Even though some clubs – with their websites, magazines and satellite channels – may have you believe otherwise, football needs the media and the acres of free advertising it provides (including the publication you are reading).

But what if they had to pay for it? What if media outlets demanded money from players and managers in exchange for positive coverage? What if, instead of four-page spreads about Cristiano Ronaldo or pundits droning on about how Petr Cech is the greatest goalkeeper in the world, Daniel de Ridder paid to have a photo shoot and celebrity interview of himself in your Sunday magazine and Stephen Bywater slipped the Match of the Day crew a wad of cash to praise him as the man who should be England’s No 1?

Sound far-fetched? Think again. Horia Ivanovici, a Romanian TV presenter and editor of Fanatik, a football weekly, stands accused of demanding money from players and managers in return for glowing coverage. And the man who has taken him to court is none other than Victor Piturca, the coach of Romania’s national team.

Piturca claims that Ivanovici asked for tens of thousands of euros to give him an easy ride after his appointment to the Romania job. He allegedly invited him to be a regular guest on his television programme and promised positive coverage of his coaching tenure. When Piturca refused, it is alleged that Ivanovici threatened to lambast him on a weekly basis in his magazine and on television.

Piturca has called dozens of players and managers as witnesses, most of whom have testified that Ivanovici asked them for money. Cristian Chivu, the Inter Milan defender, claimed that since turning down Ivanovici’s request for a €1000 (about £740) “contribution” when he was at Ajax five years ago, he has been criticised in print and over the air waves.

The trial is pending, but it highlights how incestuous the relationship between the media and the people they cover can be. And while Romania may be an extreme case, the situation is not dissimilar from other European nations, including England. The difference is the currency: instead of euros, some players and managers offer access, which is often just as precious.

Most journalists who talk to players and managers outside formal press conferences are complicit in this. If a player regularly stops to talk to the media after games and is generally pleasant and down-to-earth, he will usually get a break, certainly more so than the prima donna type who scurries off to his Baby Bentley without looking up.

This kind of give and take is even more obvious with managers. Some never speak to anyone outside the allotted “media opportunities”. Others will take phone calls from journalists at all hours. Guess which ones get mentioned in the press as potential candidates when jobs come up and which ones get talked about as being in danger of being sacked as soon as their team lose two in a row?

I recently spoke to one manager who has worked in Spain and England. He told me that “unless you’re Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsène Wenger, guys who’ve achieved so much that it really doesn’t matter what they do in terms of their public image, you have to play the game to some degree. In Spain there are two rival radio programmes which draw huge audiences. If you go on one of them, the other one will slag you off. So next time you go to the other one. But you always have to go, otherwise, if you turn them both down, they’ll both slag you off.”

On some level, it is human nature. If the man you interview is personable, if he stops to chat, if he gives you his mobile number, you are bound to treat him well in print. And from the interviewee’s perspective, often there is no sinister conspiracy, but simple good manners. But just as often, the line is crossed.

To my knowledge, no member of the national media in England extorts money from players or managers in exchange for positive coverage (indeed, the opposite happens: some media outlets pay to obtain interviews, but that is a different story). Which means that we are not in the same boat as Romania, at least for now. But that basic collusion is there and everyone falls victim to it at times.

And if you really want to leave 2007 on the most cynical of notes, you may conclude that it is like the difference between prostituting yourself for cash and allowing yourself to be wined, dined and seduced with sweet nothings whispered in your ear.

On that note, happy new year.

The constant gardener

Despite playing for a big club and having featured for Argentina at the 2006 World Cup finals, Julio Cruz, the Inter Milan striker, is not on many people’s radar screens. The man they call “The Gardener” is a model professional, happy to come off the substitutes’ bench and rarely making headlines. Yet at the same time, he must be one of the most efficient strikers in the game.

You want numbers? Over the past 2Kseasons he has scored 41 goals in 74 Serie A and Champions League appearances, which is impressive enough on its own. But it becomes downright remarkable when you consider that in 31 of those games he came off the bench. And it turns nigh on “other worldly” when you figure out his ratio of goals to minutes on the pitch, which stands at one every 105 minutes.

Put another way, if he got as much playing time as a regular striker at a reasonably big club and maintained the same strike rate, he would be knocking in about 40 goals a season.

Koeman wields the axe

Whatever else one may think of Ronald Koeman, the Dutch coach cannot be accused of being a soft touch. Since taking over at Valencia two months ago, the club have crashed out of the Champions League and floundered in La Liga amid the usual infighting and controversy.

Koeman’s solution? Axe three of their most senior players: Santiago Cañizares, the goalkeeper, David Albelda, the midfield player, and Miguel Ángel Angulo, the winger.

Between them, the trio have 27 years’ service, about 100 caps for Spain and nearly 1,000 appearances for the club.

It is a bold choice and one that, to paraphrase Billy Joel, will result in him “walking away a fool or a king”.

gabriele.marcotti@thetimes.co.uk