Teams fear spies at Russia World Cup

THE Sochi workshop for the 32 competing World Cup nations has sparked fears of spies in the sky during Russia 2018.

FIFA regulations for the tournament include the requirement for a four-strong TV unit working on the official news service for the host broadcasters to travel with their allotted team on all internal flights across Russia.

FIFA do not want to miss any potential footage of match build-up because the camera crew were delayed by travelling separately.

But the edict has not gone down well with the finalists, who do not want outsiders flying with them, fearing all sorts of espionage activities — especially in Russia, whose cyber threat is a huge global concern.

Football representatives from Germany, Poland and France were the most vociferous in protesting about the ruling in Sochi. The FA contingent do not like the intrusion, either, but were more relaxed about it during the workshop in the knowledge they don’t believe anything can be done to change FIFA’s plans.

ALL the big-name World Cup coaches — including Germany’s Joachim Low, France’s Didier Deschamps and Gareth Southgate, who sent his assistant Steve Holland — swerved spending extra time in Russia this week. Only 11 out of 32 team bosses turned up for the Sochi workshop. BRYONY FROST (right), a big personality who has become the golden girl of jump racing after riding a Grade One winner, has added to her Jockey Club ambassador role by taking up the same position with betting exchange Matchbook.

More surprisingly, Matchbook have trainer Joseph O’Brien representing them, too. O’Brien is more communicative than his father Aidan, but still prefers his horses to do the talking on the race track. For the same reason, England rugby talisman Owen Farrell is a strange fit as an Investec ambassador.

His brilliant rugby communications skills are seemingly non-transferable from the pitch.

THE first three behind-the-scenes episodes of the Netflix series following Italian giants Juventus have been disappointing in the extreme, amounting to not much more than a bland corporate promo of the club with little insight or colour. If Amazon’s fly-on-the-wall series with Manchester City turns out as non-eventful, it will be a waste of £10million and a lot of angst over the unprecedented access.