In the midst of the television revenue stand-off between the PFA and the Premiership, sportinglife.com has exclusively obtained* a set of demands recently made by the representative of a top overseas player looking to play in the UK.

1) £50m over three years, his own island, regular holidays in space free of charge courtesy of NASA, a seat in Parliament, his own suite in Buckingham Palace, VIP guestlist +10 at The Met Bar, permanent table at The Ivy and an ‘Access All Areas’ pass for all Atomic Kitten concerts.

2) A win bonus of £10,000 per match. A loss bonus of £15,000 per match. A turning-up-for-training bonus of £5000 per session. An extra £10,000 every time he is injured. A £2000 fee every time Ron Atkinson says the word 'situation'. The full back catalogues of Simply Red, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Dire Straits, Level 42, Luther Vandross and of course, the master - Phil Collins, he’s made some brilliant records.

3) All goals conceded will be officially declared as 'someone else's fault'. My client will collect fines from other defenders for making him look bad.

4) The club is to make a big fuss about international friendlies, ensuring that under no circumstances my client is to be forced to travel outside of London for meaningless games.

5) This includes FA Cup fixtures. Don’t even mention the Worthless Cup (or whatever it’s called) in my client’s presence.

6) To compensate for the club forcing my client to miss valuable international caps in overseas friendlies, the club is to either a) pay for my client to enjoy all expenses paid breaks to these destinations during FA Cup fixtures outside London or b) pay for two blonde models to ‘entertain’ our client.

7) If the club fail to reach the Champions League final the club will publicly apologise for being 'not good enough’ and then pay my client £10m and personally pilot him via helicopter to Real Madrid or Barcelona.

8) No club strikers will be allowed to go past my client in training. Failure to comply with this rule, designed for the benefit of the club to keep my client’s confidence at peak levels, will result in the offending striker being transferred to that club where Rangers refused to travel.

9) Our client must be declared by the Chairman as officially 'a lot more important than anyone else' and also voted by the fans as 'the greatest player in the history of football'.

10) All club officials will bow their heads and address my client as 'Your Majesty'. Anyone failing to do so will be forced to pay my client £10,000.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Answers

One or two points in that don't ring true mac. I mean, who'd be stupid enough to want to live in Buckingham Palace, and who the feck is Atomic Kitten ?

The rest sounds reasonable to me, in today's transfer climate.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

The scary thing is that's probably not too far off being true...for ManUre's much needed future centre half anyway...

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001