Blatter planning fresh body blow

The Premier League are already heading for

another heavyweight confrontation with FIFA

after president Sepp Blatter's kiboshing on

Thursday of the super-flawed International

Round.

This time the conflict centres on Blatter's

determination to ensure that a certain quota of

players qualified for England are contained in

every Premier League club's starting line-up.

This will rise from four in 2009, to five in 2010 and

a minimum of six at the start of the 2011-2012

season.

Blatter is committed to making this a

regulation around the world and is expected to

gain the necessary rubber-stamping at the FIFA

Congress in Sydney in May.

Meanwhile, the Premier League are making no

provision for a statute that would change the

top-flight landscape — with Arsenal most

affected — in the belief that Brussels would

never sanction a rule that threatens freedom of

movement across Europe.

Blatter said: "We have a situation in England

where young players entering a big club have no

motivation to move through the ranks to play in

the first team, because the manager will just go

and buy players.

"We must keep the national identity of teams.

The fans can identity better with their club, it

makes more economic sense developing your

own players and it will enhance the popularity

and quality of the national team.

"In England you have just four teams, maybe

five, who are competing for the title and

European qualification. All the other clubs are

simply playing not to get relegated. That's not

enough. In football we must try to be better. And

if there is political will to go in this direction, I do

not see how the EU bureaucrats in Brussels can

stop the politicians."

A Premier League spokesman said: "In our

view the EU will never allow this to happen."

Murdoch brings on a sub

The widespread suspicion that media

mogul Rupert Murdoch was behind the

shipwrecked International Round is borne out

by what happened at Sky Sports News, which

he owns, on the day the idea was launched.

A reporter, like everyone else not impressed

with Project Scudamore, was asked to present

an upbeat piece about the proposal.

When he

bravely told his bosses that he was not a PR

spokesman, a more compliant operative was

quickly given the story.

Webb wants big boys to progress

England's top referee Howard

Webb has a good reason

for not wanting his local teams,

Sheffield United, Barnsley or

Huddersfield, to go all the way to

the FA Cup Final at Wembley.

For only their appearance in the

Final will stop Webb officiating

in the showcase match.

He has

never handled a final and the unwritten agreement

is that a Premier League referee going to

a major championship should have a Cup Final

on his cv.

Sticky wicket

Former BA chief executive Sir Rod

Eddington has another claim to sporting

fame, apart from plotting the International

Round.

He was the unlucky cricketer Oxford

captain Vic Marks — now a close friend — left

out of the Varsity match 30 years ago when

faced with making his final Lord's selection.

Russian ups stake

Alisher Usmanov, the Russian billionaire,

last night moved closer to becoming the largest

single shareholder at Arsenal when he spent

£1.7m on another 189 shares at £9,000-a-time.

This was Usmanov's first move in the market

since well before Christmas and shows that his

Arsenal share-buying vehicle, Red & White

Holdings, chaired by estranged former Arsenal

vice-chairman David Dein, still has long-term

ambitions to take command at the Emirates

Stadium despite the lockdown agreement of the

board not to sell any shares before April 2009.

The latest Usmanov flurry takes him above the

24 per cent mark, as well as moving within 0.2

per cent of the stake owned by Danny

Fizsman, who has consistently said he is as

devoted as ever to Arsenal, despite emigrating

to Switzerland for tax reasons.