“We agreed a transfer fee with United last week but we have been unable to agree personal terms with the player.”The two clubs agreed a fee, and United gave us permission to talk to Dwight. Middlesbrough have officially pulled out of the deal to buy Dwight Yorke from Manchester United even though the clubs had agreed a £6.2m fee.
Yorke’s personal terms have proved the stumbling block to his move, and also seem to have effectively ended Paolo di Canio’s potential transfer from West Ham to replace the Trinidad and Tobago forward at Old Trafford.”We are pulling out of the proposed move to buy Dwight Yorke,” a Middlesbrough spokesman said. The midfielder has joined on loan but his papers have yet to be faxed through from his old club, Las Palmas.Preston’s Colin Murdock has been ruled out of Northern Ireland’s friendly against Poland next month with a broken foot.Claus Jensen, the Charlton Athletic midfielder, could miss Denmark’s friendly against Saudi Arabia on 13 February because of a knee injury.. Karic has failed to push his way into the first-team squad at Portman Road and has rejoined Maribor, the side from which Town bought him in 2000 for £750,000.Preston are waiting for the Spanish football federation to send them the relevant papers before giving their Icelandic new signing, Toddy Gudjonsson, a debut tonight against Watford. The club are adamant, however, that there is no possibility of Angel being sold.The Ipswich defender, Wayne Brown, has joined Watford on a month’s loan and could make his debut at Preston tonight.Meanwhile, defender Amir Karic has returned to his native Slovenia until the end of the season to enhance his World Cup prospects. Aston Villa have denied reports that they are about to sell their club record-signing Juan Pablo Angel.
There is speculation that Villa are looking to cash in on the player they bought for £9.5m from River Plate and that the player is unhappy following John Gregory’s resignation from the manager’s job last week. “It denies the honest supporter the chance of buying tickets at face value It’s frustrating and we’re trying to eradicate it.”.

That’s a matter for Arsenal.”A spokesman for Arsenal said touting of any kind was bad for Arsenal fans who already faced problems in obtaining tickets for games that are usually sold out. “Anyone found to have supplied or sold tickets to the black market is at risk of not receiving tickets in the future,” a spokesman said “We’ve nothing to say on Ray Parlour. The Football Association said yesterday that there are “clear policies” in place to stop touting at grounds. Arsenal believe the coin was thrown from the same block in the crowd where Parlour’s touted tickets were located. Arsenal have said the guilty party, if and when identified, will be banned for life from Highbury. It could be to anyone, it could be to the worst thugs around.”The inability to identify individual ticket-holders could yet prove to be a hurdle in the police investigation to find the culprit who threw a coin at Liverpool’s Jamie Carragher at the weekend.

When tickets are sold on the black market, you never know where they’re going. “Our primary aim in trying to enforce the legislation that outlaws touting is to make grounds safe. The Metropolitan Police said yesterday that touting presents a “real danger” at matches “It’s not just a case of fans being ripped off There’s the major issue of segregation,” a spokesman said. That saw “large amounts of stock” confiscated from two unofficial ticket agencies. One area where the club have had some success in fighting touts was a joint operation, carried out with the police and the Westminster trading standards office a fortnight ago. Arsenal will ban anyone touting, but have had difficulty proving that it happens. The buyers are almost exclusively members of the club’s official “ticket list”, a register of fans who can buy seats when they become available Some are believed to be touts or work with them.

The North Lower Stand is the area of the ground is where Arsenal sell a lot of “single match” tickets. Asked if it would be possible to provide seats for a party of 40 people, the salesman said: “No problem at all.” The Independent approached a handful of other unofficial agencies and found a similar response. He said the tickets would be located in the North Lower Stand and had a face value of £31 “We’ll let you have them for £85 each plus VAT,” he said. One agency, Premier Events, said it could supply “as many tickets as you want” for Saturday’s game “We’ve got good contacts who supply them,” a salesman added. Enquiries in London yesterday, however, showed that hundreds of tickets for many Arsenal home games ­ including Saturday’s game with Southampton ­ are available through unauthorised agencies at inflated prices. Both parties have been involved in trying to identify and close down touting operations in recent weeks.