The Week in Review

DISPUTES with Germany are all the rage at the moment, and they must include accusations about 'cheating foreigners'. The pound's departure, with or without German fair play, may have endangered the ERM, but its effect was as nothing compared with the impact on the Pulse Rate Mechanism of Leeds United's sterling fightback against VfB Stuttgart in the European Cup. By trading on their options and with some speculative play they wiped a three-goal margin off the German slate with a 4-1 second-leg victory, only to be beaten by football's equivalent of an overnight rate increase, the away-goals rule.

But all is not lost. Stuttgart fielded four rather than the permitted three 'foreigners' and Leeds should be reinstated among Europe's elite if the present rules are upheld. Celtic similarly defeated German opposition, Cologne, by three goals - enough to put them through in the Uefa Cup to face another German threat from Borussia Dortmund, but Manchester United were sunk by Torpedo in a shoot-out in Moscow.

Elsewhere talk was of pulling out rather than knocking out. Colin McMillan failed to persuade the World Boxing Organisation that its rules had not been adhered to when he was forced to abandon his featherweight title to Reuben Palacio, of Colombia, because of an eighth-round shoulder injury; Dubai's Maktoum brothers confirmed they will be reducing their strings of horses racing in Britain to concentrate more on France, the United States and Germany; and Nick Faldo withdrew from the German Masters, citing tiredness. He was fined the price of a halfway decent club - a nine-iron, not Muirfield.