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The European Union is expanding as rapidly as the waistlines of retired footballers. Al Needham puzzled over an event that brought the two together

The Europe United Masters tournament was held at the London Arena on a miserable October Sunday, wedged between the Disney Channel Kids Awards and Beauty and the Beast On Ice. It had a weird premise: the Foreign Office decided that the best way to mark the admission of ten new coun­tries to the European Union was to organise a kick­about for retired foot­ballers, some of them not exactly re­nowned for their Europhilia (one of the British Masters squad once said living in Italy was like being in a foreign country and another famously told Norway to “Fuck off”). Mind you, if you needed reminding that there have been worse ideas, we’re only a stone’s throw away from the Millennium Dome.

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UEFA's freshest plans to renovate the Champions League are yet again satisfying few. Perhaps more dangerously, they are isolating Europe's smaller nations and if the G-14 had its way, they'd be forgotten altogether

As this issue of the magazine goes to press, an unholy row seems to be brewing over the future composition of the Champions League. The self-styled G-14 group of clubs were due to meet on August 30 to discuss, among other things, UEFA’s announcement that they plan to dispense with the second group stage of the Champions League, thus reducing the amount of games played in the latter stages of the competition.

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Alan Moore explains why the Gulf kingdom is unlikely to spring many surprises at this year's World Cup, not to attract any high profile foreign players

Saudi Arabia arrived on the international scene with one of the greatest goals in World Cup history. Saed Al Owarain’s mazy run and shot against Belgium in 1994 lit the fuse for a footballing explosion in one of the most private and secretive countries on earth. But despite another World Cup qualification this time ar­ound, their third in a row, Saudi football has been in steady decline for some time.

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Thursday 1 Chelsea go out of the UEFA Cup after a 1-1 draw with Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Claudio Ranieri keeps his sunny side up: “The result went against us but it was a brilliant performance.” Leeds survive a scare in Troyes, where they lose 3-2 but go through 6-5 on aggregate. Ipswich save their best till last again, winning 3-1 in Helsingborg. Stung by rejection, Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan refuses to accept Steve Bruce’s attempt to resign as manager: “At no time will Steve be allowed to talk to Birmingham.” Bruce will not, however, be taking charge of Palace’s team at the weekend.

Friday 2 The Bishop of Oxford blesses the pitch at Oxford United’s supposedly unlucky new ground. “There was talk among some players of a sense of evil – they interpreted it as a curse,” says a church spokesman.

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With the acrimonious industrial dispute over TV money settled, John Harding sifts through the wreckage and concludes the PFA have retained important principles

On the surface this year’s PFA dispute seemed an eerie rerun of the TV cash row of a decade ago, when a similarly rock solid vote gave Gordon Taylor a mandate to secure a deal with the newly formed Prem­ier League. However, this time around it’s been a dar­ker, murkier struggle. In 1991, Taylor was football’s White Knight, who had never put a foot wrong, was the saviour of small clubs, a doughty opponent of Thatch­er and so on. There were no “dirty tricks” and no club chairmen firing off vitriolic broadsides.

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