It is true that there was no pillar of moral rectitude more upright-seeming than Hansie Cronje, but I still can’t believe it of Stewart. Clearly, though, illegal payments are rife in international cricket. In fact, it is my belief that only one major sport remains unblemished by scam and scandal. Consider two of the latest hoo-has disrupting the world of golf Mark James binned a telegram from Nick Faldo. And last week, Sergio Garcia walked out of a pro-am because his amateur partner accused him of giving the wrong yardages. What would cricket and football give for outrages of that magnitude?. The newly appointed England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, enjoyed a satisfactory Saturday evening as the Italian champions, Lazio, enjoyed a straightforward 2-0 win over Bologna in Serie A with goals from Pavel Nedved and Hernan Crespo.

The newly appointed England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, enjoyed a satisfactory Saturday evening as the Italian champions, Lazio, enjoyed a straightforward 2-0 win over Bologna in Serie A with goals from Pavel Nedved and Hernan Crespo.
Nedved gave Lazio the lead in the 10th minute after the Chilean striker Marcelo Salas, in for the injured Claudio Lopez, displayed great skill to beat three Bologna defenders before setting up the Czech, who stroked the ball home with the outside of his right foot.Lazio, who gave a debut to the veteran Italian international midfielder Dino Baggio, their recent signing from Parma, were always in control against a deeply disappointing Bologna. But Eriksson’s team had to wait until the 65th minute to make sure of the points after Juan Sebastian Veron made a characteristic surge from midfield and played a perfectly weighted through-ball to his compatriot Crespo, who finished with style.Udinese moved clear at the top of the Serie A standings for the first time in their history yesterday, after beating Lecce 2-0. Luigi Di Canio’s side won at home with second-half goals from Roberto Sosa and Massimo Margotta to claim sole possession of top position with 13 points from five games.Roma moved up to second place, a point behind, after the Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta hit a second-half hat-trick in a 4-2 win at Brescia.Roma took the lead at Brescia through Vincent Candela but a strike from Pierpaolo Bisoli and a Durio Hubner penalty gave Brescia the lead at the break. Batistuta pulled Roma level on the hour when he pounced after a Zago shot had rattled out off the post and then grabbed his second with an almost identical goal 17 minutes later, slotting home after Cafu had struck the post.The Argentine claimed his hat-trick and his sixth goal of the season with a fine left-foot shot in the final minute.Milan, who entertain Leeds in the Champions’ League on Wednesday, had to pull back a two-goal deficit to gain a 3-3 draw at home to the early-season pace-setters, Atalanta.Milan trailed 3-1 at half-time to the visitors but an Oliver Bierhoff header and a harshly awarded penalty, converted by Andrei Shevchenko, gave them a point. The visitors’ first-half goals had come from Cristiano Doni, with two, and Fausto Rossini, while Serginho was on target for Milan.Barcelona won 1-0 at Las Palmas to gain ground in the Spanish Primera Liga on Saturday, as their three leading title rivals all suffered surprise away defeats.

Victory for Barcelona, which came through a brilliant finish from Rivaldo at the start of the second half, lifted them to fourth place.The league leaders Valencia, the champions Deportivo La Coruña and the title favourites, Real Madrid, all had off days. Valencia went down 1-0 at Espanyol while Deportivo conceded a last-minute winner to Villarreal in a 3-2 defeat.Real Madrid were beaten 3-1 at Numancia, for whom the Romanian Laurentiu Rosu claimed a hat-trick. England’s Steve McManaman made his first start for Real since last season’s European Cup final.Stuart Baxter quit as coach of AIK Solna yesterday, the day after the club finished a disappointing third in the Swedish league The 47-year-old Scot led AIK to the league title in 1998.. The Football Association is abandoning Lancaster Gate, an address synonymous with the tradition and authority of English football, for some modern new offices in Soho Square in the heart of London’s West End.

As they pursue their policy of modernisation and the squeaky-clean image, the smart young men of the FA do not realise they are leaving a building which formerly housed the Association of British Launderers. The Football Association is abandoning Lancaster Gate, an address synonymous with the tradition and authority of English football, for some modern new offices in Soho Square in the heart of London’s West End. As they pursue their policy of modernisation and the squeaky-clean image, the smart young men of the FA do not realise they are leaving a building which formerly housed the Association of British Launderers.
I suppose they do need better accommodation if they are expanding their role as a service industry for those who play and watch the game, but, as the great Freddie Trueman would say: “I just don’t know what’s going off down there.”Do they constantly have to depict the old place as the original ivory tower? To quote Jim Royle: “Soho Square, my arse.” Working alongside England teams and managers around the world was all very exciting and glamorous – well, maybe not in Tirana or Chisinau – but never was I happier than waking up of a morning and driving to Lancaster Gate to spend my day at the very hub of the game behind those famous doors at the top of the steps from which I delivered my weightiest pronouncements.The W2 traffic was not as heavy as the West End’s but nevertheless I would arrive ahead of the rush hour. One day I rolled up a little too early and caught a couple of youths relieving themselves of their sentiments about English football’s governing body and no doubt a dozen pints of lager as well all over the beautiful shiny nameplate that you see behind the television news reporters who deliver pieces to camera from the Lancaster Gate pavement.

I rang the local nick which, I have to say, did not exhibit undue concern about the pee in our porch. “Probably all Scots,” I thought as I gave chase to the culprits. Thankfully, as I had not decided what I would do if I caught them, they disappeared into Kensington Gardens.The move to the West End will not seem too much like a good idea when kebabs are pushed through the FA’s letterbox at 4.0am; nor will they have the park for a lunchtime kickabout.My favourite room at Lancaster Gate was the library, with its shelves creaking under the weight of fabulous and fascinating histories of the game and coaching tomes from Walter Winterbottom to Charles Hughes. It was Hughes who, perhaps unwittingly, with his low regard for the professionals at the clubs, did much to perpetuate the ivory tower image. It was always fascinating to watch England managers move into their office on the third floor, which Hughes ruled with a rod of iron.Graham Taylor, whom Hughes might have regarded as somewhat of a protégé, was too cute to become publicly aligned with the director of coaching. By contrast, Terry Venables, surely the epitome in Hughes’ eyes of the duckers and divers of the professional world, was surprisingly embraced as a potential technical director of the future.Venables’ allegedly thin attention span survived many a long afternoon in Hughes’ office only for the England coach to emerge eyes glazed at 5 o’clock.