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Racist incidents in games between Serbian and British sides have rightly led to condemnation – but not always of the right people, argues Jonathan Wilson. Some of the outrage is counter-productive, too

There is no subject more certain to set forth tidal waves of sanctimony than racism. Discussion has become impossible, largely because British football has been so successful in its campaign against racism that it now feels compelled to lecture the rest of the world on the subject. It isn’t helping.

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Despite the big-name signings, native players have always been the majority in Serie A, thanks in part to a highly developed youth structure. Matthew Barker reports on how “chicks” grow into “cadets”

The recent press panic that foreign players “as young as 16” were joining Premier League squads and enjoying the benefits of youth-team set-ups at the expense of home-grown talent was a little misleading. Certainly compared with their English counterparts, the average Italian 16-year-old will have been part of a centralised, dedicated training programme for at least four or five years, and many will already be fairly attuned to the notion of being a professional footballer. Foreign imports, particularly South American, may still feature prominently in the upper echelons of the Italian game, but last season 73 per cent of players in Serie A were home-grown, nearly twice the number in the Premier League.

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Arsenal are attempting to control their fans' nickname, as Jon Spurling reports

With the media gleefully fanning the flames of boardroom discontent (described as a “civil war” in the Daily Telegraph), the last thing Arsenal need is a protracted conflict with sections of their own support. Yet with the announcement that the club has applied to trademark the word “Gooner”, a damaging legal struggle could ensue. The battle over the club’s financial direction could rumble on for a long time – Arsène Wenger and chairman Peter Hill-Wood’s desire for self-sufficiency within five years is in marked contrast to the David Dein-chaired Red and White Holdings’ urge for a rapid injection of cash. The war against global capitalism in N5, however, was lost long ago. Arsenal’s plan to register a word that was coined by supporters over 30 years ago is further evidence of the club’s frequent heavy-handedness when it comes to exploiting their commercial potential.

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Cameron Carter on an attempt to get the UK watching MLS

There used to be a time when a chap’s name in the programme title meant he was central to the project. Ellery Queen, Dempsey & Makepeace, The Sooty Show – they all featured the eponymous protagonists plum in the middle of the fray. Nowadays we live in more complex times, as illustrated by Macca’s Monday Night (Setanta) and David Beckham’s Soccer USA (Five). The former was in fact presented by Angus Scott, with Steve “Macca” McManaman and Tim Sherwood invited along as pundits to mull over the weekend’s games. Now, if my name were Macca and someone told me I was going to be on a programme called Macca’s Monday Night, I’d turn up in my best jacket and trousers expecting to be introducing the thing from the master chair. While it did appear that Scott’s questions were mainly directed to McManaman and then by trickle-down effect on to Tim Sherwood to add a supplementary point, it didn’t seem that Monday Night was owned by Macca as the title suggests. At best you could say he co-owned Monday Night as a sleeping partner.

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Online reaction to David Beckham’s move to LA Galaxy wasn’t about informing readers but enraging them, believes Ian Plenderleith , part of a trend that values level of response above everything else

The internet was supposed to mean the end of newspapers. Why pay for an unwieldy item that gets ink on your hands when you can see it all on the computer for free? Yet print has survived, and not just because you can’t take your PC with you on the Tube. It’s also because the internet has developed into a medium with a ­different kind of writing.

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