Just to help- there are 42 games which means a max of 126 points in Serie B. Offsetting the 30 points penalty, going by last season, they'd need 117 points for automatic promtion, 96 points for a play-off place and 75 points would see them relegated (9 points more than the team finishing 6th got last time). There are Lazio and Fiorentina kicking around in that league as well next season...

So unlike me, you agree with Juve Manager Deschamps and think that relegation to Serie C at the end of next season is quite probable then?

Let's just say UEFA will be watching this every bit as closely as they watched the Italian Sporting Tribunal. The normal punishment for transfer irregularities has been a domestic and international ban on incoming transfers. It needs to be very serious for additional action to be taken but I don't believe for a moment that Lord Stevens dare allow even the slightest hint of Manc favouritism to tarnish his reputation. To the contrary, the way his Premiership contract/consultancy is set up, he will probably doing his utmost to nail RFW to boost his own profile. If proven, Her Majesty's Tax Inspectors and Police force are likely to be quite interested as well. I always suspected the over-rated RFW's reign would end in ignominy. Hurry up before Lippi gets another job.

Perhaps the comments which have emerged about RFW's influence and refs being intimidated at big clubs coupled with the Italian experience will result in a more robust approach from the refs this season. Then pigs might fly. Two developments - There are suggestions that Inter and Real might find that Chelsea, Arsenal, Mancs and Liverpool will get to the Serie A honeypot ahead of them. Perhaps the reason why the Mancs seem to be letting the Carrick transfer collapse is that they've seen a Kean replacement in Gattuso. AC have eyes on the UEFA Cup because the 44 point deduction leave them on 44, one point behind Empoli who are not licensed for European competition. As that license was withheld by Italian bureaucracy, it seems unlikely that the Italians/UEFA are not rectifying that situation pronto. We will see who will be right about this scandal impacting Rovers' summer transfer dealings or not.

I still think getting 96 points in Serie B is a massive ask for Juve for the reasons I've given above. Don't think they'll go down but the plans they make have to allow for a Serie C contingency. There is a chilling comment at the end of this Guardian article: http://football.guardian.co.uk/continental...1821168,00.html "It is a big business now and the big clubs can no longer leave winning to chance." That makes this not a uniquely Italian scandal. It reaches into UEFA (it was the telephone tap of a conversation about the appointment of Urs Meier for Juve v Ajax which triggered the investigation) but doesn't that statement sound very redolent of the Premiership? I still think the run of decisions favouring the Mancs against the Rovers is no accident- including three card trick's performance at OT this year in the League Cup semi-final.

You are confusing Australia with Madagascar. an easy mistake....

You are right Philly Rover- that is why I forecast that this was going to have a devastating impact on Serie A overall although AC not going down through lack of evidence (someone close to Berlusconi was efficient) doesn't make it the wipe out it could have been. Even so probably getting on for 25% of Serie A's turnover is now sitting in Serie B. Juve still retain their prawn sandwich supporters or in their case take home pizzas as nobody goes to watch their matches in the 70,000 Stade della Alpe anyway. So Juve's TV income will have a high floor through which it won't fall in terms of Juve's own TV station. However, are national and international broadcasters going to abandon Serie A just because Juve have two seasons of kick-ball in Serie B (assuming the 30 point deduction doesn't see them go down at the end of 2006/7)? I doubt it. Serie B gets minimal coverage in Italy never mind elsewhere. Next season at least, the games against Lazio and Fiorentina will be anything but formalities whilst you can imagine 16 Italian Burnleys relishing the prospect of kicking lumps out of them- 32 games where the opposition are playing David v Goliath cup tie football is not a pleasant prospect. So dropping to Serie C has to be a scenario the Juve finance director will have to have a contingency for which will constrain any planning for a rapid phoenix. And Juve are in reality at least three seasons away from European football where the other really big money is. And if G14 are true to their rules, Juve will be kicked out for being relegated. I suspect Juve's cost base is high enough for there to be real problems sustaining the club at a level where it could immediately become a force again three years from now. That is a long time for supporters to stay loyal especially as criminal processes which are open (as opposed to the closed Sporting Tribunal) are likely to start which will provide a continual drip of unsavoury revelations into the press. A lot of Juve's more distant support could well drift away under a constant barrage of shame.

Juve will lose most of their players for sure- they are not going to overcome a 30 point deduction to get promoted from Seriew B very easily when there are Lazio and Fiorentina keeping them company. Neither Fiorentina nor Lazio have the financial strength to withstand a season out of Serie A and at least two seasons out of Europe without dumping players. AC are not that good a prospect for "big club" players. Out of the CL next season and a 15 point deduction means making the CL for 2007/8 will be no formality. So who wants whom?

There was an article yesterday pointing out that between 14 and 16, British youngsters are totally mismanaged compared with France, Italy, Portugal and Germany. That could be why Rovers are picking up so many international youngsters. Trevor Brooking who is nominally in charge of youth development for the FA is reported to be on the point of resigning. The FA are coming under increasing Government pressure to implement the Burns Report or face the consequences in terms of Government co-operation. The FA blazers are predictably ignoring it whilst Barwick looks utterly discredited not yet one year into his job. The picture is bleak. As for Hibbet and Parker

It already is doing - the Mido delay. If all four clubs get relegation sentences today, 20 of their best players looking to move clubs (plus all the others wanting to jump ship to keep playing European football) is bound to impact the market Rovers are operating in. Even "just" seven players leaving Juve will shift the market.

At least we will know the decision in one long drawn out Italian interlude will be after the Italian stock exchange closes this evening. The period of not knowing has been used to reach agreement that UEFA will act based on the initial decisions of the Sporting Tribunal due to be announced at about 4.30pm UK time. So although everything will go to appeal, it seems certain that Roma will be straight into the CL group stages which could well have an adverse impact on the possibility of Mido arriving at Ewood assuming we haven't heard during the day- which seems the likeliest scenario. There is another fall-out from the scandal in that Italy's bids for European Nations in 2012 which they were favourites to win and the Olympics in 2016 for which they were no-hopers anyway are in tatters because the key bid leaders are amongst the 29 named individuals who will be receiving judgements this evening as well. As such, there is pressure for uncompromising verdicts either clearing those individuals or sweeping them and their systems out of the way. This Guardian article points to a pretty uncompromising stance coming from those close to the Sporting Tribunal. Berlusconi (AC) plea to punish individuals rather than the fans (ie the clubs) seems to have spectacularly backfired. Berlusconi going back into the Presidency of AC makes it more likely that political pressure will have been applied by the new Government to make sure there is zero leniency for AC Milan. For a slide show of players likely to be changing clubs, click on "Fancy an Italian" here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/index.jhtml There are simply too many good players who will need to move and too few "top" clubs to accommodate them for a club like Rovers not to be in prime position to benefit somehow if the verdicts are closer to the prosecutors' request than the defence's.

Aachen is just over the border- a bit like going to Burnley.

A combination of Nicky Campbell and Grahan Taylor (mind-boggling I know) have concluded that England are the new Scotland: http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/...1819094,00.html It is true and we saw it at the World Cup- no replacement right back, no replacement forwards and the third goal keeper was also Liverpool's third choice keeper. Rovers have just recruited two German Internationals to the Academy bringing the number of Germans in the youngsters to five. Add to that the recruitment of three Irish youth internationals and the Italians, English footballers have all but died out. I was struck by that list of ex-Rovers at Brum; four of them English (Dunn, Danns, Taylor, Bruce) all of whom had realistic prospects of senior representative honours but all of them having had a large enough career crisis of one sort or another to be kicking around in the fizzy pop. It seems that there is acongenital failure amongst English footballers to be able to keep their career together. How many English-born players has the transfer thread suggested the Rovers should go to target? Practically none. Meantime McLaren is adding Sir Clive Woodward to El Tel amongst his ragtag back room assemblage. It doesn't matter whether McLaren is as poor as some of us suspect, there are no English players for him to pick anyway.

I will reserve judgement until the real thing is seen. That red just slightly the wrong pan tone will look like vomited cherryade all over the shirt, shorts and socks with just a streak under the arms which was missed in the deluge. However, assuming the red is not so sickly, it is a massive improvement over last year's effort which was: - non-functional. It made the Fulham game impossible to watch when Rovers players had their backs towards us and was rightly ruled out of the White Hart Lane game - and disgustingly ugly. I'm all for going red and black halves every season.

That Birmingham Mail article (repeated here http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/mail/s...-name_page.html for anyone too lazy to scroll back to Dillo's post) seems to be very good news about David Dunn irrespective of where he is playing next season. However, looking great whilst banging 5 past Burton Albion pre-season is a bit different from Prem and UEFA football. The article does point towards Brum seeing Dunn as critical to their promotion push so I can only reiterate that any attempt to prise him away, particularly by Rovers, is going to cause a huge rumpus with the porn boys and girl. That said, so many people with reason to have inside knowledge are very convinced he's coming home and Rovers are very quiet about the inevitable mid-field strengthening signing they will make this summer. I really hope Dunn's return to health and to Rovers are both true.

Combination of things happening: 1) A desire not to deflate the World Cup win feel good factor too soon. 2) Behind the scenes attempted sentence bargaining with everyone having an opinion- FIFA, UEFA, media interests, Government, local politicians, the criminal investigators, the new management of Italian football, the four clubs involved, the four clubs who will get European places, the four clubs in Serie B that will get promoted, the club in Serie C that will get promoted, G14 etc. etc... Some will be listened to, some won't be. 3) No doubt the Italian League will want to have a ready answer for whether they will take advantage of the relegations (if it is all four) to return Serie A to 18 clubs. It only grew to 20 because of a previous mess up in Serie B a few years ago. The delay tends to point towards allowing the authorities to plan for a bigger shake-up and therefore towards guilty verdicts on all four. As I've said before, clubs have been relegated in Italian football for lesser demeanours than the charges laid against AC, Fiorentina and Lazio. The fall out from the anticipated verdicts is beginning- Juve to sell seven: http://wc2006.telegraph.co.uk/Document.asp...97-87405AF04CA7 The Times report that all of Real's £35m transfer budget will go on a Serie A clean-up of a different sort and that Ashley Cole won't find anyone willing to trigger his £16m release clause to leave Arsenal because of the glut of top flight players on the market.

Presumably he had a thorough medical like everyone else coming to Rovers but injuries/illnesses like that might have had a psychological contribution to his total loss of form. Evertonians have a fond hope he would get back to his peak like we had about Jansen. Everyone who has seen him in the last few years totally despair of him. At least Jansen's problems were physiological from the crash whereas presumably physically and reaction-wise, Jeffers is not impaired. If, and this is big IF, Sparky and co work a miracle for Jeffers, at least the press will be quick to remember his scoring exploits for the u-21s and on his debut and, thus far, one and only full cap. That alone will put Jeffers into the England frame quicker than say Kevin Davis would be if he has a good season at Bolton.

Isn't the World Cup minimum 30,000 with 40,000+ preferred? Obviously holding World Cups in large countries has its logistical drawbacks- South Africa is huge but Australia is another matter altogether. Including Perth as a venue in European terms would be like having the World Cup in Germany with a few games played in the Siberian cities with German-speaking populations.

The crunch in this world cup came with the coaches who fell into three categories- Those who organised and inspired their teams to out-perform: Italy Germany Portugal Ecuador Australia Those who organised and motivated their teams to under-perform: Argentina Brasil England The other managers neither excelled nor bombed and I include Domenech in that regard. I feel the French players suddenly found the inner strength to use their enormous ability to have a last hurrah and Domenech came along for the ride.

More on the Australian country v club problem here: http://www.fansfc.com/frontpage/frontpagen...p?newsid=154963 Might be another reason for shipping out Emo and getting Delaney in as cover if rumours are true.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup200...1817543,00.html The Guardian writers sum it all up.

A huge amount hangs on the nature of the verdicts. The Italians regularly cleanse and renew themselves of the inherent nepotism and corruption in the way their society is organised through having a powerful, independent and investigative judiciary. In this football case two completely independent judicial groups are at work- the sports tribunal and the criminal investigation with the criminal broken up into four teams in four completely different and very independent regional offices. From a judicial standpoint, that seems to be a recipe for optimising the chances of getting a guilty verdict as each of these groups knows that the others will be working flat out to get these high profile people convicted and that their reputation/promotion opportunities within the judicial system are dependent on doing at least as well as the other judicial groups on the case. Politically, Prodi and the rest of the old time Italian politicians now back in Government never want to see Berlusconi or his like ever to darken/enlighten the Italian political scene again. Everybody knows that Berlusconi shamelessly used his media control to drive his political party which then re-wrote the laws in favour of his business interests and latterly tried to set up immunity from prosecution for Berlusconi himself. In the Berlusconi political/commercial industry, AC Milan was a key element and Galliano sitting as head of AC and the Italian League was Berlusconi's number one henchman in football and in other aspects of Berlusconi's empire. The fact that Moggi is being publicly named and shamed yet Galliano is also in the dock but not so publicly fingered yet is probably all part of a bigger game to nail Berlusconi. The timing of the announcement of the first trial of Berlusconi for fraud last week is probably all part of a larger strategy which will include a sporting tribunal guilty verdict on Galliano this week which will open up the criminal processes on the AC Milan leg of the Berlusconi empire. The Sporting Tribunal might want to anticipate what might be coming out of the Berlusconi trials and do a deal so that AC only gets hit by punishment once so that whatever comes out later, they can point to AC having already been punished. Cascading Juve's titles onto AC would not be seen to be a punishment if AC are later seen to be part of a bigger and altogether murkier scandal. Prodi has been completely unwilling to do any deal with Berlusconi despite a wafer thin majority so he must be confident of nailing Berlusconi one way or another and the football revelations have come rather conveniently for him. When we look at sanctions, the Italians have not been backwards in relegating clubs including previous relegations for two of the clubs in the dock- both AC and Fiorentina. The misdemeanours ten (I think it is now) clubs have been relegated for in the past are all relatively minor compared with the wholesale sporting fraud now being alleged. An AC relegation because Berlusconi's man Galliano was demonstrably corrupt would again be good news for the present Government in separating the AC tifossi from their love affair with Berlusconi's politics. Looking at the global picture, UEFA and FIFA have just banned Greece- the current European Champions- because there is legislation which enables Government to have influence on the Greek football authorities in return for funding. The reason the supreme bodies have taken such an extreme action is they see political control in exchange for money as having the potential for reducing the sporting nature of the game. Were the Italian authorities not to act in a case of proven actual impairment of the sporting nature of the game, FIFA/UEFA would have no option but to intervene or else they would not have a leg to stand on when the Greeks contest their ban. There are millions at stake in the Italian game but there are billions at stake globally in terms of being able to offer a true sporting contest to the gambling industries (who rely on the public believing it is a sporting chance in order to take their money- operative word believing) and all the sponsorship moneys which undoubtedly go elsewhere if the sponsors perceive their customers associate them with outright corruption through football sponsorship. Rather like pregnancy, you cannot be seen as being just a little bit corrupt/tainted in terms of brand integrity never mind what the realities might be behind the scenes. If Italians can match fix through rigged referees and get away with it then the public might surmise it happens elsewhere with impunity. Besides which, this is too good a chance for the Spaniards not to kick Serie A whilst its down (there will be a lot of international TV rights which the Italians currently have as the second league after the Premiership going up for grabs) with the Bundeslega and French League probably anxious to advance their leagues' relative international standings as well. I suspect the calls for clemency if Italy won were a crude political calculation by a Justice Minister who knows he caught the pre-World Cup Final mood of the public to incentivise the players but who also knows the nature of the verdicts already. If there are straight guilties on match fixing through buying referees, he can say "I did my best but these are truly naughty boys". In voting terms, there are far more votes amongst the supporters of all the clubs not on trial than there are of the four clubs on trial. We will see.

The issues about the South African games are mind-boggling. Even if they get everything right, it is a vast country with somewhat limited public transport. The opportunity for having Group games moving around the country is therefore all but impossible. With luck, it will be like the World Cup in the USA... at best.

I have to say the second half incident was a nailed on penalty but the first half one looked like a spot of Dioufs.

The French blew that big time. Quite apart from ZZ Head Butt, Barthez was a fully at fault for Matterazzi's equaliser and never looked likely to get anywhere near the Italian penalties. The French substitutions were a bit odd. Anyway it is a night of car horns and air horns here.