Arsenal have marked their departure from Highbury by selling dressing-room memorabilia such as: “Four-pronged coat hook known to be used by Manuel Almunia”.

Local councils can capitalise on Arsenal fans’ voracious appetite for forging links with their heroes. As Arsène Wenger’s players walk out of any stadium and on to their team bus this season, a council official can quickly dig up the ground and sell “paving stones known to have been walked on by Pascal Cygan”. If a player looks out of the coach window as it pulls away, the council could cut down and auction “a tree known to have been glanced at by Alexander Hleb”.

Despite being prepared to sell almost anything connected with Highbury and possessing an extensive picture library, Arsenal were unable to find for auction a photograph of an Arsenal sending-off “known to have been seen by Arsène Wenger”.

NOT QUITE RUUD HEALTH

Real Madrid were confident enough about Jonathan Woodgate’s fitness to sign him from Newcastle United when he had been out for four months with a thigh injury, yet the problem was to delay his debut for a year. Last week Dr Alfonso del Corral, who performed the medical on Ruud van Nistelrooy before his transfer from Manchester United, said he was happy with the condition of a player who “has had two injury-free years”.

This is clearly a different Van Nistelrooy from the one who, two seasons ago, missed the first month of the campaign as he recovered from a hernia operation and sat out another three months, up to February 2005, with calf and Achilles trouble. Have Real made cuts in their health budget because none of their Asian fans will buy replica shirts bearing the names of the club’s doctors?

MILAN STRIDE ON

Unless Uefa overturns its own provisional decision, AC Milan will play in this season’s Champions League despite attempting to influence the selection of officials in Serie A. The Italian club will also start their domestic league season with an eight-point penalty, the original sanction having been reduced on appeal from 15.

Given that Juventus, the only team to finish above them for the past two seasons, have been demoted to Serie B, also for choosing officials, Milan perhaps have a better chance of winning the title this season than last, a fine reward for corruption.

Meanwhile, Silvio Berlusconi, the Milan owner, and Pavel Nedved, the Juventus player, have mocked the decision to award last season’s league title to third-placed Inter Milan because it was not won on the pitch. With such a lack of shame for their clubs’ actions, the continuation of corruption in Italian football seems inevitable.

MEASURED TONES

North Korea’s Football Association has lodged a gentle complaint after its women lost an Asian Cup semi-final to China. “All facts prove that the Italian referee and the Australian linesman, prompted by a vicious aim to make the Korean team fail at any cost, resorted to premeditated and deliberate partial refereeing,” it said.

Maybe the Koreans are simply getting carried away because, unlike when criticising their own Government, they can air opinions on football without fear of torture.

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