Marseille's late owner has left the club with a legacy of big investment but underachievement, as James Eastham reports

Did Robert Louis-Dreyfus die an unhappy man? In his role as owner of Olympique de Marseille, he was certainly unfulfilled. The Franco-Swiss billionaire (rated the fifth richest man in France this year, with a family fortune of €7 billion) passed away on July 4, 2009, succumbing to the leukemia he had suffered from for more than a decade. He became OM’s owner on December 14, 1996 but failed to win a single trophy during his 12-and-a-half-year reign. Marseille came close on several occasions – runners-up in the French League three times (1999, 2007 and 2009) and losing finalists in the UEFA Cup (1999 and 2004) and French Cup (2006 and 2007) – but are still seeking their first piece of silverware since 1993.

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Relegation, a much-loathed owner and an uncertain future. Dermot Corrigan examines troubled times at Real Betis

Since Real Betis’s relegation on goal difference on the last day of last season, the club’s fans have been directing waves of anger and frustration at the club’s majority shareholder Manuel Lopera.

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Visits to exotic climes are nothing new for English clubs. Simon Hart charts a trailblazing trip a century ago

"The pioneers of football in foreign lands.” It sounds like a slogan dreamed up by some Premier League executive bent on selling the “39th game”. In fact these were the words of Everton director EA Bainbridge describing the ground breaking tour of Argentina and Uruguay jointly undertaken 100 years ago by his club and Tottenham Hotspur. The duo made history by facing off in Buenos Aires in the first  match played between two professional teams in Latin America.

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In his new book The Manager, Barney Ronay looks back to the early 1990s and hears from Graham Taylor what life was like for him and his family –  hounded by the media and victims of an angrey new mood of public "disappointment"

Graham Taylor was England manager from 1990 to 1993. He took England to one tournament and narrowly missed out on another. Still, the defining images of his reign are all variations on the theme of excruciating failure. Taylor was not a showman, a big personality or a silk hat impresario, yet he remains one of the most famous of all England managers. Perhaps this is because his appearance coincided with the England manager, whoever the England manager might have been, becoming wider public property for the first time, in the same way the actor playing James Bond is, or the host of the Radio One breakfast show or the Minister for Pensions. And make no mistake Taylor was huge in his time.

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A fans favourite and a proven winner, Bobo Balde spent half of his Celtic career languishing on the sidelines, as Jules Brandon remembers

This summer, Celtic finally bid farewell to their Guinean defender Bobo Balde. His eight years at the club made him one of Celtic’s longest serving players of recent times, and one of the most successful, with ten medals to his name. He was a key member of the team that reached the 2003 UEFA Cup final (he was sent off in extra time), and the same season fans voted him Celtic Player of the Year.

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