Media: They think it's all over...

...and for the editor of 'Sporting Life' it is now. His sacking is the culmination of weeks of chaos at Mirror Group. By Paul McCann

Man-management has never been one of the strengths of David Montgomery, chief executive of Mirror Group, but even he managed to surprise the newspaper world yesterday by sacking the one man not responsible for his Sporting Life fiasco.

John Mulholland, launch editor of the title, was sacked after articles appeared casting doubt on whether Mirror Group could proceed with Sporting Life after putting it on hold.

Last week the plug seemed to have been pulled on the rebirth of Sporting Life - two months before it was due to emerge as a daily general sports newspaper.

Mirror Group claims the paper will be launched in the New Year but it seems the end for the paper started two weeks ago when the sales director and marketing director of the newspaper were informed by Jeremy Reed, the managing director, that a hiring freeze had been imposed on the new title.

Mr Reed claims this hiring freeze was communicated to John Mulholland and Richard Ellis, editor and deputy editor respectively of the paper. They claim not to have been told until a week later, which was long enough for at least 21 more people to be offered positions, on top of the 40 or so already signed up.

Last week, after the freeze became known to Mulholland and Ellis, it was also decided to put back the 19 October launch date. This left in limbo the 60 journalists who had accepted jobs on the paper. Most had resigned from their old jobs; some had contracts, some did not. Either way, none of them had a newspaper to work on for the foreseeable future.

These events took place while Montgomery was on holiday and he arrived back yesterday to a four-page letter from Mulholland explaining why it would be impossible for him to work with Mr Reed in the future. However, Mulholland failed to secure a meeting with Mr Montgomery; Mr Reed did, and while Mulholland was out of the office yesterday lunchtime, Mirror Group issued a statement saying that his employment had been terminated. Staff on the paper had to contact their erstwhile editor to tell him he had been sacked.

At the time of going to press it was not known if his deputy Richard Ellis still had a job.

Mirror Group claimed that Mulholland, former media editor of The Guardian, would "further delay and jeopardise" the project. The statement said that "contrary to misleading articles, the company wishes to reassure the journalists on the paper that will proceed under new and professional leadership."

However, scanners, computers and office equipment that were due to arrive in the paper's putative offices yesterday failed to show up. The omens for the paper were not looking good.

Few sports journalists are likely to wish to work on such an unstable project and advertisers' confidence is likely to have been terminally damaged.

Turning Sporting Life from a racing paper to a general sports paper had been the brainchild of David Montgomery, but Kelvin MacKenzie, his former deputy, brought in Mulholland shortly before MacKenzie left Mirror Group to oversee a bid for Talk Radio. Those searching for someone to blame for the delay were maintaining that MacKenzie's enthusiasm for the paper might have led to what is now a shambles.

A new chairman, Victor Blank, joined Mirror Group two weeks ago and the belief is that he asked to see the research that showed there was a market for a general sports newspaper. It is now being claimed that none had ever been commissioned, despite sources close to MacKenzie claiming yesterday that "bucket-loads" of research was done.

Some of a Machiavellian bent have wondered whether Mr Mulholland, some of his staff and a project with a different name might now end up within Mr MacKenzie's fledgling media empire - a prospect dismissed by friends of Mr MacKenzie yesterday.

David Montgomery convinced those that count that he was totally behind the idea, even after Mr MacKenzie's departure. He signed off the budget for the paper after seeing a dummy the day after England defeated Tunisia in the World Cup.

If it is true that a pounds 10m budget had been approved, staff had been hired and a launch date set without anyone asking if the market for the paper really existed, then Mirror Group's chief executive may have some explaining to do to his board.