UEFA kick off over City match switch

UEFA are claiming they weren’t given any notice about the Premier League rescheduling Manchester City’s game against Stoke to a Champions League night.

That is likely to lead to a sanction at the end of the season, with some of Europe’s solidarity money that is paid to non-Champions League clubs for youth development being withheld.

The rearranged Southampton-Arsenal fixture last week also went up against a Champions League semi-final but UEFA say they were kept fully informed about that change of date.

The Premier League will argue that UEFA’s expansion of the knockout stages over extra midweeks — and moving the final to Saturday — leaves little room for manoeuvre. They will also claim they have no duty to notify UEFA when games have to be rearranged, such as the CityStoke game in March, which finished 0-0.

Also, UEFA’s agreement with European Professional Football Leagues over keeping other fixtures clear of Champions League matches is not recognised by the Premier League.

new importance the FA are attaching to the media saw a presentation at yesterday’s FA council on how to embrace the fourth estate to help deliver the FA’s latest campaign slogan ‘For All’. But with qualification a certainty for the 2018 World Cup, the real test for this strategy will be when the wheels next come off the England team in Russia or beyond. ENGLAND head coach Eddie Jones (right) is now so much of an influence on and off the pitch at Twickenham that he will be consulted by chairman Andy Cosslett on the appointment of Ian Ritchie’s successor as chief executive. And Ritchie’s decision to retire this summer for personal reasons was partly made so the RFU would not have to replace both himself and Jones after the 2019 World Cup, when the CEO had been expected to call it a day and the coach’s contract expires.

chairman Andy Cosslett was remarkably confident yesterday about getting the Union’s council to pass much the same reforms that his counterpart Greg Clarke has finally achieved at the FA. Clarke has brought in changes, unanimously rubber-stamped yesterday, that his predecessors couldn’t get over the line. Yet he did not face the RFU’s problem of having a council that still has primacy over the management board. And the RFU blazers are if anything even more resistant to change than their FA cousins.