The murder of Davor Suker’s business partner last month has thrown the spotlight on a web of intensive wheeler-dealing within the game, as Jules Brandon explains

Davor Suker, once of Real Madrid, Arsenal and West Ham, has made front page news in his native Croatia recently but not for footballing reasons. In the early morning of June 11, Suker’s business partner, Dino Pokrovac, 43, who represented more than a dozen Croatian players, was shot several times at the entrance to his apartment in the affluent Zagreb suburb of Sigecica. Evidence at the scene suggested that the murder had been meticulously planned and the general belief is that it must have been football-related. A wallet that Pokrovac always carried with him, said to contain the names and addresses of his many debtors, was stolen. According to police reports, the debtors owed the deceased various amounts up to several hundred thousand euros. Suker, who flew in from London to be questioned for three hours the day after the murder, is among 20 people to have been interviewed so far.

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Ian Plenderleith finds a Bob Paisley site that eloquently describes one legend’s achievements and a Brian Clough site that allows another to speak for himself. But the managers of today have a poor spokesman

In Germany, the man named as a club’s manager actually manages a team, while the coach is the coach. In the UK, it’s the manager who coaches, while the coach nods and hands out the training bibs. The traditional workplace definition of “manager” as a dour, incommunicative bloke with no personality doesn’t apply to domestic football (Kenny Dalglish aside), which makes it surprising that there are thousands of sites devoted to players, but very few to managers.

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There is a world outside of FIFA. Steve Menary reports on plans for a world cup of "non-countries"

The breakaway republic of Northern Cyprus is set to host the first ever world cup for nations that don’t exist. Recognised only by Turkey, which invaded the Mediterranean island in 1974, Northern Cyprus will host the 16-team Viva World Cup in November 2006.

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Ugly commercialism aside, Paul Joyce hails the pleasing diet of positive football at the Confederations Cup as well as tentative signs of revival in the German national side

As a dry run for next year’s World Cup finals, the 2005 Confederations Cup had many positive aspects. Not among them, however, was the rampant commercialism that included the sponsoring not only of the 22 player escorts who accompanied the teams onto the pitch, but also of the child carrying the referee’s tossing coin. All vestiges of local cuisine had been removed from the five stadiums. Gone too was FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s original intention of dedicating the tournament to Cameroon’s Marc-Vivien Foé who died of a heart attack at the 2003 Confed-Cup in France.

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David Ogilvie’s only regrets about Stirling Albion’s finest hour are that he wasn’t there and that he has never seen the 20th goal. And yes, you read that right

In a year when Liverpool won the European Cup and Scotland’s rugby team won the Grand Slam, and in the month that Bob Geldof went from being a pop singer to the man behind Band Aid, an unremarkable football club also made headlines nationwide.

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