Search: ' Port Vale'

Likelihood is that Premiership newcomers Crystal Palace will be heading back to the Football League come May. Matthew Barker explains why a power struggle at Selhurst Park isn't going to help

Simon Jordan can be a difficult man to like, but equally one can easily feel rather sorry for him. This, after all, is the man who arrived at Selhurst Park in 2000, sorted through the rubble of the Mark Goldberg era and pulled the club through one of their darkest hours. A seemingly bright young thing, he spent money – lots of it (most estimates home in at around the £30 million mark) – and brought a new zippy business sense to a place that had barely survived the previous two years of calamitous mismanagement and misjudged transfer dealings.

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With Mark Hughes on his way out, Steve Bidmead looks at the main contenders competing to succeed the now-Blackburn Rovers boss as manager of the Welsh national team

“If that had happened to me I’d have been slaughtered by the media,” complained Sven-Göran Eriksson on learning that Mark Hughes had taken the Blackburn Rovers job and would be part-time Wales manager for the World Cup qualifiers against England and Poland. But there were vital differences between the two coaches. Not only had Hughes avoided controversy in his private life, he had also carried his team as far as he realistically could, enjoying comparative success. The timing could have been better, but fans understood his departure was on the cards. Beating Italy 2-1 in Cardiff in 2002 is his epitaph, rocketing Wales from non-League to Premiership.

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Despite UEFA clearing the oligarch of a conflict of interest, Roman Abramovich still has significant influence at Chelsea's Champions  League oppenents CSKA Moscow, writes Kevin O'Flynn

The story may sound familiar. A wealthy Rus­sian benefactor invests huge sums in a football club, outstripping league rivals by millions and hiring a Portuguese European Cup-winning coach to take them to Champions League glory. This is not Chelsea, however, but Russian champions CSKA Moscow. The money smells the same; of Russian oil and Roman Abramovich. Despite UEFA clearing the Chelsea owner of a conflict of interest, some are still asking whether the billionaire or his associates are trying to create two super-clubs. The similarities between the two stories received wider attention when CSKA were drawn against Chelsea in the Champions League – no one is allowed to have a majority stake in two clubs in the same competition – but the connections had long been known in Russia.

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Corruption scandals in the domestic game are overshadowing the national team's fine form, writes Sam Beckwith, our man in a car park with an envelope of cash

Euro 2004 aside, it’s a depressing time to be a Czech football fan. Away from the bright lights and big names of the national team, a year of bribery scandals has offered a shocking glimpse of just how corrupt the domestic game might be, with clubs that don’t bribe officials seemingly the exception rather than the rule.

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There were more than one team of football winners in Athens, though there waas some squabbling over what Iraq's achievement means, reports Matthew Brown

For a nation that supposedly fell in love with the game this summer, Greece seemed strangely indifferent to the Olympic football tournament. Per­haps they simply needed a break after all that Euro 2004 euphoria, but many matches at the Olympic Games were played out in front of virtually empty stadiums. In general the crowds rose above 20,000 only when Greece were playing or if the game was held in Athens itself. In some cases, the attendances barely rose above 5,000 and in others were fewer than 1,500.

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