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Chinese whispers

Simon Melville reports on the free phenomenom that is live football on the internet

Want to watch live Premiership football but can’t afford Sky? No cable TV in your street? Local watering hole doesn’t show those Egyptian broadcasts of the Premiership you’ve heard pubs in the East End of London have?

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Thinking man’s manager

Ron Greenwood passed away leaving behind him a distinguished career. Darron Kirkby remembers the former England manager

England’s 6-3 defeat by Hungary in 1953, their first by an overseas side at Wembley, must have been a humiliating experience. But, for one fascinated spectator, the match crystallised a view of the game that was to manifest itself in English football’s most glorious afternoon.

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City games

Steve Menary reports on the increasing shortage of City investors in football's surviving plcs

Sheffield United’s board must be pretty sure of promotion to the Premiership having turned to the Stock Exchange to raise £10.7 million early last month. A large slice of the cash is earmarked for players’ wages, but the club will plough £2.7m into a redevelopment of the corner stand at Bramall Lane due for completion in May and £1m towards buying a £4m health club in Staines. Chief executive officer Jason Rockett said: “We’re trying to create a new model for a club and produce off-field revenue with the club at the centre. It’s got to be a more sustainable business.”

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BBC and ITV World Cup line-ups

Every World Cup it seems that the pundits BBC and ITV choose are not favoured by the masses. Simon Tyers sees that yet again the likely lads and lasses have hung onto their places

This is the time of the year when the BBC and ITV heads of sport start planning out their World Cup coverage – booking commentary positions, working out who the stunt-casting studio experts will be, testing how many visual cliches they can get away with in location reports. Perhaps mindful of the forthcoming charter renewal, the BBC have moved decisively, casting Peter Reid off to Sky months after changing the locks on Peter Schmeichel’s dressing room, while ITV began their traditional mopping-up of former England personnel with Gareth Southgate’s presence on a Carling Cup night as co-commentator, which was deemed so vital he got a close-up at the start of the game.

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Truth is beauty

With the departure of Florentino Pérez, Spanish football says goodbye to one of the great moneymakers

Few recent moments in football have been more magnificent than Ronaldinho’s goal at Stamford Bridge last season. It’s a moment that bears repeating and its use in an advert for Sky is one of the few reasons to be grateful for the hype that the satellite broadcaster invests in the game. Given that Chelsea won that tie, even Blues fans can enjoy it, not least because they can hope that one day Ronaldinho will be playing for them. Petr Cech will know that there was nothing he could do about it. For Barcelona supporters, it is at least a bitter-sweet memory and (we go to press a few days before the second leg of this year’s rematch) one that may have some sort of delayed happy ending. There’s one man we can think of, though, for whom that should qualify as a nightmare moment: Florentino Pérez.

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