Source: Daily_Mail
Charles Sale: Welsh kept waiting over bid to switch
The FA are playing for extra time over the anomalies facing the football authorities if Welsh clubs Cardiff and Swansea win places in the Premier League next season.
Cardiff, last year's FA Cup finalists, are competing strongly for automatic promotion from the Championship and Swansea still have a chance of making the play-offs.
Both Welsh teams come under the disciplinary jurisdiction of the FAof Wales but want to switch to English control in order to be on alevel playing field with their English opponents, especially if theyjoin the top flight.
However, the two national associations have yet to come to adecision on the matter despite Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale makingan issue of it since his team reached the FA Cup final and thepotential difficulty surrounding a Welsh side representing England inthe UEFA Cup.
Ridsdale also arranged a summit with FA chairman Lord Triesman lastFebruary to press for an answer, which has not been forthcoming.
Ridsdale said: 'I've been making our position absolutely clear on a regular basis, but we've heard nothing.'
The Premier League top brass have not been particularly welcoming,either, about Cardiff becoming one of their 20 member clubs, eventhough their regulations refer to teams in England and Wales being eligible.
The biggest surprise about former Test Match Special producer Peter Baxter's autobiography Inside the Box (Quiller, £18.99), to be published next month, is the lack of any reference to his successor Adam Mountford.
This is despite the controversy surrounding the dumbing down of TMS to make it more like 5 Live since Baxter retired in 2007.
Mountford was known to be concerned about the contents of Baxter's book but the author has limited himself to reflecting that he was 'distraught' at being informed it was time to change the 'style and tone' of TMS and 'not least at the manner of such a command being delivered in a peremptory email from the head of radio sport'.
Baxter's book will appeal to TMS stalwarts, but he does not delve into the long-running enmity between 5 Live's cricket broadcaster Pat Murphy and the BBC cricket correspondent Jon Agnew, apart from revealing Baxter recommended Agnew to be appointed correspondent in 1991 when the late TMS commentator Don Mosey was pushing the claims of Murphy.
Coincidentally, Baxter and Mosey hated each other as well.
BBC Sport's Formula One super confident pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz has customised his own moniker with the same care that goes into building a Grand Prix car.
He felt that Ted Kravitz had more of an F1 feel about it than the name on his birth certificate, which is Theodore Slotover.
Tottenham have reason for giving their new stadium building operation the wordy description of Northumberland Development Project.
They do not want a name to stick for the venue until they have agreed a lucrative title sponsorship, for which the search has started in the Middle and Far East.
Kevin Pietersen can at least look back on his short-lived reign as England captain for ensuring that the team stay in the luxury of the Landmark Hotel while in London for the Ashes series this summer.
KP's desire to return to the five-star establishment on Marylebone Road, that had previously been regarded as too expensive by the England and Wales Cricket Board, held sway.
The Aussies usually stay at Kensington's Royal Garden Hotel.
The big issue north of the border during the consultation period for the David Davies-led inquiry into the future of listed events on TV is the demand for Scotland's home qualifying matches in European Championships and World Cups to be shown on a terrestrial station.
The campaign suggests that the Scots have more or less given up on going through to the finals of the major tournaments, which makes their continued intransigence over a combined GB team at the London Olympics even more bizarre.
