The difference this time is that instead of ousting a blazer or life-time administrator it has already experimented with

The difference this time is that, instead of ousting a "blazer", or life-time administrator, it has already experimented with outside professionals. Dein, Alan Sugar and Coventry's Michael Jepson were the others.The Premier League, like the FA and Scottish FA, will now head for the recruitment consultants. He replaces Sir John, while Mike Foster, the Premier League's secretary, temporarily steps up to the chief executive post.A management committee has also been appointed, comprising Ken Bates (Chelsea), David Dein (Arsenal), Doug Ellis (Aston Villa), Bryan Richardson (Coventry) and Parry (Liverpool), who, interestingly, was on the committee that investigated the Chisholm and Chance deal. It appears it is not just kick-off times which are now determined by television, but the administration of the game, too.Into the latest power vacuum steps David Richards, the Sheffield Wednesday chairman, a quiet mover and shaker with ambitions for the FA chairman's post. The consequences, should the bottom fall out of the television market, are fearful to contemplate.It is the mutually parasitic relationship between football and television which precipitated the departure of Leaver and Sir John. While we have become worryingly accustomed to the regular pleas for help from impoverished lower division clubs the Premiership seems to grow ever-wealthier but, within the game, there are already rumours that one of these clubs is also struggling to stay afloat. Neither he nor Rick Parry, his more diplomatic predecessor, managed to persuade them to do any more than pay lip-service to the rest of the professional game.Football is widely regarded as being in a golden age, with stars from Gianfranco Zola and Dennis Bergkamp to David Beckham and Michael Owen lighting up our Saturday (and Sunday) afternoons but, increasingly, there is a feeling that boom will be followed by bust.

But there remains a sense this morning that football has scored another own goal. There is also an even sharper awareness of the monster the Football Association created when it not only allowed the Premier League to break away from the Football League but actively backed its secession. There are some worthy men among the Premiership chairmen but not enough see further than their own clubs' interests and Leaver's departure, which is as much about personality politics as a lucrative and lunatic contract, underlines the difficulty of persuading them to act for the greater good. IF PETER LEAVER, the chief executive of the Premier League, really did offer two former BSkyB executives, Sam Chisholm and David Chance, lucrative contracts to act as consultants in the next round of television negotiations, then there was no alternative to both his and the chairman Sir John Quinton's departure yesterday. Ambrose has been declared fit for his 86th Test despite suffering a knee strain in the crushing first Test defeat at Port of Spain, Trinidad but there are fears he may suffer a reaction.. "The spinners got a lot out of [the pitch] in the Busta Cup matches and we are expecting the same for the Test," Gordon said.The West Indies are still hoping to have their fast bowler Curtly Ambrose fit for the match, which starts in Kingston, Jamaica, tomorrow.

Umpires ruled the pitch was not up to standard after several of the English batsmen were struck by short-pitched deliveries. Three first-class matches have been played at Sabina Park since January. Management said much has been done to prevent a repeat of the embarrassing spectacle against England last year, which saw the first Test halted after only 10.1 overs. We will not be having a repeat of that [abandonment] this time," Pat Gordon, a member of the Sabina staff, said. SABINA PARK, notorious as the only ground to have forced the abandonment of a Test match, will be ready for the second Test between Australia and the West Indies, the groundsman said "We are on target for Saturday. The hamstring and Achilles problems, which slowed him in 1997 and prevented his participation in last year's US Championships, appear under control."I haven't had any problems since the beginning of last June," he added.. If I run faster than my PR, I'm probably under the world record."Preparing for two season-opening 200m races in South Africa this month, Johnson said he felt "on track" to be in the kind of shape he was in 1995 and 1996 when he claimed unprecedented victories in both the 200m and 400m at the World Championships in Gothenburg and the Atlanta Olympics."Training has been excellent," he said. "The objective is to go out there and run faster than I ever have," said Johnson, who has led the world 400m rankings for an unparalleled eight consecutive years."My PR [personal record] is a 10th of a second away from the world record.

"I hope to end the season ranked No 1," he said, noting that the world champion, Trinidad's Ato Boldon, and the Namibian Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks would again be pressing him.The Texan also said that his quest for Butch Reynolds's 1988 400m world record of 43.29 had not ended. I wasn't able to sprint the way I needed to the last couple of years. But now I'm back in shape and confident." Confident enough that Johnson predicted a shake-up in the 200m world rankings, in which last year, for the first time since 1989, he failed to gain top-10 status. "Certainly I can get back to the low 19s again," said Johnson from his training camp in Waco, Texas "I don't doubt that at all. "I expect to be back at the top of my game this year," said Johnson who, because of nagging leg problems, has been unable to push his 200m time below 20 seconds since 1996. That was the year he twice smashed the world record, the second time dropping it to a stunning 19.32 seconds.

THE DOUBLE Olympic champion Michael Johnson issued a warning yesterday to sprinters who have dominated the 200 metres in recent years. However, the volume of Test rugby has exploded since the dawning of professionalism almost four years ago and with loose home-and-away agreements between England and both Australia and South Africa in force, there is every likelihood of further trips south of the equator in 2002 and 2003.. Assuming agreement is reached there will be no prospect of the Premiership season being extended into mid-summer, as a number of club owners are urging.Any tour next summer would fly in the face of recent RFU policy; England's international brigade were granted a rest in both 1992 and 1996 following the '91 and '95 World Cups. It emerged yesterday that Rugby Football Union officials were negotiating a two-match trip to the southern hemisphere, including full-on Tests in Australia and South Africa. With the World Cup, a newly expanded Six Nations Championship, a full hand of Premiership and knock-out fixtures and, in all probability, a revamped European Cup, England's finest might reasonably have expected a millennial summer on the sun-lounger Dream on. David Thompson, the information technology tycoon who has bought the reigning Premiership champions and their Kingston Park ground for the grand total of pounds 1, will act as chairman, with Paul Mackings as his chief executive and Rob Andrew as director of rugby.