Hoddle's cash plea to help the rejects

Former England and Tottenham manager

Glenn Hoddle is looking for £4million from the

City to help fund his long-held ambition of bringing

back young players into the professional fold

who he believes can be rejected too early by clubs.

Hoddle, who has wanted to set up such an academy

since having to release hopefuls in his first

manager's job at Swindon, has received a positive

reaction from London bankers, who have

heard two presentations from him about the proposed

centre at Montecastillo in southern Spain.

The Glenn Hoddle Academy will be up and

running in the summer provided the sponsorship

and finances work out, with investors being

asked for a minimum £50,000. There is the

potential for significant returns because Hoddle

will be charging development fees to clubs for

footballers he rescues from the scrapheap.

The Hoddle initiative has the support of the

Barclays Premier League and other football

authorities despite the sensitivities about the

Tevez affair and third party ownership rows.

Hoddle said: 'Third party ownership is a moving

target, but our links with the players will be

a lot different as they won't have a club when

they join us. But we want to keep advising them

when they leave us to ensure their careers stay

on track. It would have been a lot easier for me

to invest in property or become an agent, but

I've wanted to make this academy work for a

long time. And I've turned down a number of

managers' jobs as a result.'

Ice little earner for Curtis

Football agent Mark Curtis, who had a

hand in numerous transfers for Sam

Allardyce when he was Bolton boss, is now in

the fortunate position that another of his

clients, Gary Megson, is in charge at the

Reebok. There have been mutterings again

among rivals this week about Curtis's Bolton

involvement in the signing of Iceland defender

Gretar Steinsson. Curtis said: 'I acted for

Bolton. I recommended the player and they

asked me to handle it for them.'

Watch out, Briatore

Wealthy QPR chief Flavio

Briatore handed out

some expensive watches to his

squad as gifts for the way they

have adapted to the rich-list

Loftus Road takeover. However,

a football agent, who did a recent

deal with Briatore, was also given

an inscribed 'Best wishes from

Flavio' watch as a gift. The F1 tycoon fetched it

from inside his desk, suggesting there's a job lot

in there waiting to be distributed.

Clarke denies Graveney link

There has been widespread speculation

within cricket that the replacement of

David Graveney as national selector by his

previous assistant Geoff Miller had the hand of

ECB chairman Giles Clarke in it — especially as

the delayed news yesterday followed an ECB

board meeting on Thursday. But Clarke insists

that the board were merely informed of the

changes, which were the responsibility of Hugh

Morris, managing director of English cricket.

Beeb's home shock

There were some home truths for the BBC at

their own in-house sports festival forum this

week and dispensing them were top football

club spin doctors Simon Greenberg and Paul

Tyrell. Chelsea's Greenberg claimed in front of

producer Alex Millar that the Panorama bungs

documentary got 'nowhere', while Manchester

City's Tyrell reminded the Beeb audience — in a

debate about managers not speaking to them —

that Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson,

who has blanked the Beeb since May 2004,

trusted ITV enough even to do Champions

League half-time interviews with them.