour would be theirs that Shels manager Pat Fenlon claimed his Croatian counterpart simply blanked him when the draw was made in Switzerland and instead went straight up to the Spanish team’s officials to make arrangements.
Sunday 1 Mark Palios resigns, saying: “My action is essential to enable the Football Association to begin to return to normality.” Sven gossip-broker Colin Gibson is also reported to have offered to quit. At this rate Tord Grip will soon be answering the phones.
And you think rebuilding Wembley was a saga. Paul Doyle reports on the homelessness crisis that could bring the Republic of Ireland to a ground nearer than you would think
Can Irish football recover from its current crisis? A nation that was last year trying to convince the continent it should co-host Euro 2008 is set to admit that it cannot, in fact, host its own home matches.