The spirit of the game is being lost at junior level, but there is an alernative says Owen Amos

On the Northern Echo’s sports site, the sports editor recently wrote about an advert the paper was asked to place. “Under-10s team seeks experienced goalkeeper,” the advert said. It was, the sports editor said, by no means the first: every week, under-nine, ten, and 11 sides are seeking “proven players”. Winning is all. “Do the kids have to send a CV?” he asked, “or get their agent to submit a DVD to stand a chance of making it?”

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Trevor Brooking is unhappy about the attitudes pervading youth football and, based on his own experiences, Barney Ronay can see his point

Trevor Brooking, who has turned out to be an unexpectedly evangelical FA director of coaching, has talked a lot over the last month about the “golden age of learning” between the ages of nine and 13. The FA have identified this as the crucial window for football skill-cramming, the period that decides whether or not you’re going to be a Velcro-touched master of the chest-trap.

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A desire for independence is leaving Moldovan football strong hold Transdniestria isolated, writes Mark Gilbey

It’s almost the midway point in Moldova’s Divisia Nationala and one team is way out in front, as always. League leaders Sheriff Tiraspol have won the past eight Moldovan championships despite being based in Transdniestria, a pro-Russian separatist state in this country that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

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A spate of death threats, with bullets sent in the post, is hurting the image of football in Holland. Derek Brookman reports

Many people, if asked to choose an appropriate adjective for Dutch society, would plump for “tolerant”. We all know about the views on prostitution and soft drugs, and the country also has a centuries-old tradition of welcoming those deemed not to ­conform elsewhere.

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French football is in need of a financial facelift and, writes James Eastham, they've come up with a familiar looking scheme

Raymond Domenech’s questionable managerial abilities made 2008 an awful year for France’s national team, but in November the state of the club game became the source of most navel-gazing tension, with the publication of the Besson Report. Written by politician Eric Besson and commissioned by national rugby coach-turned-sports minister Bernard Laporte, it was a seven-month study into how to make French football more competitive.

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