Ben Lyttleton looks at what's going on behind the glitz and glamour in Spain

Spanish football looked in a healthy state when two billion fans tuned in to see David Beckham sign for Real Madrid last month. After all, the England captain had joined the biggest club in the world to play in the best league in the world. But Beckham’s arrival has coincided with a financial crisis in the Spanish game that Catalan daily El Periodico described as: “Total ruin, immense debt, crippling of the sector, zero credibility with the banks as well as on­going investigations by tax officials.”

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Paul Ashley-Jones explains why TNS will be a force to be reckoned with in the Welsh Premier next season

When this year’s UEFA Cup draw was made, there cannot have been any greater sense of anticlimax than that felt by Manchester City when they were drawn against Total Network Solutions. Still, at least it should mean a straightforward passage into the next round for Kevin Keegan’s team, with no one really expecting an upset against a team based in Llansantffraid, a mid-Wales village of under 1,000 people. No one, that is, except Mike Har­ris, chairman and owner of TNS Football Club, who has gone on record as expressing his condolences to City for the fact that their long-awaited European adventure is to finish so soon. This is the same Mike Harris who has predicted his TNS side will become the second largest team in Wales, behind only Cardiff City, within five years.

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Neil Rose paints a sorry picture of Luton Town

I wanted to believe, really I did. I wanted to be­lieve Luton Town could become “the largest club in Europe”. I wanted to believe we would have a 75,000-seat indoor stadium that also accommodated a Grand Prix track, from which we would net a clean £200 million profit a year once Luton took its rightful place alongside Mon­aco and the rest on the Formula One cal­endar. I even wanted to believe our new sta­dium would be home to NFL and NBA fran­chises and that thousands of Europe-based Americans would travel to it.

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David Stubbs reviews David Thomas's new book on Bruce Grobbelaar's corruption trial

Some scandals never go away. Just as the News of the World is leading on match-fixing allegations about John Fashanu, out comes a book detailing the previous legal difficulties of the former Wimbledon star, along with Hans Se­gers and, above all, Bruce Grobbelaar.

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Stop this farce and have a little respect

FIFA have missed an opportunity once again. In new rules introduced for the season, players are forbidden to wear sleeve­less jerseys and there are to be no slogans or advertising on undershirts. The latter stipulation at least means that a seemingly very partial God will no long­er be thanked by an evangelical Brazilian striker on scoring his side’s fifth against Ven­ezuela. But once again, players who kiss their badge after scoring have es­caped censure.

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