Villa's autocratic chairman, as seen by Brad Woodhouse
Distinguishing Features: Aside from the Mr Whippy wavy quiff (and a faint air of campness), he looks like any other 73 year-old self-made West Midlands businessman – rotund, besuited, drives a Rolls Royce with personalized number plate (AV 1).
On the first anniversary of the Bosman judgement, Tim Springett wonders whether English football is fully aware of what effects the case may still have
It is a year since Jean-Marc Bosman obtained judgment at the European Court of Justice to the effect that transfer fees for footballers signing for clubs in other European Union states at the end of their contracts were in contravention of European Union law. At the time there were many who predicted disaster; it was seen as a further seismic shift in the balance of power in favour of the richest clubs, placing the very survival of smaller outfits in jeopardy.
Bribe scandals are the in thing in European football, not least in Portugal, as Phil Town reports
FC Porto may have cruised comfortably into the last eight of the Champions League, but their apparent health and vigour belies a domestic game lurching from scandal to scandal.
Mark Wenham looks at the causes of the riot at a Bristol derby match
The events of December 15th may have caused eyebrows to be raised nationally, but for anyone who has regularly attended Bristol football derbies over the last ten years, the whole day had a grindingly predictable feel to it.
Are players from abroad really good value for money?
Just the other week someone phoned up claiming to be Frankie Dettori (“you know, off the telly”) and offering a dead cert tip for the 3.30 at Wincanton. With not a moment to lose we raced out with the petty cash tin and emptied it into the hands of the nearest bookies on a horse that, wouldn’t you know it, strolled in last. So you can appreciate that we felt for Graeme Souness a few weeks back when it was revealed that the ‘George Weah’ who phoned him up to recommend Aly Dia, a Senegalese player who played for Southampton against Leeds in mid-December, was in fact Dia’s agent, and that the player had been previously hawked around several lower division clubs.