With Sepp Blatter's presidency under threat, John Duerden profiles a potential candidate to succeed him

Chung Mong Joon has all the right credentials to be the president of FIFA, with extensive experience in business, politics and even football, although he has said he will not stand against Sepp Blatter this summer. Many believe he has his sights set on a higher prize, the presidency of South Korea. A successful World Cup could be the springboard he needs for that. If he does back Issa Hayatou, in May’s election in his home town of Seoul, Korea’s gain could be football’s loss.

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With Sepp Blatter on the ropes, Alan Tomlinson looks at how FIFA might reform itself

FIFA’s motto is: “For the good of the game.” The slo­gan is often parroted by the insiders in the FIFA elite, as they gloat from their luxury rooms in the world’s top hotels, or welcome you to their bunker-like FIFA House in the exclusive hillside suburb overlooking Lake Zurich, the Alpine summits across the water and the self-satisfied gloss of Zurich’s Banhofstrasse, with its top designer stores and morally dodgy banks. The FIFA elite is comfortable here. The wives of FIFA’s top brass like the lobbies and the stores. The FIFA men themselves like the loot and the secrecy.

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Major League Soccer just can't get noticed, but it's not for a certain wealthy man's want of trying, reports Mike Woitalla

The world’s 54th richest man spends his cash in various ways. He helped fund a senator who advocated hanging criminals in the street. He donated to a campaign against allowing the use of marijuana by people suffering from AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis. He sup­ported a Colorado referendum designed to prevent civil rights protection for gays. His name is Philip F Anschutz. He spends very much money on Major League Soccer.

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Carolyne Culver watches a film aimed at dispelling a myth or two

“Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend it like Beckham?” From this bizarre strap line emerges a comedy drama about women’s foot­ball that kicks many celluloid efforts about the men’s game into touch. The tale of a British As­ian teenager who outclasses her male coun­terparts in the park and has a shrine to David Beckham in her bedroom, Bend It Like Beck­ham takes two British obsessions – foot­ball and race – and produces a pacey comedy-dra­ma that takes the women’s game seriously.

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Darlington's chairman is going to unfounded lengths in a bid to break free from football. Jon Lymer reports

It used to be said that the north east was a hot­bed of football talent. These days it’s equal­ly true to say that it is a hotbed of eccentric foot­ball chairmen. In recent times the region has enjoyed a series of revelations about its chairmen, including brothel visits, cocaine abuse, High Court action and even (if you stretch the geographical parameters a bit) an alien abduction or two. But the prime mover throughout all this fuss has been Darlington’s convicted safecracker-cum-business magnate, George Reynolds.

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