We used to get 2000 letters a week and no one ever answered them said Crozier
"We used to get 2,000 letters a week and no one ever answered them," said Crozier. "Not surprisingly people didn't think we were doing a good job."At professional level the Financial Advisory Unit is beginning to exert some influence on the way clubs are run though there is a long way to go. Too many clubs are operated as petty fiefdoms by rich men with few restraints and, in too many cases, insufficient appreciation of the importance of their toy/investment to the community.Moves are afoot for a long-overdue increase in promotion and relegation from the Conference to the Nationwide. But the Premiership continues to be allowed to field 20 teams rather than the 18 originally planned under the FA's own FA Premier League blueprint.Relationships with the governing bodies (Fifa, Uefa) and HM Government are improving after what Crozier described as: "20 or 30 years during which they were pretty appalling" This has brought mixed results. Stronger measures to deal with hooliganism have belatedly been brought in but the FA cravenly and successfully backed the Premiership's lobbying against a supporter-orientated football watchdog. Instead the Task Force gave birth to the ineffectual Independent Football Commission.So, as with New Labour, many will regard New FA's progress as promising but with much still to do. Crozier admits he is likely to be judged most on the success of Eriksson and he needs the Swede to succeed for he has made enemies.
The former advertising executive's studied casual style masks a hardball approach which has ruffled egos. In particular the redundancies have created a constituency of disgruntled ex-employees - he admits "there were a number of relationship bruises" - and others within an often insular sport have taken umbrage at such influence being exerted by an "outsider". However, having spent most of the 20th century acting as if they believed it was still the 19th, the FA is at least attempting to move with the times.. Police have arrested a spectator for throwing a firecracker at a lineswoman during Thursday's French First Division match between Strasbourg and Metz. "My first reaction is one of sadness," said Patrick Proisy, the Strasbourg president, yesterday. "The person was arrested and is currently held for questioning." Police have arrested a spectator for throwing a firecracker at a lineswoman during Thursday's French First Division match between Strasbourg and Metz.
"My first reaction is one of sadness," said Patrick Proisy, the Strasbourg president, yesterday. "The person was arrested and is currently held for questioning." The match was abandoned after 66 minutes when the lineswoman Nelly Viennot collapsed and was carried from the pitch after she was hit by the firework. Proisy said he hoped for a replay but, under French League rules, Strasbourg are likely to forefeit the match. A decision is expected next week.Viennot was taken to hospital immediately after the match for checks but her condition was not serious. "Nelly Viennot is feeling better, but she's shocked," said the referee, Eric Polat. "We waited to see if she could return to the match but it was not possible. We reported the incident in detail and it is now up to the disciplinary committee to make a decision."A final ruling was postponed yesterday in the trial of Tony Yeboah, the Ghanaian forward accused of disguising his income to avoid taxes while playing at Eintracht Frankfurt.
A lawyer for one of the three other defendants in the case, the former Frankfurt treasurer Wolfgang Knispel, handed in some documents at the last minute, leading to the final ruling being postponed until 4 January.Yeboah, who now plays for Hamburg, is accused of negotiating a fake endorsement deal along with two club officials and his agent to disguise his income in 1993. They are accused of defrauding the government of between two and three million marks (£610,000-£885,000) in taxes. Also on trial are Yeboah's agent, Johannes van Berk, and the former Eintracht Frankfurt vice president Bernd Hölzenbein. Yeboah has claimed that he trusted the club officials and his agent and was unaware of any illegalities in the deal.The Uruguayan striker Antonio Pacheco will join Internazionale from the Monte- video side Peñarol in the New Year on a four-and-a-half-year contract. Inter will pay around 10 billion lire (£3.22m) for his services until 2002 and will then have an option to make a second payment if they wish to keep him. Pacheco will team up with his compatriot Alvaro Recoba, who has recently signed a new contract to keep him at the Milan club until 2006.* Al Ahli have been named as the African club of the century by the Confederation of African Football. The Cairo team finished narrowly ahead of their Egyptian neighbours Zamalek after a poll of all past results of African club competitions since they began in 1965.
Points were awarded for success in the African Champions' League, the African Cup-Winners' Cup and the CAF Cup, with Ahli's five continental titles giving them the edge over Zamalek, who won the Cup-Winners' Cup final this month. The newly-crowned African champions, Ghana's Hearts of Oak, were sixth.. The Sports Minister, Kate Hoey, came under attack yesterday for advocating a debate about a return of standing areas at Premiership grounds from the relatives of the 96 Liverpool supporters killed in the Hillsborough disaster. The Sports Minister, Kate Hoey, came under attack yesterday for advocating a debate about a return of standing areas at Premiership grounds from the relatives of the 96 Liverpool supporters killed in the Hillsborough disaster. Hoey has incensed both her immediate superior in the Government, the Culture Secretary Chris Smith, and the football authorities, by claiming that "safely designed standing areas" could return to top-flight football. As reported in The Independent yesterday, the Sports Minister has already been warned by senior politicians not to go against Government policy and risks losing her job if she persists.But after examining revolutionary stadium designs from Germany, Hoey said she is willing to consider abandoning the all-seater requirements of the Taylor Report into Hillsborough. Even though this would almost certainly take the form of small areas for standing spectators, rather than the huge banks of terracing such as the old Anfield Kop at Liverpool, the mere thought of a return to the past has caused outrage among the Hillsborough families, who accused Hoey of insensitivity."We denounce her insensitivity at making her pronouncements just as we, the bereaved families, face another Christmas without our loved ones," Trevor Hicks, the chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said."Despite being 11 years on, many of us dread this family time and we have great difficulty coping with it."We challenge Kate Hoey to meet us and look us in the eyes as she attempts to explain why she is fiddling with safety in response to a vociferous minority of fans."Ironically, terraces will return to the Premiership if Fulham are promoted, as expected, next season, because they have been given time to comply with the requirements for all-seater stadiums.
