Why do they snub the messiah of Moss Side?

Inside Lines

Geoff Thompson flew to South Africa last night, taking with him 15 youngsters from Greater Manchester, of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, for a 10-day sporting and social mission as a reward for their help in doing community work associated with the Commonwealth Games through the locally-based Youth Charter for Sport. It was his only tangible involvement with the event he had helped to secure. One continues to wonder why this talented, highly-articulate figure who has so much street cred within sport is being excluded from its administration. What are they afraid of? Not for a moment is there any suggestion here of racism, but it has to be said that Thompson is big and black. He stands out and speaks out. In fact, his problem may well be that he asks too many awkward questions, something which neither governments nor those they hire to run their quangos seem to like. Yet anyone who spent a few hours with the ex-karate king in Manchester (like the secretary-general of the Commonwealth whom he escorted deep into Moss Side) would have seen how popular and well-contacted he is. No less a venerable personage that Dame Mary Glen Haig, an octogenenarian ex-Olympian and honorary member of the IOC, believes it "scandalous" that he is being frozen out. "He should be the next chairman of Sport England," she says. He won't be, of course, nor even vice-chairman, because he is a fiesty toe-treader not some government-friendly booted-and-suited dilettante. Dame Mary is not alone among substantial sports figures in believing that if Richard Caborn doesn't come up with a significant role soon for Thompson, as promised by successive sports ministers, then it is time some awkward questions were asked of him. What is the agenda?

Adams wins his place in European football

A new career beckons for Tony Adams now that his Arsenal playing days appear to be over. Perhaps not in management after all, but the world of football politics. For it will be announced today that the 35-year-old former England captain has been appointed to a prestigious new post with Uefa. He becomes a member of the recently-formed players' panel, alongside such retired luminaries as Johann Cruyff, Jürgen Klinsmann and Paul van Himst. Allied to his studies in sports science at Brunel University, it suggests that Adams is seeking a future on the more cerebral side of the game. "It is an honour to have been nominated," he said yesterday. "I feel it marks an important step towards players being able to voice their views in a European forum." An important step, too, for England, as Adams is one of 10 new Football Association nominations on Uefa committees, an increase from 42 to 52, making the English representation second only to Germany.

A question of sport's university challenge ends in disputed draw

It used to be Oxford and Cambridge, but now it is Bath and Loughborough who provide sport's biggest university challenge. Theirs was as intense a rivalry at the Commonwealth Games as any of the 72 competing nations. But the argument of who came out on top might have to be resolved by the Sports Disputes Resolution Panel. "Team Bath lands impressive medal haul," declares the Bath post-Games press relrease. " Impressive medal haul for Loughborough students," counters that of the Midlanders. In fact they collected 17 medals apiece, though Loughborough had seven golds to Bath's five. But as Loughborough included past students such as Paula Radcliffe in their overall tally, Bath reckon they can claim a moral victory.

What is it about skating that mixes so much sleaze with the freeze? Amid the revelations of alleged Russian mafia involvement in fixing the figures at the Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games comes news that Tonya Harding, that old drama queen, has fallen through the ice again.

Following her 1994 conviction for her part in a plot to kneecap Olympic rival Nancy Kerrigan, and another for hitting her boyfriend with a hubcap, Harding (pictured) has capped it all by getting a 10-day jail term in Washington for consuming alcohol, a breach of the probation she was given for drink-driving. Meantime Sally Anne Stapleford, the British skating official, spitefully voted off the International Skating Union when she blew the whistle on the apparently corrupt judging in Salt Lake, rightly says she feels vindicated by subsequent events, including the arrest of a Russian mobster. "People said I should keep quiet, but how could I? I hope it all comes out."

Pete Winkelman was a significant, if hardly popular, face in the crowd (if you can call it a crowd) at Selhurst Park yesterday for Wimbledon's match against Gillingham. But as the prime orchestrator of the club's move to Milton Keynes the music entrepreneur hadn't gone to gloat.

"I have always said I feel desperately sorry for genuine Wimbledon fans but the move is the club's salvation," insists Winkelman. "I just hope to persuade as many of them as possible to come to Milton Keynes to support them. They will be made very welcome." Winkelman , who heads the Milton Keynes Consortium, said he was there to support the players as much as the club, who will move into the local Bowl at Christmas while their state-of-the art stadium home is being built. New sponsored shirts are ready. They say "Go-MK", though "Gone MK" will soon be more appropriate.

insidelines@independent.co.uk

Exit Lines

I could have been a god, but people only allow you to get so far in this country. Linford Christie says he was never really appreciated on the home front... What the hell do you see in that cricket? It's not a sport. Sir Alex Ferguson bowls a bouncer at the second sporting passion of the Neville brothers... London has got to get past the Charles Dickens stereotyping. Dick Pound, the former International Olympic Committee senior vice-president, reckons a United Kingdom bid for the 2012 Games could be a Tale of Two Cities, with Manchester just as capable a host.