The problem with a campaign to clean up sport's governing bodies is knowing where to start, as Steve Menary reports
Anti-corruption coalition Transparency International has put together guidelines aimed at stamping out corruption in international sport, including football.
Few countries were as desperate for a lift from the World Cup as Trinidad & Tobago, whose team provided some much needed national unity, as Mike Woitalla explains
XTrinidad & Tobago defender Marvin Andrews was 12 years old the last time his country came close to qualifying for a first World Cup. The Caribbean twin-island nation needed to draw against the United States in Port of Spain on November 19, 1989. Dwight Yorke, who had turned 18 two weeks earlier, started in midfield. Schools lifted their dress codes so the children could honour “Red Day”. The 30,000-strong crowd at Hasely Crawford Stadium looked like a scarlet blanket. Calypso bands played tunes about going to Italy. The Mighty Sparrow sang: “I never know Trini did love football so.” Lincoln Phillips, a former T&T national team goalkeeper, said: “It’s crazy. It’s the first time in the history of the country that everybody has gotten behind one thing.”
Harry Kewell's hair might be pony, but after 32 years Australia are back at the World Cup and, as Mike Ticher reports, it's not just soccer diehards who are celebrating.
Some things are hard to forgive. For example: planning a ticker-tape parade to celebrate winning one World Cup qualifier, on penalties; inviting John Travolta on to the pitch and into the dressing rooms; 80,000 people booing the visitors’ anthem; banners and chants proclaiming “U R gay”; Harry Kewell’s double ponytail; playing Men at Work at full volume after the final whistle.
Have Roman's billions bought Chelsea millions of fans? It depends what you mean by "fan", as a sceptical Adam Powley explains while calculatng which are our best-supported clubs
Of all the many eyebrow-raising comments Chelsea’s chief executive Peter Kenyon has made in his eventful career as a football mover and shaker, one of his more surprising claims barely caused a ripple. Last spring, when welcoming Chelsea’s new sponsorship deal with Samsung, Kenyon proclaimed: “In the last 12 months, our domestic fan base has increased by 300 per cent to 2.9 million.”
Paul Gascoigne becoming manager of Kettring sounds like an April Fools joke or a publicity stunt, but, as Toby Skinner reports, the man behind the appointment means business
A month into Paul Gascoigne’s first spell as a manager, things are looking rosy at non-League Kettering Town. The team have been solid since Gazza took charge and have lost only once in the Conference North. The FA Cup defeat to Stevenage saw this century’s highest attendance at Rockingham Road – almost 4,500, compared to the usual 800 or so – and was followed by the slightly over-awed players receiving new boots and the team getting new balls.