They took a decision to sell them to the pay-per-view company. The company who bought the exclusive rights, u>direct, have been pretty good because they have at least now sold the highlights to the BBC and they are also going to make it available live on ONdigital."What we need to do now is to make sure that, for England's other away matches, we talk to the countries and try to encourage them to make it as widely available as possible. The issue is, because we are a bigger country, we are a good pay-day for these countries who have the chance to earn a lot of television money that they might not otherwise do."Crozier stressed that all of England's home matches would be available on terrestrial television. He said: "We have just done our TV deal for a year's time and we are very clear - for England and for the FA Cup - that we are against pay-per-view television. That is why we have gone to the BBC and all England's competitive home matches will be live on BBC."Crozier was speaking at Watford's Vicarage Road stadium where he was helping to launch an important new campaign to highlight safety issues involved with using goalposts in grassroots football. The campaign follows the deaths of nine children in accidents involving goalposts since 1986..

This is the saga, as they might say in Gunnar Gislason's home country of Iceland, of a business proposition that became a consuming passion. Of how a chairman steeped in lump sums learned that a football club can give you a lump in the throat. This is the saga, as they might say in Gunnar Gislason's home country of Iceland, of a business proposition that became a consuming passion. Of how a chairman steeped in lump sums learned that a football club can give you a lump in the throat. Last April, within months of heading the takeover of Stoke City by an Icelandic consortium, Gislason found himself joining 36,000 fellow devotees at Wembley in serenading the Auto Windscreens Shield winners with that strangely spine-tingling anthem "Delilah"."The whole experience," he recalls, beaming at the memory, "was beyond words."On the eve of a new Second Division campaign, which Stoke launch at home to Wycombe Wanderers tomorrow, the optimism is almost tangible - and not just within their traditional catchment area. Iceland has adopted the club, economically and emotionally, unsurprising given that the country has provided the manager, Gudjon Thordarson, five players (including the £600,000 club-record signing, Brynjar Gunnarson), a physio and two of Gislason's fellow directors.But, to paraphrase Tom Jones' contribution to the football canon, why Stoke City? True, the Potters have known days glazed with magic, especially after the second coming of Stanley Matthews.Yet only one major trophy, the League Cup in 1972, had ever been won Managers came and went like Italian prime ministers.

Debts crippled their capacity to build a side capable of escaping the third tier of English football. And many of the fans who had not deserted were disaffected with the club's owners, Peter Coates and Keith Humphreys.The deal had its origins in the trips Thordarson made to the late, lamented Victoria Ground in his role as coach to Iceland's national team. Having come to watch Toddy Orlygsson and Larus Sigurdsson, he heard about the Britannia Stadium rising nearby. While noting the strife afflicting Stoke, he also detected a fervour behind the frustration of the faithful."Gudjon recognised the potential and brought the idea to us," explains Gislason, 34, who was involved in a family firm with two main strands, fruit importation and an investment portfolio, but followed the English game on television.His fellow Icelandic investors, who include eight principal shareholders and over 350 smaller backers, bought control last autumn. There had been times when it looked as if the deal was dead in the Trent, and Gislason remembers a colleague's mobile phone ringing on a train after one disappointing meeting. It was Stoke's local rivals, Port Vale, wondering whether they might like to talk terms with them.Instead they re-opened negotiations with Stoke and persistence paid off.

"What we paid is confidential but the sum invested and injected now stands at £8m."Ending the stewardship of Coates and Humphreys ought to have guaranteed the new regime instant acclaim. First, though, Gislason had a harsh decision to make, terminating the popular Gary Megson's three-month tenure as manager to accommodate Thordarson "Gudjon was an integral part of the plan from the start. The investors regarded him as one of our hidden assets - we would not have entered into this without him."Thordarson, who had guided Iceland to a draw against the world champions France during Euro 2000 qualifying, wisely retained Stoke's "football executive", John Rudge, tapping into the former Vale manager's encyclopaedic knowledge of players. He also kept Nigel Pearson, best known as captain of Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough, as coach.The Icelanders' credibility was further enhanced when Stoke re-entered the transfer market as buyers after a lengthy absence.