Tuesday 1 Steve McClaren begins his first day as England manager by saying: “It will be totally different from Sven and the past five years. I’m going to do it my way.” Liverpool’s Champions League opponents Maccabi Haifa are contesting UEFA’s plan to switch the Israel leg of their tie to a neutral venue. That man Ken Bates is to report Chelsea to the Premier League, the FA, FIFA and the World Council of Churches after claiming they recruited two Leeds youth-team players through an illegal approach. José Antonio Reyes is hoping to tie up a move to Madrid: “Real are like a candy that is difficult to turn down.” Ghana full-back John Pantsil joins West Ham.
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Stories
The top two teams in the Deloitte Football Money League are Real Madrid and Manchester Utd. But as Roger Titford finds out, the income they rely on differs greatly
We live in an era when there are prizes for everything: player of the season, calendar of the year, the best pie, the most improved website and many more self-regarding baubles. Combine this with the obsession to put a value on anything in football – press red now for a cost-benefit analysis on that through ball – and we have (hopefully tongue in cheek but probably not) the Deloitte Football Money League (DFML).
It’s not just managers who play the percentage game. The role of agents in football is once again under scrutiny, but Adam Powley wonders if the will exists within the game or the media to tackle the problem properly
Many issues have been raised by Mike Newell’s dramatic contribution to the perennial saga of bungs. But amid all the outrage, one question has barely been asked: what exactly are agents for?
Sunday 1 The SPL title may have been decided at Tynecastle, where Hearts go two up against Celtic but lose 3‑2 to two goals in the last three minutes. Celtic take a seven-point lead. Lincoln manager Keith Alexander is sent “on leave” by the club, who are 15th in League Two.
The MLS was formed two decades after the NASL finished. Graham Hughes reports that it's still going strong ten years on
The long-term significance
Twelve years after the North American Soccer League (NASL) had fizzled out, a new professional league was launched in the United States. As part of the agreement to stage the 1994 World Cup, FIFA had insisted on a “Division One” league being formed. Despite persistent financial losses and a failure to make a major impact in the American sports world, MLS has enjoyed far more stability than its chaotic predecessor and approaches its tenth anniversary in reasonably healthy shape.