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Reality check

Every August, football pretends it's going to be different and exciting with added oomph. Millions are taken in, but  Cameron Carter likes it just the way it really is, thank you

As far as I can see we fall for it every time. I don’t con­sider myself a gullible person – although I believed for some little while that the Lilt Ladies were a publicly registered company of beach vendors – but every time a new season is about to begin I see my fellows become completely excited and forget all about the pain, suffering and humiliation a year of football brings.

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Friends like these

As he has a contact book that reads like George W Bush's most-wanted list, Giovanni di Stefano's decision to take over Dundee has raised some eyebrows, including those of Ken Gall

The arrival of Giovanni di Stefano on the board of directors at Dundee FC marks, depending on one’s viewpoint, either a slightly sinister turn of events for Scottish football or a unique opportunity for a provincial club to match, if not surpass, the Old Firm in financial clout. (A third possibility – that Di Stefano is in the process of perfecting some kind of alternative comedy routine – cannot be ruled out, as we shall see.)

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A late fitness test

Four years after the Football Task Force recommended them, the FA still haven't produced rules on who can and cannot own a club. James McNamara explains why

Despite their latest move to investigate an initiative designed to rid the game of opportunist asset-strippers, the Football Association have been accused of dragging their feet over introducing a Fit and Proper Persons Test (FPPT). The 1999 Football Task Force report Commercial Issues recommended the introduction of a vetting procedure for those wishing to become large shareholders in a football club, but the proposal has remained on the drawing board. On the back of recent speculation about “mysterious” foreign in­vestors circling the game, the government has hard­ened its pressure on the FA to address the matter. Following the Chelsea takeover, a source from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport reportedly told the Guardian that Tessa Jowell hoped football would introduce a "fit and proper per­sons" test in the near future. By mid August the FA’s newly formed Finance Advisory Committee (FAC) met for the first time and pledged to introduce the test at next sum-mer’s FA Annual General Meeting, ready to be implemented at the start of the 2005-06 season.

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Geography lesson

Dover soul Mark Winter believes that the dramatic changes to the non-League game outlined below will give Athletic a lot more matches he can actually go to

Imagine you spend your season in a league with just one promotion place on offer. From here, take the quantum leap to assume that there are now 13 promotion slots on offer. That is the prospect facing supporters of the three feeder leagues below the Conference, which is to get two second divisions, a north and a south, from next season. For clubs at this level, restructuring of non-League football is long overdue and some­thing to be celebrated.

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False promise

Ron Hamilton tells the story of the player that never was

A summer without football is a long, drawn-out affair for everyone. For Leeds, true to form, it’s been more than a little depressing. With the legacy of Publicity Pete’s gross financial mis­management still hanging over the club, fans have had to come to terms with a new era of parsimony at Elland Road. Thus denied the usual pre-season fun of transfer speculation (discounting the “who’s Harry’s boyhood club this week?” affair) there has precious little to do, save for the ceremonial burning of Bernie Mandic wickermen on the Headrow every sec­ond Wednesday.

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