Ward drops the mic!

SKY Sports commentator Ian Ward has the reputation of being a friend of the players. So in the interests of at least some impartiality in the Sky TV booth, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea for Ward to be an integral part of the England team’s golf day last Monday at Stoke Park. He returned the best score of the tournament as the only media representative involved and helped Joe Root present the golf prizes. Ward was then faced on air with having to describe Alastair Cook dropping a dolly in the slips off Ben Stokes in the Edgbaston Test. PCA chief executive David Leatherdale, who has been off work for five months with stress, wasn’t at the England golf day organised by his union. But he has made a return to work in recent weeks.

QUEST, the little-known digital channel on which Football League highlights are being shown on Saturday nights, are understood to be spending 50 per cent less on production costs than Channel 5 paid last season. The Quest spend on production is said to be £25,000 per programme compared to C5’s £50,000.

THE off-field move of Fulham finance director Sean O’Loughlin to become chief financial officer at Crystal Palace is said to be a lot to do with the increasing influence of American owner Shahid Khan’s people at Craven Cottage in connection with Khan’s £600m bid to buy Wembley.