Sport 06-08-2004 No Case To Answer who: Sven Goran Eriksson what: Fully vindicated by FA over Faria Alam debacle where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The future of Sven Goran Eriksson`s as England manager was secured - in the short-term at least - last night," says The Independent, "when the Football Association said he had `no case to answer` about the sex scandal that has engulfed the game`s governing body." But we haven`t heard the last of the Fariagate affair. The 38 year-old has quit her £35,000-a-year job as PA to executive director David Davies and thanks to publicist Max Clifford "she is selling her story to two Sunday newspapers and a television channel for a reported £500,000," says The Independent. This publicity will ensure that "the stench of rank incompetence" lingers on in Soho Square, says Nick Mulvenny in The Scotsman. The organisation has entirely failed to explain why it formally denied reports of an affair between Eriksson and Ms Alam when it could easily have refused to comment on what was clearly a private matter. "From the cash-for-votes row in 1998, through the dismissal of coach Glenn Hoddle in 1999 via the Wembley Stadium debacle to the current crisis, the prevailing opinion among English football fans has long been that the FA is run by fools." Chief executive Mark Palios was forced to resign after it emerged that his communications chief had conspired to sacrifice Eriksson to the media. "Without him, however, the FA is shorn of expertise it needs badly," says The Guardian`s Kevin McCarra, "as the difficult Wembley project and many other complex concerns assail it. Yesterday`s proceedings speak of a dearth of leadership." [... more]

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