MLS has abandoned the Americanisms in soccer to please supporters familiar with the game as it is played across the rest of the globe. Mike Woitalla reports

When Major League Soccer kicked off for its fifth season last month, there were a number of new rules for the fans to get used to. For once, however, they were intended to drag the US back towards the mainstream of world football. Arguments over the rules in the MLS date back to a meeting in New York some years ago. Those present plot­ted the return of a professional league in 1996. And they believed in enlarging the goals.

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Poor management, failed takeovers and petty squabbling – the struggles facing Cardiff City, West Bromwich Albion, Oxford United and Barnet

“It is almost as if the club has forgotten how to do anything successfully,” one recent visitor to a Cardiff City internet bulletin board re­marked. That includes selling it to a member of the Sullivan family, which has been a reg­ular agenda item since the early 1990s, when David Sullivan first expressed an inter­­est.

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Football in Greece is turning increasingly ugly, tainted by both hooliganism and corruption. Paul Pomonis reports

When fans of Olympiakos used stones, lumps of wood and petrol bombs to attack a bus carrying AEK Athens supporters to their Greek Cup semi-final second leg last month, there can have been few in Greek football who were either shocked or surprised. Violence and corruption have been escalating for years and the AEK-Olympiakos feud is the  most poisonous of all in the festering domestic game.

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Dundee United's manager has blamed recent poor results on the disruptive behaviour of the club's fans. Ken Gall reports

“A sinking ship” is a familiar term to fans of atrophying clubs everywhere. For the rapidly dwindling ranks of Dundee United followers, however,a more appropriate an­alogy is that of a sinking ship opening fire on its rescuers.

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The new Wembley may be bigger, better and more beautiful, but supporters will still struggle to see their clubs' play

The punishments handed down to Leicester City players and officials over the sale of their 1999 Worthington Cup final tickets seem a bit random. Andy Impey received a five-year ticket ban and was fined £20,000 for selling ten tickets to Tottenham fans, while Tony Cottee got a three-year ban and a £12,500 fine, even though 35 of his tickets got into the hands of Spurs supporters.

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