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Supporting the cause

Liverpool’s American white knights have become the focus of protests after less than a year, so fans including John Williams are dreaming of the day that 100,000 of them will buy out Hicks and Gillett

Sat, irritably, on the Kop at the recent home match against Sunderland, I hunched, as always, next to the man now charged with raising some £500 million for a Liverpool fans’ buyout from the current, unloved, American co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Rogan Taylor enjoys ambitious projects. Back in 1985, after Heysel, he formed the national Football Supporters Association to give fans a public voice that the press and the authorities might listen to, before later setting up a football MBA at the University of Liverpool. Today, he thinks this club are in even greater danger than back then, when the fans were labelled beasts and the English game seemed spent. “The biggest crisis in over 40 years,” he says. Since Bill Shankly first arrived, in fact, with Liverpool languishing in the old Second Division.

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Reporting restrictions

“…but first, the classified football results, with James Alexander Gordon.” Generations have hung on every word of Sports Report, but Csaba Abrahall  believes that the BBC is squandering its heritage

The BBC, never slow to congratulate itself on its sport coverage, devoted two hours of air time in early January to a celebration of the 60th anniversary of Sports Report, the Saturday evening results and review show currently residing on Five Live. But among the procession of presenters and personalities wheeled out to reminisce about crowding round a wireless, body tingling at the evocative theme music, there was little discussion about the challenge to the programme posed by the changing nature of the football weekend – a largely television-driven challenge that the old radio stalwart is struggling to meet.

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Gorgeous George

George Burley is the new manager of Scotland. Neil Forsyth reports on a four-way battle for the job and the challenges facing the former Southampon boss

If Scotland are to continue the renaissance of their national team following the despair of Berti Vogts’ reign, then it is George Burley who will now be leading them onwards. The Southampton manager was the selection of the SFA after a lengthy search that culminated in a shortlist of Burley, Mark McGhee, Graeme Souness and Tommy Burns. It was a quartet that failed to produce a clear favourite among fans and media, with each having decent credentials for the task without standing out.

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European unity?

Graham Dunbar reports on the formation of the European Club Association

Eight years after its creation, the G-14 is dead: long live the European Club Association. It was created at UEFA headquarters in January and hailed by its elected chairman, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern Munich, as nothing less than the “reunification of the football family”.

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Qatar finalists

Africa's talent looks to foreign shores for success, writes Tom Neate

While Africa’s finest footballers compete in Ghana, 23 13-year-old boys have won the chance to leave the continent behind. They are the winners of a mammoth and controversial talent search undertaken by the Aspire Academy. At the forefront of Qatar’s push for sporting success, the academy provides sporting and educational facilities with the aim of developing future world sporting champions. The centrepiece is the Dome, currently the world’s largest purpose-built indoor sports arena. Incorporated under the roof along with a vast array of sporting facilities is a full-size football pitch; there are an additional seven pitches outside, five of which are natural grass.

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