The police statement states that ‘a 59-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman were today arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting, as part of the City of London Police's ongoing investigation into football corruption.’

This was a fairly innocuous and typically noncommittal statement from the Economic Crime Unit, but it is nevertheless one that confirms the startling news that Karren Brady, the most influential female administrator in the Premier League, and David Sullivan, (the managing director and co-owner of Birmingham City) have been arrested and bailed on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting.

Brady became the UK's youngest managing director when Birmingham City floated on the stock market in 1997. She is non-executive director of Channel 4, Mothercare and Sport England and is also chairman of Kerrang Radio. Sullivan, the multi-millionaire former proprietor of the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport, co-owns Birmingham City with brothers David and Ralph Gold.

Following their arrest shares in Birmingham City were suspended on the London Stock Exchange ‘pending an announcement’, after the news the two had been interviewed by police got out.

A statement issued by the London Stock Exchange stated: ‘At the request of the company trading on Aim for the under-mentioned securities has been temporarily suspended from 10/04/2008 7.30am, pending an announcement.’

Shares in the company had been selling for 35.5p until the suspension announcement which came half an hour before the start of trading.

The personal involvement in the inquiry of Brady and Sullivan has come as a great shock as Birmingham have not been particularly under the spotlight during the long-running inquiries that have seen the arrests of the likes of Harry Redknapp, Peter Storrie and the  Senegalese player Amdy Faye who is currently on loan at Rangers from Charlton.

When pressed, the police gave little further information, stating only that the two had ‘been released on bail’ and that ‘seven other people remain on bail in connection with the investigation.’

There has been absolutely no sign of Sullivan at his mansion in Essex and Brady made no comment as she left her home in Solihull this morning.

Two Italian clubs have apparently accused Premier League teams of stealing the products from their youth system at the age when they are eligible to sign their first professional contracts.

This is nothing new, Arsenal have a history of signing some of the best talent throughout Europe at a young age. Fabregas (right, with Denilson), Flamini, and Clichy are all youngsters signed from foreign lands for minimal prices at incredibly young ages, they were then brought through the Arsenal youth system, which functioned more as a finishing school, and given the opportunity to play first team football. It is a system that has been adopted by both Manchester United and Liverpool though neither have yet experienced the success of Wenger.

For the clubs the situation is not exactly desirable. Signing foreign talent is cheap, certainly, cheaper than signing British players, but the orientation process is a lot slower and the success rate is relatively low, those that fail to make it disappear into the system.

The reason that they do it is quite simply technique. Young, foreign players are trained from a young age with a football, the focus is put on technical ability. When they come to our academies they learn to deal with the British type of physical, rapid football, and when they develop on the physical side, they retain the technique that is so desired. British players, save for a few notable exceptions, are not developed in the same way and don’t come out of the system with the same type of talent. Whether this is due to the academy system, or the end of that long tradition of children playing on the street or any other reason can’t really be known, but the fact is that a premium is placed on technique now, and young foreigners have it in abundance.

So what is the solution? The much talked about development in British coaching programmes? A change in the way training is conducted at grass roots level? Quite probably, but this will take a while for the results to be felt, and in the mean time top European talent will continue to be poached by top British clubs.

When FIFA awarded the 2010 World Cup to South Africa there were a number of eyebrows raised. The decision made political sense, and from FIFA’s point of view will continue the spread of the game, but South Africa is hardly the well-organised, stable nation in which to hold the competition that bills itself as the greatest show on earth.

It has come to light that FIFA have built themselves a contingency fund in the event of things going wrong. Some of the stadiums that are in line to be used are very old, run-down, rugby stadiums that need massive investment to improve them and the fear is that these will not be made ready on time.

FIFA, it seems, has been forced to build it’s own £400m contingency fund as insurers are currently uncertain about providing the collateral themselves as building progress continues to be slow. Munich Re, the insurers of the last World Cup in Germany stated the stadiums were the main concern. A FIFA insider, however, suggested that questions over the political stability of the country, security and the transport infrastructure were also a large part of insurance companies’ concerns.

This has been building for some time, a press release by the FIFA executive committee last month revealed the plan to build an $800m reserve capital supply by the end of 2010. All future competitions will have to demonstrate that they have insurance cover at the time of their bid submission.

For all FIFA’s efforts to save guard their flagship event, the damage to world football should South Africa not be ready is far in excess of the $800m that FIFA are building as a contingency. Aside from speeding building work along there is nothing that can be done by the world governing body apart from sitting, watching and waiting.