Search: 'Ajax'

Ian Farrell follows the tetchy career of a player highly rated by Johan Cruyff, but who proved to be an unsatisfactory replacement for Jason Wilcox

Depending on how sympathetic you are towards them as a species, Richard Witschge is either a ty­pical Dutch player or the sort that unfairly gives them a bad name. Arrogant, outspoken, not quite as talented as he thinks he is and ultimately destined to underachieve big time. Mix these characteristics with the flop­py hair, three-day stubble and permanent sulk of a long lost Gallagher brother, and the result is no British manager’s idea of a trouble-free pro.

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Kasper Steenbach recounts Brian Laudrup's short and unhappy spell at Chelsea in 1998

Overall, Brian Laudrup is today a happy man – he lives with his family at an exclusive address on the coast north of Copenhagen and turns out as a striker for the local amateur team. The chief executive of FC Copenhagen, Flemming Østergaard, is also happy. He heads virtually the only European club that is presently in­creasing in value on the stock market. Since he took over in 1997, the club has been turned into a big name in the entertainment business, having hosted the Eur­ovision Song Contest and a Mike Tyson fight. And, above all, he runs a club that has succeeded in attracting the support of most football fans in Copenhagen for the first time in recent history.

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In an edited extract from the new WSC collection, Always Next Year 4, Alex Anderson agonises over how to respond to the racism of his fellow Rangers fans

I really don’t have a lot of time for Dianbobo Balde. As far as I’m concerned, he is to the art of defending what Reggie and Ronnie Kray were to Neighbourhood Watch schemes. It’s just a matter of time until he does some ser­ious damage. Oh, and he plays for Celtic. And I sup­port Rangers, so there’s that whole contractual thing.

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Last summer we interviewed a confident David Burns, the Football League's chief executive. Since then his member clubs suffered the collapse of ITV Digital, while rumours persist that Celtic and Rangers will be asked to move south. So we went back to find out how he viewed the situation after a turbulent season

The Football League has called on the government to intervene in the ITV Digital dispute. What exactly do you believe they should do?
I think that the government can and should do more. I have made it clear to Tessa Jowell, the secretary of state for Cul­ture, Media and Sport, that the government should con­­demn the action of Carlton and Granada, yet they refuse to do so. They could have a full enquiry con­ducted by the regulator – the Independent Television Commission – and they could stop giving cash to Carlton and Granada by way of what’s called the digital dividend. These broad­casters, for every viewer they get transferred over on to a digital platform, whether it’s satellite or cable, get a tax-free sum, a rebate against what it costs to be a public service broadcaster, which for the ITV network is £400 million a year. Over the next ten years they can earn up to £320 million of that back through rebates. On Carlton and Granada’s own fig­ures, between 2001 and 2010, which is the period the government set for the switch over from analogue, it’s worth £2 billion to them. Carlton and Granada pulling out of the League deal is nothing to do with the product itself or with them hav­ing overpaid for what they got. Because they paid the going rate at the time – in the same way that Sky did. They just decided they couldn’t run a paying chan­nel against Sky. The reasons why were poor technology, poor customer service and poor marketing. And yet they suddenly saw that they could make more mon­ey out of the digital dividend then they could through subscribers. The government could simply call the ITV companies and say: “You can forget all about the digital dividend until you pay your debt to football.” And that would also serve as a warning to other companies gen­erally, because what we’ve got here are two major FTSE 100 companies who have just walked away from their liabilities – which is almost unprecedented.

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Ian Farrell reflects on the sad trajectory of Georgi Kinkladze's career, from mistrusted genius at Man City to occasional tubby cameos at Derby

In these troubled times for football, it’s comforting to know that some things never change. The “Ellis Out” pro­tests, the fixture congestion complaints and, of course, the Winter Panic Of The Bottom Six Manager. As sure as night follows day, February sees Ginolas and Djorkaeffs arriving at the sharp end amid talk of “having a little bit of something extra” and how “he can make all the difference for us”. They are then us­ually benched within a month amid talk of being “a luxury we can’t afford” and how “this is a battle and we need warriors” as the even-more panicky manager de­cides instead to try to Colin Hendry his way out of the relegation zone. Derby under John Gregory did not dip into the Cranky Maverick bargain bin, but that’s be­cause they didn’t have to. Step forth from the sha­dows, Georgi Kinkladze.

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