Which would you choose, Brighton or Moscow? As Julian Daniels reports, the former Manchester United winger opted for the latter and he will probably be regretting it now
When Andrei Kanchelskis signed a one-year-deal with Dinamo Moscow in January, he was instantly named club captain. It seemed like his nine-month exile from the game had ended in style. However, within weeks it had turned into a nightmare.
What is the easiest route into management? Ask Claude Anelka, who has just bought Scottish First Division side Raith Rovers. Neil White looks at what to expect from the club's new manager/owner/benefactor
A dangerous precedent has been set at Raith Rovers. Where once wealthy investors were content with puppeteering from the boardroom, the Scottish First Division club have let their latest benefactor into the dugout. And this is no ordinary benefactor. This is Claude Anelka, the brother of Nicolas and the man much vilified for his role in brokering the £22 million deal that took his sibling from Arsenal to Real Madrid in 1999. Since then, Claude has flitted between homes in London and Miami, before deciding that true happiness lies in the sleepy Fife town of Kirkcaldy.
With Euro 2004 and the G-14 slumping in the Champions League, it's time to send European football for a medical. To assess the game in their own countries and across the continent, Andy Lyons talked to Spanish journalist Guillem Balagué, Holland's Ernst Bouwes and France's Xavier Rivoire
This season’s Champions League last four contains only one G-14 club, Porto. Would they still consider a league of their own if their members were to fail regularly?
GB The new format is a compromise. It protects the big clubs, gives them second chances, while keeping the number of matches down. But the G-14 are not united. Real Madrid want to take one direction, Man Utd and Bayern want to do something slightly different. There is a new middle class coming in – Lyon, Valencia – who may decide differently. Bayern also wanted to stop Depor getting in to the G-14 because they fell out over the transfer of Roy Makaay. The Depor president, Augusto César Lendoiro, was one of the first to say clubs should be paid when players go on international duty. He will try to make it an enclosed league – and that sort of thing has been stalled.
Dear WSC
There’s something that’s puzzling me about this year’s title race. In every previous season when Manchester United have been trailing by a stack of points Alex Ferguson has talked about the opposition “doing a Devon Loch”. This season he hasn’t mentioned that unfortunate horse once, though. It’s almost as if he’s lost all enthusiasm for racing.
Chris Front, Redcar
The terrorist attacks in Madrid led to the election defeat of the Spanish government and left football uncertain when to play and how to pay its respects, writes Phil Ball
It’s not often that sport takes second, even third, place in the ranking of things in Spain, but the deaths of almost 200 people in Madrid on Thursday March 11 reduced football’s normal role as the country’s protagonist to the status of awkward bystander.