News:Henri Biancheri, the man who helped Arsene Wenger sign Thierry Henry for Monaco, last night declared his candidacy to fill the vacant director of football position at Arsenal.
The Frenchman spent 19 years as Monaco's general manager, where he was a key ally of Wenger during the latter's seven-year spell in the principality, and he is keen to renew their association. With Wenger in charge of recruiting the replacement for the former vice-chairman David Dein, who parted company acrimoniously last week with the club where he remains a significant shareholder, Biancheri might be considered well placed.
"I am very good friends with Arsene and he knows what my value is," said Biancheri, who was director of football at Marseille until he parted company with the French cup finalists earlier this season.
"I am open to whatever propositions or proposals he may have," the 74-year-old added.
Damien Comolli, the Tottenham Hotspurs sporting director, also has a long-term association with Wenger but appeared yesterday to rule himself out of a move across north London.
"I'm in a great project here at Tottenham, I don't know why I would want to go somewhere else," he said. "What I'm doing at Spurs is with passion so, for me, it's not even an issue."
Visiting teams qualifying for the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa will not be allowed to set up base camps in Johannesburg, Cape Town or other cities hosting games, a member of the organising committee said yesterday.
Dennis Mumble, also the general manager of FNB stadium, the South African Football Association's chief footballing venue, said the decision was prompted by a desire to see other communities share the benefits of staging the tournament.
"We shall spread the benefits beyond the nine host cities," Mumble said. "It opens up responsibilities for non-host cities."
Mumble urged smaller towns to ensure they had enough accommodation and adequate security to meet the demands of the more than two dozen teams and hundreds of thousands of tourists expected to arrive in South Africa for the championship.
- Guardian Service
