Ballo Ousmane escaped Ivory Coast after the murder of much of his family. As an MP helps him battle to stay in the UK, he isn't allowed to play non-league football even for free. Dan Brennan reports
What a time to be an Ivorian footballer in the UK. Didier Drogba is suddenly flavour of the month again at Chelsea and half of that once most English of institutions, the Arsenal back four, now hails from Ivory Coast.
Nicholas Birch meets players brought to Turkey on agents' promises that are swiftly broken
It was set to be the big grudge match: for Nigeria, the opportunity to repeat last year’s 2-0 victory; for Guinea, the chance of revenge. Then, 36 hours before the August 18 kick-off, came news of the big police swoop on the central Istanbul slum of Tarlabasi. Guinea’s entire midfield was among the 60 people arrested.
Leaving Africa can be a culture shock – especially when you think living in Poland or on the Mediterranean are much the same, as Jonathan Wilson reports
Remember Julius Aghahowa? Lightning fast, multiple somersaults whenever he scores, linked with Arsenal? After a series of explosive substitute appearances at the African Nations Cup in 2000, he was Nigeria’s great striking hope at the 2002 World Cup, but essentially football has passed him by. In six years he has gone from teenage prodigy to a 24-year-old yesterday’s man.
Steve McClaren's agent claimed that English football is the most corrupt in Europe, but from abroad it's all a matter of perception, as Gabriele Marcotti of Corriere dello Sport explains
“Who the fuck is Charles Collymore?” That’s what a well known European agent, one who has done dozens of deals in the English game, said to me shortly after 10pm on the night of the BBC’s Panorama documentary. His take, echoed by others, is that, if proved, the latest round of “bung revelations” are destined to fry a whole bunch of smaller fish, while allowing the major players to escape unscathed.
Panorama caught a few people making embarrassing statements, but David Stubbs wonders if the producers should have done better and if they were looking at the right targets
The way the BBC flagged up Alex Millar’s exposé of bungs in football like an overexcited linesman may have been an attempt to reflate the reputation of the beleaguered Panorama, or because they had struck serious dirt. The lack of advance tapes heightened the air of expectation. It was enough, evidently, to unnerve Harry Redknapp, who protested that he was an astonishing “one million per cent” clean as a whistle and any attempt to suggest otherwise would incur his legal wrath. In the event, all they had on Harry was footage of him putting up a jowly stonewall as he was offered a free trip to the 2006 World Cup to view some players. “Sounds fantastic,” he remarked, non-incriminatingly. What could he possibly have been worried about?