YOU AIN'T GOIN NOWHERE

Europe's leading clubs are threatening to refuse to release players for long-distance international friendlies in the future as the ill-feeling over Brazil's friendly in China next week intensifies.

The G14 clubs – including Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool – are furious at losing key players to meaningless friendlies. In the Gunners' case, they face being without their Brazilian midfielder Gilberto Silva for the FA Cup fifth-round tie against Sir Alex Ferguson's United at Old Trafford on 15 February.

In a determined show of strength, the G14 group of clubs have written a
forceful letter of objection to Fifa, the governing body of world football, in which they have warned that they may take unilateral action in the future and not release players for friendlies on other continents.

The Manchester United chief executive, Peter Kenyon, and his Liverpool counterpart, Rick Parry, were also at the meeting, and echoed Dein's sentiments. Kenyon said: "The calendar is increasingly becoming more crowded and we have a duty to our clubs, our fans and our players, and it was a consensus that enough is enough and we have to address the issue.

"We need to sit down with Fifa and Uefa [the governing body of European football] and look at the serious implications of piling more and more games on our players. There are too many friendlies which take our players to other continents in prime league time."

With such a mood among the 18 leading European clubs – three from Spain, Italy, England, Germany, and France plus two from the Netherlands and one from Portugal – it was hardly surprisingly that two other tournaments mooted for the future were given short shrift.