Anglo-Italian Friendship

Now that the European Football season is well into its stride, some of your readers who are aficionados of the sport might be interested in a couple of short extracts from a report that appeared recently in the London Daily Telegraph under the headline Italians finally sign up Griggs. As all interested readers will know, he is a Welsh international player, one of the brightly twinkling stars in the Manchester United galaxy.

Several Italian clubs, notably AC Milan, have been chasing him for the past 12 months or so, but none of them has grabbed him. The prize has been won by "a leading Italian kit manufacturer" (i.e. Lotto, who are sponsoring the Welsh national side for the next four years).

What is interesting is the reason for this, as given by none other than an Italian, Mr. Luigi Pellizari (Managing Director of Lotto): "We have targeted the biggest market simply because everyone is talking about British football and its players." A generous tribute from a man whose country's football is in a sorry state of decline at present -- just compare England's inspired performance in Euro '96 (which they could well have won, but for a missed penalty in the semifinal shoot out with the eventual easy winners, Germany) with Italy's early departure from the scene.

British football is very much alive and kicking! Mr. Pellizari got it right!

RB SAWREY-COOKSON

Jakarta