Ken Gall talks to the MPs whose intervention over Danny Wilson's management of Sheffield Wednesday drew so much flak
Managers at struggling clubs quickly become inured to criticism from the media, fans and directors. Few, however, will experience a public call for their removal from a cabinet minister – the fate which befell Danny Wilson as Sheffield Wednesday’s season made the dreadful journey from bad to worse.
Football in Greece is turning increasingly ugly, tainted by both hooliganism and corruption. Paul Pomonis reports
When fans of Olympiakos used stones, lumps of wood and petrol bombs to attack a bus carrying AEK Athens supporters to their Greek Cup semi-final second leg last month, there can have been few in Greek football who were either shocked or surprised. Violence and corruption have been escalating for years and the AEK-Olympiakos feud is the most poisonous of all in the festering domestic game.
Dundee United's manager has blamed recent poor results on the disruptive behaviour of the club's fans. Ken Gall reports
“A sinking ship” is a familiar term to fans of atrophying clubs everywhere. For the rapidly dwindling ranks of Dundee United followers, however,a more appropriate analogy is that of a sinking ship opening fire on its rescuers.
Mick Slatter looks back at the highs and lows of Africa’s Cup of Nations which ended with Cameroon being crowned champions following a controversial penalty shoot-out
Maybe Victor Ikpeba will wind up wearing a brown paper bag over his head and advertising stuffed-crust pizza (or whatever the Nigerian equivalent might be). But he doesn’t deserve such ridicule. His penalty hit the crossbar and crossed the line. There was no need for video replays or freeze-frames or any other visual jiggery-pokery; it was clearly a goal. But the Tunisian referee saw it differently and his (obscured?) view cost the Super Eagles the African Cup of Nations.
With footballers receiving unprecedented levels of public attention, Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, talked to WSC about the things that keep him busy
There has been a series of violent incidents in high-profile matches lately. Are footballers getting out of control?
It’s always been difficult. We have tried all sorts over the years. We’ve worked to make sure that players know the laws of the game, we’ve got referees to visit clubs, we’ve tried to have ex-players as referees. One thing I was disappointed about over this past weekend [February 12 – involving the games at Chelsea v Wimbledon, Newcastle v Man Utd and Leeds v Spurs] is that referees lately seemed to have grasped that we were out of touch with the rest of the world and that not every foul deserved a caution. We saw some great games as a result, then the wheels came off. Someone asked me, where do you see football today, on Valentine’s day? I said, well, we don’t want any more massacres. But football is a microcosm of society. They’re saying to me “oh this is a really sad time for football” as though there is something we could do to make sure it would always be on the straight and narrow. I said we’ve had prisons since civilised society began and we’ve haven’t got less now. You can fill the prisons up but it doesn’t mean to say you’ve got law and order.