It is our obligation to give the captain 12 fit players at the time of the announcement of the

It is our obligation to give the captain 12 fit players at the time of the announcement of the team.”Schofield believes that an injunction taken out by Martin would be unlikely to succeed, although he may claim for compensation for lost bonuses that may be part of his sponsorship agreements.Ballesteros revealed that in a telephone conversation on Sunday, Martin told him: “If I was one of your picks, I would tell you that I was not fit to play. “It’s interesting, no?” Ballesteros smiled.If the little game of “I know nothing” was innocent enough, that involving the injured Martin is not. Three letters appealing against the exclusion have been sent to the Ryder Cup Committee on behalf of the Spaniard by Jose Nunez, the Andalucian minister for sport, Manuel Ballesteros, Seve’s brother, in his capacity as the president of the Spanish Professional ers’ Association, and by Martin’s lawyer.But as far as Ken Schofield, the executive director of the PGA European Tour, is concerned: “Our decision is now taken The Ryder Cup Committee faced an unprecedented situation. Ballesteros, who had vowed to keep everything secret until the last minute, telephoned him almost two weeks ago, although then he did not know that Faldo had said to “call me collect”. Faldo kept up the pretence on Seve’s suggestion, as did Jose Maria Olazabal, who was given Miguel Angel Martin’s automatic place but had been already told he would be in whether he qualified or not. Golf

On another day of controversial statements and seeming contradictions, the simplest task was undertaken by Seve Ballesteros, the European Ryder Cup captain, when he named Nick Faldo and Jesper Parnevik as his wild cards No surprise there, then.
Especially not to Faldo.

It would have been impossible to play then or on the day of the funeral.”Scottish FA chief under fire, page 26. I don’t think a lot of people realised how much it would affect them. The whole country is grieving.”Referring to the postponement of Newcastle’s match at Liverpool last Sunday, he added: “None of the players wanted to the game to go ahead. “It does help the spirit when everyone knows that if they are in form with their club and doing well at training they have a chance of playing. The mood here is as good as it would be at a club.”Lee admitted, though, that England’s preparations had been had affected by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales “You can’t get away from it.

The players talk about it and a lot of us watch it on TV in our rooms,” he said “It has been like one of your family dying. “I think being versatile keeps you in the squad,” said the Newcastle captain, who has played well for Hoddle after being discarded by Terry Venables for Euro 96.”Venables picked from about 13 or 14 players, the rest of us were squad players,” Lee said. I learned last summer that come the World Cup the lucky coaches will be the ones who have four players who can play in three different positions. Scholes is one of those, as is David Beckham and Rob Lee.”Lee agreed. He makes good runs beyond the ball and has an astute football brain.”I wanted to bring him in earlier but he was not playing enough for United.

Once I did call him in I saw enough on his first day of training to suggest he has immense talent.”One of the great things about him is his versatility. “I was able to groom a couple of players and Scholes was one of them. He has ability and temperament, is very astute on the ball, has good feet and vision. However, I have five other forwards in this squad.”One of them is Emile Heskey, who will now stay with the squad instead of dropping down to the Under-21 team Scholes, though, is the most likely replacement. He impressed after making his debut last summer, playing especially well against Italy in Le Tournoi de France when he linked well with Ian Wright.”That was an advantage of going to Le Tournoi,” Hoddle said.