David Gold: French quota row stems from a loss of national identity

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Laurent Blanc may have escaped censure from the French Government and the French Football Federation this week, but French football’s reputation is still hanging by a thread following the row which has erupted following revelations by Mediapart that senior football officials in the country wanted to limit the number of African and north African players in their academies.

The French Football Federation report into the revelations cleared Blanc and the organisation reaffirmed their faith in their national team coach,

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Andrew Warshaw: Bin Hammam may claim he wants greater transparency but expect him to keep his head down after latest corruption revelations

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As Sepp Blatter prepared for a press conference at FIFA House in Zurich on Tuesday about new ways of making football a better spectacle, the only line of awkward questioning he was probably contemplating was why the three most high-profile members of FIFA’s newly-established Task Force 2014 had failed to show up for its debut session.

Then someone, presumably his general secretary, told him the bad news. That in London at exactly the same time,

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