Bradford players consider striking
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Your support makes all the difference.Bradford City's players are meeting today to discuss a strike and may refuse to play in tomorrow's pre-season friendly against Middlesbrough.
The squad – without pay since the club went into administration in late May – have decided that there is not enough being done by the chairman, Geoffrey Richmond, to save the club and their jobs.
Now the players' Professional Footballers' Association representative, David Wetherall, will covene a vote to boycott the next match.
Bradford City's fate hangs in the balance in the next few days with a creditors meeting on Thursday and a Football League deadline a week later. Concerns among the players are growing. Benito Carbone is yet to agree a pay-off and Eoin Jess' move to Nottingham Forest has also stalled – because of disputes over who pays the tax on their settlements.
Richmond is trying to get the cash together to offer creditors 10p in the pound at a meeting this week. A players' strike will only bring that into sharper focus.
Richmond told senior players of the problems and how he would solve them last week, but the failure to reach agreement with Carbone and Jess has only added to the worries.
If Carbone's settlement is not agreed then the Italian would be one of the main creditors. His personal debt would represent around nine per cent of the club's total £36.1m liability.
Arsène Wenger has threatened to pull Arsenal out of their pre-season tour of Austria unless his security fears are allayed. Wenger feared for the safety of his players after their pre-season friendly against Rapid Vienna in Eisenstadt on Saturday night was abandoned because of crowd trouble.
With the game goalless in the second half, fighting between local fans and Austrian police prompted the referee to order both teams to run for cover and, following an 11-minute delay he abandoned the game.
Trouble broke out when local fans fired rockets on to the field and as police moved in to stop them, they were attacked by bottles and seats. No Arsenal supporters were involved and Rapid officials have apologised. But Wenger wants guarantees there will be no repeat when they take on Roma and Panathinaikos on Thursday, before meeting 1860 Munich on 3 August, in a tournament in Innsbruck.
There was, at least, some positive news from Arsenal following the announcement they had completed the signing of Brazilian World Cup winner Gilberto Silva from Atletico Mineiro, subject to a work permit.
Dennis Wise is to be kept waiting hours to know his fate after his fight with his team-mate Callum Davidson during a pre-season trip to Finland. The Leicester chairman, Martin George, has called for a collective decision to be taken by the board of directors, but the earliest they can all meet to discuss the club's course of action is on Wednesday.
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