05/12 The Sports Pages

The headline in the Observer is 'Football Association condemn Fifa as 'opaque' after 2018 bid humiliation'. "Bidding was not a waste of money," English FA secretary Alex Horne said. "That would be an unfair reflection on the work that went into it but I am hugely underwhelmed by the process that produced the final outcome. 20-2 is an orchestrated anti-English vote. We need to be big enough to accept that."

"Fifa do a lot of good work but we feel hugely let down," acting FA chairman Roger Burden added. "They put out a very clear process and at the end seem to have completely ignored it. If there are unfair or illegitimate practices going on around Fifa's executive committee, people have a right to know and they should be exposed."

In the Scottish newspaper the Daily Record, Irish striker Anthony Stokes is the latest Celtic player to claim that referees favour Rangers over Celtic. "It's a completely different atmosphere against Rangers when you're a Hibs player compared to being at Celtic," he said.

"Maybe that had an effect on me with the early tackle I made on Papac. But what annoyed me was that we watched DVDs of four or five Old Firm games from the past. In every one Rangers players were going in and snapping the Celtic lads but there was never a yellow card.

"The tackle I made was down to me being wound up a bit too much. I still don't really think it was a bad tackle - he followed through a bit and got injured by the way he landed."