Owning your country's biggest club is a sure-fire way to boost public profile, or even become president. Simon Cotterill explains

For all the allegations, infidelity and plastic surgery, the most surprising aspect of Silvio Berlusconi’s time as Italy’s prime minister is his ownership of AC Milan. It’s not surprising that he finds the time – the mystery is why the fans of Inter, Juventus and all other rival teams don’t form a significant political resistance. Were a Premier League chairman to run in an election, most rival club fans would surely put political preferences aside and vote against him.

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Maidstone United hoped that the sale of a talented young player would allow them to return home. As John Bunyard explains, this hasn't happened

I first saw it one Saturday as I walked down the side of the Sittingbourne pitch. It was best described as a half-Fellaini: an attempt at an afro curtailed by an over-zealous barber. It sat atop the head of the kid deputising for our regular centre-back, absent for the unlikely reason of being under arrest on a charge of attempted murder. Though a tall lad, he looked too young to buy a drink.

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Dermot Corrigan reports on the very different approach of a club bucking the trend of financial chaos in the League of Ireland

The self-made millionaire who takes over a football club, bringing initial success followed by disappointment and disaster, is a stock character in football, as fans of English clubs as disparate as Chester City and Crystal Palace know well. But the story of Wexford Youths and Irish property developer/philanthropist/philosopher Mick Wallace is different. Or so it seems anyway.

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A club's sudden demise has left many fans angry, or worse, suspicious. Saul Pope sheds some light on events in Russia's capital

At this year’s New Year celebrations, FC Moscow fans toasting their side would have been looking forward to the new season. The club had finished in the top six the previous year, was in the semi-final of the Russian Cup and had a promising young manager in Montenegrin Miodrag Božović. But in early February they suddenly found themselves without a club after their main investor announced they were stopping sponsorship and removing the club from the league. This sponsor is Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest producer of nickel, based in Taimyr, a peninsula 6,500 kilometres from Moscow.

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Adam Powley takes in the story of a footballer and soldier who broke race and class barriers but is yet to be officially recognised

The experiences of one of British football’s black pioneers, and his courageous efforts to overcome adversity and break down barriers both in sport and the armed forces, has long merited an in-depth study. Now campaigners hope that a new book about Walter Tull will add impetus to the calls for him to receive the posthumous military honour his bravery deserved.

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