Bill Shankly was not just a football manager: he was a communicator. Barney Ronay listened to his words come to life and was reminded of a thousand pale imitations

In 1997 a plaque was unveiled in Glenbuck commemorating the 55 professional footballers the Scottish mining village produced during the last century. Among them was Bill Shankly accompanied, even here, by what have become his defining epithets: “the legend, the genius, the man”. This seems to be more than just a localised view. “I watched his genius un­fold,” wrote Tom Finney in 1993. “A great man, a great manager and a great psychologist,” enthused Kevin Keegan. No mention of Shankly, it seems, is complete with­out a magisterial turn of phrase. The legend, the greatest, the granditudelissimus – when it comes to Shankly we all turn into Don King.

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Laws in Argentina have been changed to protect badly run clubs. Martin Gambarotta examines the peso, the dollar and the 'inflation effect'. 

The president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, has a dif­ficult job. The country owes bondholders from Tok­yo to Milan $90 billion (£50bn). That’s a debt no football club can equal. Argentina defaulted on that debt in 2001. Back then the entire debt of the 20 first division football clubs amounted to $291m. The coun­try was about to go up in flames and beloved football clubs were on the verge of burning with it. Boca Juniors, arguably the biggest club, had debts of 40 million pesos. But by 2002 people were asking: “Forty million what?”

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Michel Platini hopes to become FIFA president one day by campaigning against clubs' financial recklessness, explains Ben Lyttleton

FIFA executive committee member Michel Platini has launched a one-man crusade to clean up football and vowed to punish clubs that consistently spend beyond their means. “Football is a game and I will do everything I can to defend it against businessmen,” said the former France midfielder and national-team coach. “Everything has been done to take away the real value of football. These days we’re always talking about the European Commission, G-14 and the Stock Exchange. Of course the game needs money, but money must never come before the game.”

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Exeter City are trying to get to grips with their financial crisis, with potentially serious effects for all Conference clubs and football rules, as Howard Pattison writes

Watching Exeter play football may be un­rewarding, but the club’s adventures off the pitch are rich with in­cident, controversy and intrigue. Hav­ing seemingly headed off their most pressing financial worries by entering into a corporate voluntary ar­rangement (CVA) with their creditors, whereby they agreed to pay just ten per cent of their debts, they were immediately ser­ved notice of a 12-point penalty, the punishment set by the Conference at the be­ginning of the season.

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Though the extent of Leeds’ problems fluctuates from minute to minute, Duncan Young has tried to get a grip on it all

The conspicuous problem for Leeds is that not only do they not have the money to pay back their debts, they do not even have enough to maintain the obligations that must be met now. As recently revealed by chief executive Trevor Birch, a £60 milli0n loan is already secured against the stadium, a £3.5m debt is secured against the training ground and most of the key players are leased from a company in Jersey. Foot­ball finance expert Professor Tom Cannon of Checksure, an organisation that provides credit ratings on companies, describes this not unreasonably as “test­ing securitisation to its limits”. Even the status of the three valuable players that Leeds might actually own is in doubt, though selling even one would be tantamount to run­­ning up a white flag in the eyes of Leeds fans.

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