Atalanta’s Gian Paolo Bellini and Livorno’s former captain David Balleri have been charged with match-fixing. Brothers Emanuele and Antonio Filippini and team-mate Alessandro Grandoni from Livorno have been charged for failing to inform authorities about the events.

We’ll follow this story and bring you more about it as it breaks. Neither of the clubs are involved in UEFA-sanctioned competitions.

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Alves is Barca’s fourth new signing of the close season, after midfielder Seydou Keita and defenders Martin Caceres and Gerard Pique, as they look to reconstruct the side under new coach Pep Guardiola.
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Here is the complete draw for the first two rounds of qualifying.

First qualifying round draw
First leg: July 15/16
Second leg: July 22/23

1. Linfield FC (Northern Ireland) v NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
2. Valetta FC (Malta) v FC Artmedia Petrzalka (Slovakia)
3. FC Dinamo Tbilisi (Georgia) v NSÍ Runavík (Faroe Islands)
4. FC Santa Coloma (Andorra) v FBK Kaunus (Lithuania)
5. S.S. Murata (San Marino) v IFK Göteborg (Sweden)
6. Llanelli AFC (Wales) v FK Ventspils (Latvia)
7. Anorthosis Famugusta (Cyprus) v FC Pyunik (Armenia)
8. FK Inter Baki (Azerbijan) v FK Rabotnicki (Macedonia)
9. Tampere United (Finland) v FK Buducnost Podgorica (Montenegro)
10. F91 Dudelange (Luxembourg) v NK Domzale (Slovenia)
11. KS Dinamo Tirana (Albania) v FK Modrica (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
12. FK Aktobe (Kazakhstan) v FC Sheriff (Moldova)
13. Drogheda United FC (Ireland) v FC Levadia Tallinn (Estonia)
14. FC BATE Borisov (Belarus) v Valur Reykjavík (Isreal)

Second qualifying round draw
First leg: July 29/30
Second leg: August 5/6

• Rangers FC (Scotland) v Winners Match 4
• SK Brann (Norway) v Winners Match 6
• Winners Match 8 v FK Partizan (Serbia)
• Winners Match 9 v Winners Match 2
• Winners Match 7 v SK Rapid Wien (Austria)
• Winners Match 10 v Winners Match 1
• Panathinaikos FC (Greece) v Winners Match 3
• Winners Match 5 v FC Basel 1893 (Switzerland)
• Winners Match 12 v AC Sparta Praha (Czech Republic)
• Winners Match 13 v FC Dinamo Kyiv (Ukraine)
• RSC Anderlecht (Belgium) v Winners Match 14
• Beitar Jerusalem FC (Israel) v Wisla Kraków (Poland)
• Fenerbahçe SK (Turkey) v MTK Budapest (Hungary)
• Aalborg BK (Denmark) v Winners Match 11

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In what will be new manager Mark Hughes’s first game in charge, Manchester City will play away to minnows EB/Streymur and while they should progress comfortably, their opponents have a manager who is capable of producing upsets. Sigfridur Clementsen led B36 Torshavn past IBV Vestmannæyjar of Iceland in the first qualifying round of the 2005/06 UEFA Cup and beat Malta’s Birkirkara FC 5-2 on aggregate in the UEFA Champions League first qualifying round the following season. These are no small feats as HB Toshavn is the only other Faroese side to ever successfully negotiate the first hurdle of a UEFA competition.

The 37 teams who win through the first qualifying round will be joined by 27 more sides – including the eleven UEFA Intertoto Cup winners – in the second qualifying round draw, taking place in Nyon on 1 August. Those 32 ties will be played on 14 and 28 August, with the winners following the 32 automatic entrants and the 16 clubs eliminated in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, into the UEFA Cup first round. This will decide the 40 group-stage contenders.
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Should Gomes’ work permit go through, it will almost certainly signal the end of Paul Robinson’s time at White Hart Lane. Robinson was dropped from the Spurs side last season by boss Juande Ramos. Robinson had a season to forget last year as not only did he lose his place in the Spurs first XI but he was also being dropped from the England squad by new manager Fabio Capello.

Robinson is said to be moving to Aston Villa, if only for the fact that he will come at a more reasonable price than Liverpool’s Scott Carson, who spent last season on loan at Villa Park. Villa manager Martin O’Neill is said to be keen to have the goalkeeping situation cleared up as soon as possible, largely because the Villans embark on their Intertoto Cup campaign in a couple weeks’ time. You can find coverage of the Intertoto Cup here on the Champions League Talk website.

Spurs fans will remember Gomes as the man who saved a Jermain Jenas penalty in the shootout that PSV won 6-5 to eliminate Tottenham from the last 16 of the UEFA Cup competition. PSV are rumoured to be eyeing Manchester City and Sweden international goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson as a replacement.

One player that is not going to be replaced is Jefferson Farfan, who earlier this month completed a transfer to Bundesliga club Schalke for a reported fee of 10 million Euros. PSV confirmed they would not sign a new striker, instead opting to rely on existing squad players like Danny Koevermans, Danko Lazovic and new signings Reimond Manco (signed from Peruvian club Alianza Lima) and Nordin Amrabat (signed from VVV Venlo). Amrabat (pictured above in an appearance with the Dutch U21 squad) should be able to crack the first team at some point, as he is only 21 but impressively scored 10 times in 33 appearances last season for the relegated VVV Venlo.

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Ben Arfa, a French international, will sign a four-year deal, the Marseille website claimed, adding that the player will be officially unveiled on Thursday or Friday.

Ben Arfa is believed to be a replacement for fellow French forward Samir Nasri, who is expected to join Arsenal shortly, and is one of a number of young French talents who have emerged in Ligue 1 this year. Despite that standing, Ben Arfa admitted to being unsettled at the end of last season due to the lack of first-team football at Lyon.
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I feel that the rebranding the competition as a Champions League and expanding of the initial field to 24 teams will bring the competition a little more recognition and added prestige.

To get things under way, sixteen teams were drawn into eight home-and-away match-ups in the Preliminary Stage which will take place on August 26-28 and September 2-4 of 2008. Those matchups are as follows:

GUA2: CD Municipal or Deportivo Jalapa – PAN1: San Francisco FC
CFU2: Joe Public FC of Trinidad & Tobago – USA3: New England Revolution
CRC2: LD Alajuelense – CFU3: Puerto Rico Islanders
MEX4: CD SC Cruz Azul – BLZ1: Hankook Verdes
CFU1: Harbour View FC of Jamaica – MEX3: Pumas UNAM
PAN2: Tauro FC – USA4: Chivas USA
CAN1: Canadian Champion – NCA1: Nicaraguan Champion
SLV2: CD Isidro Metapan – HON2: CD Olimpia or CD Marathon

The Canadian Champion is being determined by a round-robin tournament between Toronto FC, Impact de Montreal and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Eight clubs (domestic league winners) are already entered in the group stage (4 groups of 4):

Eight seeded teams – Group Stage
MEX1: Atlante FC
MEX2: Club Santos Laguna

USA1: Houston Dynamo
USA2: D.C. United

CRC1: Deportivo Saprissa

SLV1: CD Luis Angel Firpo

GUA1: CSD Municipal or Deportivo Jalapa
Playoff will determine GUA1, GUA2

HON1: CD Olimpia or CD Marathon
Playoff will determine HON1, HON2

I’ll be following this competition and will outline the group stages once the preliminary rounds complete in September. At that point things will be much simpler to sort out

I will admit in advance that I will be biased (i.e. rooting for) the Canadian champ, most likely to be Toronto FC.

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The Intertoto Cup was launched in 1961 as a means of generating money for football pools companies in the summer off-season. It came under UEFA’s jurisdiction in 1995 and was turned into an alternative qualifying route into the UEFA Cup. The tournament also allowed clubs who had not qualified for the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup to experience European club football.

The revamping of the European club competitions starting in the 2009/10 season will mark the end of the Intertoto Cup. Bordeaux’s feat of reaching the 1995/96 UEFA Cup final is thus far the best run of any Intertoto Cup winner. Last season’s outright winners of the Intertoto Cup (determined by their UEFA Cup performance), Hamburger SV, did the best of the eleven qualifiers by progressing to the UEFA Cup Round of 16.

In this final run of the competition, 11 teams from the Intertoto Cup will go on to enter the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. Clubs from higher ranked national associations such as Norway and Scotland will enter at the second round of UEFA Cup qualifying. Hibernian are Scotland’s entry and Rosenborg are Norway’s entry. We’ll have more on both the Intertoto and UEFA Cup qualifying as things progress.

The first round of Intertoto play kicked off in style with two emphatic scorelines being put up. Swedish side Elfsborg downed Faroe Islands based club HB Tórshavn 4-1 and Irish club Bohemian FC defeated their Welsh opponents Rhyl FC by a score of 5-1.

Here are the rest of the weekend results:
FK Ekranas (Lithuania) 1-0 JK Trans Narva (Estonia)
Lisburn Distillery FC (Northern Ireland) 2-3 TPS Turku (Finland)
Hibernians (Malta) 0-3 Nova Gorica (Slovenia)
FC Mika (Armenia) 2-2 Tiraspol (Moldova)
Etzella Ettelbruck (Luxembourg) 0-0 Lokomotiv Tbilisi (Georgia)
FK Riga (Latvia) 1-2 Fylkir (Iceland)
Cracovia Krakow (Poland) 1-2 Shakhtyor Soligorsk (Belarus)
FK Neftchi (Azerbaijan) 2-0 Nitra (Slovakia)
NK Rijeka (Macedonia) 0-0 Renova (Croatia)
Celik Zenica (Bosnia-Herzegovina) 3-2 Grbalj Radanovici (Montenegro)
Besa (Albania) 0-0 Ethnikos Achnas (Cyprus)
FC Zhetysu Taldykorgan (Kazakhstan) 1-2 Budapest Honvéd FC (Hungary)

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McClaren takes over from Fred Rutten, who joined Bundesliga side Schalke in April after guiding Twente to a place in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League last season. Twente beat out more experienced Dutch sides Ajax and Feyenoord to the second Champions League qualification place. The Enschede-based club finished fourth in the league, but beat Ajax in a play-off to claim a spot in the third qualifying round of the 2008-09 Champions League.

McClaren had been linked with the vacant post at Blackburn in the wake of Mark Hughes’ move to Manchester City, but after several weeks of talks with the Twente president Joop Munsterman and a chat with legendary English manager Sir Bobby Robson, he decided to relaunch his career in Holland. Robson had two spells in Holland in charge of PSV Eindhoven in the early and the late 1990s. His first spell was after the 1990 World Cup when he left the England job. He went on to win the Eredivise title in 1991 and 1992.

McClaren told reporters: “Sir Bobby Robson told me that this would be a nice challenge for me. He also told me that FC Twente is a fantastic club and that I would feel at home. ”
McClaren will need to get to work straight away and have a chat with star midfielder Orlando Engelaar, who was part of the Dutch squad at Euro 2008, as he has been linked in the German press with a move to join Rutten at Schalke. He will also need to win over the fans according to the UK-based newspaper The Mirror.

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Welcome to FC Twente

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UEFA, European football’s governing body, issued the following statement: “As communicated on Friday 13 June, the disciplinary case regarding FC Porto and their entry to the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League season has been referred back to the UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body. However, following the written grounds as sent by the UEFA Appeals Body, it can now be confirmed that FC Porto will be admitted to the UEFA Champions League in season 2008/09. This is essentially due to the proceedings in Portugal not having been finally concluded.”

Porto could yet lose the right to play in European club competition in the 2009-10 season if the are proven guilty of the bribery allegations against them. The allegations date back to the 2003-04 season when Porto won the league and allegedly tried to bribe referees in two matches.

The Portuguese league acted last month on prosecutors’ information gathered in a long-running criminal inquiry, known as Golden Whistle. It deducted six points from Porto and suspended club chairman Jorge Pinto da Costa for two years.

UEFA has now decided that Porto must be allowed to play because the bribery case hearings in Portugal will not be finished by August 1 when the draw is made for the Champions League third qualifying round. FC Porto’s reinstatement means that they and Sporting Lisbon, which placed second in the Portuguese league, will go directly into the Champions League group stage which is worth millions of dollars in guaranteed prize money. Guimaraes, which finished third, must play through a qualifying round tie if they hope to join the other two. Fourth-placed Benfica, which also stood to benefit from a Porto ban, must instead enter the UEFA Cup, which is less financially rewarding.

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