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Fears ‘pay-to-stay’ scheme will drive thousands out of housing association and council properties

The government is introducing measures that could drive thousands of families out of social housing by removing any subsidy for their rent.

In what is being billed as a “pay to stay” scheme, Downing Street has swung behind plans to introduce a new household income threshold above which social tenants must pay full market rent. The government is expected to say that rent subsidy will be capped at a household income of £60,000, meaning, for example, a couple on £30,000 each could see their rent rise by about £70 a week.

The scheme, applicable to all housing association and council properties, is explicitly designed to make social housing primarily available to the poor.

The housing minister, Grant Shapps, has referred to the idea before, but Downing Street’s embrace of the proposal means it will now go ahead with a consultation paper next month.

The government says it is necessary to remove an unfairness in the system and to allocate scarce housing resources more efficiently. Critics will say the scheme will give wealthier families an incentive to buy their property at discounted rates, removing social housing from the market.

The government has been accused of driving some poor tenants from properties in wealthier inner-city areas by introducing a higher rent, set at 80% of the market rent. It has also introduced a so-called spare room tax, so that under-occupying social tenants of working age are docked £14 a week for one spare bedroom and £25 a week for two. No tenant will receive more than £500 a week in welfare payments, a measure that will affect larger families on housing benefit.

The welfare cap is, in polling terms, one of the most popular policies the government has introduced, and the new £60,000 household income cap for social housing tenants is likely to win equally wide support.

A No 10 source linked the two measures, saying: “It’s not right that high earners benefit from taxpayer-funded housing subsidy. Just as we have introduced a cap on housing benefit and welfare payments to make the system fairer, now we’re acting on social housing too.”

Government sources added that social housing should be regarded as a precious asset to be devoted to those most in need, not a cheap option for those who can afford competitive rents or their own property.

The government consultation, due to be launched next month by Shapps, will suggest a range of options for the threshold, with the lowest at £60,000.

Ministers have been looking at a range of proposals to make social housing more flexible, including the removal of so-called lifetime tenancies, replacing them with fixed-term tenancies. Social housing tenants can also no longer pass their homes to their children.

Government research shows that as many as 6,000 social rented homes in England are lived in by people who earn a combined income of more than £100,000, including Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union. At the proposed £60,000 threshold, ministers estimate as many as 34,000 social rented homes in England alone would be affected.

It is being stressed that no one would be evicted from their home, simply that they would have to pay higher rents.

The government claims the economic subsidy provided by sub-market rents for social housing is worth £3,600 a year on average, or £69 a week.

The total cost of this annual subsidy for those above the £60,000 threshold is £122.4m, and the annual subsidy for a £100,000 threshold is £21.6m.

Social rents are set on the basis of a formula linked to size of the property, its value and local earnings.

Labour has always argued that social housing should be for a mix of tenants and not seen as the preserve of the poor. The Liberal Democrats have curbed some government housing reforms, but could arguably support the measure as a legitimate restriction on middle-class welfare.

However, social housing has been increasingly taken up as an option by young professionals unable to afford to own their own home. The cost of the cheapest quarter of homes is now more than six times average household income and eight times in London.

The overall social housing budget was cut by more than 50% in the 2010 spending review, to £4.4bn, and the number of people on council waiting lists is now 1.8m, an 80% increase in the last decade.

In a report this week, Shelter, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation said the government was failing on five of its 10 key indicators: affordability of the private rented sector, help with housing costs, homelessness, housing supply and overcrowding.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/19/social-housing-income-cap-shapps

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Facebook’s major founders all have substantial share holdings in the company, and as the share price rises or falls, so will their net worth

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/interactive/2012/may/18/facebook-shareholders-live-interactive

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Last week, Stevyn Colgan, author and former member of the Metropolitan police’s problem solving unit, met me at The Bear in Maidenhead for a beer-fuelled chat about evidence-based policing. Could the police make better use of science and evidence, and if so would the media and politicians even let them?

Strange Quarks is produced and hosted by The Pulse Project. Subscribe (iTunes)

Follow us on Twitter: @strange_quarks | @mjrobbins

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/may/18/1

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Chen Guangfu says Chinese authorities tried to make him reveal how his sibling escaped from house arrest

The brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has told reporters how he was chained to a chair and beaten for three days to make him reveal how his sibling escaped from house arrest in the Shandong countryside.

Chen Guangfu described his ordeal in an interview with a Hong Kong magazine as his son, Chen Kegui stood accused of attempted murder for fighting back against a similar beating.

A team of independent lawyers who have offered to represent the defendant were dismissed by the authorities and told not to speak about the case.

Chen Guangfu told a reporter from iSunAffairs.com that local officials came to his home after his brother fled late last month from his home village of Dongshigu to the US embassy in Beijing.

“They put me on a chair, bound my feet with iron chains and locked my hands with handcuffs behind my back,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview released to the BBC.

“They pulled my hands upwards forcefully. Then they slapped me in the face,” he said.

“They first asked me if I knew what this was about. I said ‘I don’t know’, So they beat me and slapped my face. Only on one side, not the other. And they trampled my feet.”

He tried not to implicate others by initially claiming all the responsibility for the escape. But he said the interrogators seemed to know who had been involved so it was ultimately impossible to resist.

His wife, Ren Zongju, also described how officials attacked her son.

“They started fighting inside the house. So many people were beating him. His face was bleeding, and his legs. His trousers were ripped,” she was quoted as saying. “He said to me ‘Mum, I need to get out immediately’. We had 1,000 yuan… So I picked it up and gave it to my son.”

The report is difficult to confirm. Journalists have been turned away from Dongshigu and neighbouring villages. But it fits with Chen Guangcheng’s telephone statement to a US congressional hearing earlier this week in which he reported a “pattern of abuse” against his relatives.

The blind activist is now in a Beijing hospital, where he is being treated for colitis and injuries sustained during his escape. Under a deal between the US and Chinese governments, he expects to be given permission to study in New York. US authorities say visas for Chen and his family have been prepared. The Chinese side has told him that passports and travel permission will be ready in 15 days.

“I am not worrying. For sure I can get my visa within two weeks,” Chen told the Guardian on Friday. “My worry now is for my family. The local police have confessed that they beat [my nephew] Chen Kegui so his fight back is just self-defence.”

It is unclear which family members will be allowed to travel to the US with the activist. Although his wife and two children are certain to go, an official said there were also discussions about whether his mother might join them.

Chen’s mother is now 78, and suffers from arthritis and coronary heart disease. According to Chen, local officials previously prevented her from getting medical treatment and followed her when she went out to buy food. But now, she is free to walk around in the village and chat to neighbours.

The activist says he is in daily phone contact with her, but that she does not want to go to New York because she is concerned about those that would be left behind. “She is worried about my extended family, especially her grandson, my nephew Chen Kegui,” he said.

A senior lawyer defending the activist described to the Guardian last week how he lost his hearing in a beating by a senior state security official after he tried to visit Chen Guangcheng in hospital.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/18/chen-guangcheng-brother-beating-officials

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? Much at Manchester United to attract top players, says Gill
? Sir Alex Ferguson ‘tireless’ in contributing to success of club

David Gill is convinced Manchester United can overthrow the new Premier League champions, despite the vast means Manchester City have employed. Gill, the chief executive since 2003, has been with the club for 15 years. He argues that United have previously answered the challenge of opponents comparable to City.

“Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, he came in 2003 and they won the title in 2005 and 2006,” Gill recalled. “Everyone was saying: ‘This is it, Abramovich and Chelsea are going to be there for 10 years.’ It doesn’t happen like that. We have got to concentrate. Chelsea, I am sure, are going to be better in the league next year. Tottenham had a good year, Arsenal ? That’s the great thing about the Premier League, there are many teams.”

United’s circumstances are, however, controversial since the takeover by the Glazers led to some £500m leaving the club. Gill denies that United, following a trophyless season, labour under a handicap. “Whilst other clubs may pay slightly more, we pay what we believe are very, very good salaries,” he said. “The commercial spin-offs, if [players] want to go down that route, are arguably better than at other clubs.

“We shouldn’t be shy or embarrassed or worried about not being able to attract top players. I firmly believe that we can, with Sir Alex Ferguson and what we offer as a club. Many people want to come and play for us. We’ve got experienced players in Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, we’ve got Rio [Ferdinand].

“These are players who have won many trophies. There is Wayne [Rooney] obviously. We can blend that with the youngsters and hopefully that will stand us in good stead. If a player is saying: ‘I am relaxed, I can either go to Manchester City or Manchester United or Chelsea,’ and it just comes down to a money thing they may outmuscle us. We’d say: ‘That’s fine.’ We have our parameters in which we work. We look at the whole squad and the salary ranges within it, make sure they’re appropriate, make sure people can look each other in the eye.

“Our turnover and our cash profits demonstrate that we can invest in players. We showed that last year when we bought three players: Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea. Those are the sort of players we like to buy ? players who are still developing.”

Even so, the most expensive figures in the starting XI at Sunderland last weekend were Ferdinand and Rooney, men bought as long ago as 2002 and 2004 respectively. The Glazers can only be overjoyed that the expertise at Old Trafford remains. Sir Alex Ferguson was inevitably named manager of the Premier League’s 20 years.

Gill describes a tireless Ferguson arriving each day at breakfast time. “You don’t stay at the top of the tree in one of the most competitive leagues in the world without having that enthusiasm, that knowledge and ability. We still had 89 points. The title has not been decided on goal difference before. We cannot be unhappy with what we’ve done. It’s a fine line.”

Any disquiet is likely to lie with mediocre efforts in Champions League and Europa League. “We underperformed in Europe,” Gill said. “Not getting through the group stages of the Champions League was very disappointing. We can’t ignore that but the important thing is that throughout the season we were looking at the development of the squad and the players coming through from the youth team.

“We’ve had another good year. The reserves won the national championship. It’s not a revolution. We’re not sitting here saying: ‘Christ, what are we going to do?’ It’s an ongoing process.” Gill is aware of the financial fair play initiative by Uefa, the first phase of which will soon take effect and, it is hoped, compel clubs gradually to balance their books.

Under the current arrangements, United have had some glum times. Gill is forgiving of defeats home and away to Athletic Bilbao in the Europa League since that tournament was the La Liga side’s principal concern. United had a Premier League title in mind then, although it now stays in their thoughts only because it eluded them.

Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/football/rss/~3/nD09moVi0o4/david-gill-manchester-united-city

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A ban on unauthorised photography should only reinforce the resolve of those who refuse to surrender the visual field to CCTV

Ah, the sheer banditry of photography! More than ever impossible to police, even as the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport announces plans to ban all photography on the Glasgow subway except that for which written permission has been obtained.

I have always felt in good company as I humbly follow in the stealthy footsteps of other outlaws who have defied authority to photograph on the subway, the metro, the tube. Since the arrival of transport modernity, photographers have sought to ride its dark undercurrents ? perhaps as an antidote to metropolitan spectacle, whose “falling towers” TS Eliot already found “unreal” in the wasteland of London post first world war, and whose ruin has even greater resonance post 9/11.

US writer Lincoln Kirstein recognised that a “tender cruelty” was prerequisite in photographer Walker Evans’ use of a hidden camera to capture the unguarded humanity of passengers on the New York subway in the 1930s. The tenderness and cruelty of Evans’ voyeurism and that of his successors are human attributes that should not be confused with the unblinking robotic gaze of corporate surveillance in 2012 London, in a privatised public space that’s now transnationally owned, and is no longer answerable to its citizens.

In bad old 1980s New York, Bruce Davidson brazened it out on the subway “with my expensive camera around my neck, in a way that made me feel like a tourist ? or a deranged person.” There is a kind of in-your-face neighbourliness that is bracingly un-English in Davidson’s decision to flash shoot subjects from less genteel stations who, on occasion, interacted with the photographer with a degree of intimacy that required first aid and the replacement of expensive cameras.

The outlaw status of the photographer underground was well and truly established by the mid-to-late 1990s when Luc Delahaye declared of the photographs which were published under the title L’Autre: “I stole these photographs between 95 and 97 in the Paris metro. ‘Stole’ because it is against the law [in France] to take them, it’s forbidden. The law states that everyone owns their own image. But our image, the worthless alias of ourselves, is everywhere without us knowing it.” While many of Evans’ photographs showed couples and groups in close proximity, at times interacting with each other; and while Davidson records encounters, at times confrontations, with his subjects, by the 1990s the disengagement of those photographed by Delahaye is complete. Individually framed, they mostly stare into empty space, when their eyes are not entirely shut.

In 2012, we are all photographers. As such, I would encourage readers to band together in groups, such as London tube, on Flickr. Or better yet, form your own cells of underground photographers. Reclaim the visual field from CCTV in the name of a citizenry that is currently seen from above but is not permitted to see from below. And, as you ride the train or bus, lift your cameraphones in greeting as you photograph your fellow passengers, explaining for the umpteenth time that, no, you are neither paedophile nor terrorist, only a photographer and citizen of a visual democracy.

? Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/18/photography-glasgow-ban-subway

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Tom Midlane is covering the north’s huge festival of ideas for the Guardian Northerner. He’s halfway through – and reeling with mind-expanding notions, new technology and a Buddhist urban meditation app

A mecca for creatives, media professionals and tech-geeks, FutureEverything has ballooned from modest origins into an internationally-acclaimed festival of ideas to rank alongside the likes of TEDx and SXSW. This year’s conference focuses on mass experience and participatory culture, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Mass Observation movement.

The twitterati are out in force at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry, and it’s nice to be at a conference where you don’t feel self-conscious tapping on your laptop, since at least half the audience is swiping away on their iPads or feverishly tweeting their thoughts.

The breakfast session begins with a presentation by Rohan Gunatillake, creator of the urban meditation app Buddhify. Having first explored Buddhist practice when working in Manchester, Gunatillake is a firm believer in the idea that Buddhism is compatible with city living. This is Buddhism as filtered through modern marketing, with the jargon to boot ? there’s lots of talk of Buddhism as an “industry of awakening” and an “innovation tradition”, as well as a desire to tackle Buddhism’s “pathological” attitude to money.

Gunatillake is an engaging performer though, casting Buddhism as “a punk movement of spiritual practitioners”, with Buddha as a proto-scientist using “inner technologies” to explore the nature of human experience and the mechanics of suffering. He’s particularly interesting in charting the migration of Buddhist practice, from austere and scholarly south-Asian Buddhism, moving east through China, Korea and Japan (zen), and on to Tibet. The hippies then brought Buddhism to the baby-boomers and creating a “western meditative tradition”.

He brings the timeline up-to-date with the birth of the “hipster meditator”, a postmodern Buddhist influenced by all three Buddhist traditions, as well as the science on the neurological effect of meditation and consumerism. As Gunatillake puts it:

It’s not about looking to the East, to the mountaintop in India or the zen garden in Japan or a monastery in Burma, it’s about making it work here.

And there’s plenty of evidence to show there are people doing exactly that, with groups like buddhistgeeks, an online community dedicated to modern Buddhist practitioners, and the #OMCru (that’s Online Meditation Crew for the uninitiated, a group who encourage meditation through Twitter) and Gunatillake’s own Buddhify app (tagline: “Modern meditation. To go.”) It’s even spreading to the corporate sector, with Google encouraging their employees to read Search Inside Yourself in a bid to improve their wellbeing and productivity.

There’s an interesting panel discussion on the relevance and future of Mass Observation, hosted by Fiona Courage, Special Collections Librarian & Mass Observation Archive Curator at University of Sussex. There’s a flurry of debate over the worth of social media as a historical archive ? technology writer Bill Thompson claims Twitter and Facebook are self-aggrandising mediums, whereas the original Mass Observation came from a sense of public-spiritedness.

Nevertheless, Campbell tells us that he has saved his texts of the late 1990s into a database, goading us:

When the history of the text message is written, it’ll be me, because you’ve all deleted them!

Pauline McAdam, senior broadcast journalist for BBC Radio Merseyside, raises gasps of horror from the technophile audience when she describes social media as “cave painting but digital”, lacking the magic of archives, before suggesting: “Just shut up and have a cup of tea!”

Next up is Moritz Stefaner, a data visualisation expert with a very Keatsian focus (he styles himself as a “Truth and beauty operator”). Entitled Weltbilder (German for “world views”), Stefaner’s talk looks at how data visualisation helps us live in a complex world, giving us a birds-eye perspective on all kinds of worlds: finance, knowledge, relationships.

Some of his data works are stunning ? beautiful tendrils sculpted from the data in Wikipedia page deletion discussions (including one on “Biscuits and human sexuality”). Stefaner talks of “the tension between order and chaos” and cites a natural correlation between the elegant solution in mathematics and beauty, quoting inventor Buckminster Fuller approvingly:

When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I’m finished, if it’s not beautiful, I know it’s wrong.

As well as discussing his work on the OECD Better Life Index, the Max Planck institute and a mail-order museli company, he gives us a peek of Emoto ? an attempt to visualise in real-time the global emotional response as medals are lost and won at the London 2012 Olympics using all the social media data.

There’s a real diversity to the presentations at FutureEverything this year. There’s the BBC on their staggering quantity of digital coverage planned for London 2012, and a presentation from Adrian Hon, the brains behind Zombies, Run ? a zombie-themed running app which features stories penned by Orange prizewinning novelist Naomi Alderman. He also shares the irresistible fact that apparently zombies tend to become more popular during socioeconomic downturns. Elsewhere composer Andrea Molino discusses Three Mile Island, his multimedia opera based on the work of an Austrian meteorologist who analysed the wind data after a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in 1979.

There’s only so much innovation you can take in one day though, which perhaps explains the surprisingly small audience for Richard Ayers, Head of Digital at Manchester City FC, who’s here to talk about tribalism in football. The first shock is that he’s not actually a big football fan. Ayers discusses the volley of abuse he received after an ill-advised “Bluffer’s guide to being a City fan” was posted on the official City website. I also keep particularly quiet when he mentioned receiving a savaging from the Guardian‘s very own Scott Murray.

Ayers is persuasive in discussing modern football’s need for endless expansion because the financials are so cock-eyed, with clubs spending recklessly on transfer fees and wages. I also loved his discussion of football clubs as having ‘characters’ ? Arsenal are, apparently, a starchy gent, while City are “a mysterious beauty who ensnared many lovers”. After last Sunday’s antics at Eastlands, I think there’s plenty of Mancunians in sky-blue who would agree.

Tom Midlane is a freelance journalist based in the north-west. He has written for Leeds Guide and DeHavilland, the parliamentary monitoring service, and is a regular contributor to Manchester-based news site Mancunian Matters. His blog is here and you can also contact him on Twitter @goldenlatrine

Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/football/rss/~3/aTefcJUtK20/manchester-festivals-futureeverything-tedx-sxsw-buddhism-mass-observation-mancity

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This conventional boxing story gains a piquant flavour from the Klitschkos’ upbringing in a Soviet-era Ukraine

An entertaining and enlightening documentary about the Ukranian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, who between them currently dominate the world heavyweight boxing division, holding four out of the five available belts. It’s relentlessly celebratory, with the alternating adversity and triumph you would expect from a conventional boxing story. This one gains a piquant flavour, though, from the Klitschkos’ upbringing in a Soviet-era Ukraine: their father, an air force officer, was one of the first into Chernobyl after the reactor explosion, and the brothers speak amusingly of their terror during their first visit to the US. Perhaps more could have been made of the older Klitschko’s move into Ukranian politics, now such a hot potato ? but that might be asking a bit much.

Rating: 3/5

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/17/klitschko-review

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Ad agency strikes a patriotic tone to get Margaret Thatcher into Number 10

The Conservative Party last night revealed to the nation a new generation of party political broadcasts created by one of the hottest names in the advertising trade, Saatchi and Saatchi.
As exciting new images go, it was reassuringly familiar.
Land of Hope and Glory was belted out over a misty picture of Big Ben. Spitfires soared into the clear skies over England in her finest hour. Mr Winston Churchill, grandfather of the MP for Stretford, strode purposefully over some theatre of war. Mr Harold Macmillan grinned at cheering people who had clearly never had so good.
This country, said a tremendous British voice, was once the finest nation on earth. We were famous for our love of freedom, justice and-fair play. Our inventions brought the world out of the Middle Ages into industrial prosperity. This was said over pictures of the inventions.
Then there was a picture of a chap climbing a mountain. Today, said the patriotic voice, we are famous for discouraging people from getting to the top. The mountaineer started to descend backwards.
In succeeding clips all the British ships, planes and other inventions, even the clock on Big Ben tower, moved in the same direction. The reason? No, not foreigners. Socialism.
Japanese people were seen refusing to buy British goods on account of their high price. Japanese, French and German goods were seen coming into this country.
Next, a number of people were seen occupying a court dock and pleading guilty to such offences as wanting to own their own homes, wanting a better education for their children, and making a profit of £240 millions. What was happening, the voice explained was that the country was being pulled apart by divisive government. This was illustrated rather unpatriotically by pictures of a Union Jack being torn. One part was dropped in a wary manner, signifying general lack of national enthusiasts and the other half was scrunched up in a menacing socialist fist.
In the last couple of minutes four Shadow Cabinet Ministers, Mr Michael Heseltine, Mr Tom King, Mr James Prior, and Sir Geoffrey Howe appeared briefly and solemnly. They said, in so many words, that Conservatives sincerely want people to own their own homes, get their children better educated, and make profits of £240 millions. They did not have time to say exactly how before Land of Hope and Glory welled up again over some more pictures of how it used to be.
No doubt in keeping with the mood of nostalgic harmony, the last two leaders of the Conservative Party did not appear.

Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/media/rss/~3/zq7X_wxit1E/archive-1978-saatchi-tory-advertising

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? Italian makes club’s hierarchy aware of his interest in job
? Capello has been out of work since resigning from England

Fabio Capello has made it known to Chelsea’s hierarchy that he is eager to take up the reins at Stamford Bridge this summer as the former England coach seeks a return to top-flight club management.

The Italian is due to attend Saturday’s Champions League final in Munich, which marks the last game of Roberto Di Matteo’s impressive tenure as interim first-team coach. Chelsea are still evaluating who will fill the position vacated by André Villas-Boas in the first week of March but, with their chances of securing Roman Abramovich’s first choice ? Pep Guardiola ? appearing remote, Capello has moved to promote his own candidacy.

The 65-year-old’s availability had been explored by intermediaries apparently working with Chelsea’s blessing earlier this year once it became clear that Villas-Boas’s spell in charge was unraveling. That would have been on a short-term basis ? the former Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez was also discussed at the time ? and, like the Spaniard, Capello would have considered the role only on a more permanent basis. The Italian, who does not operate with an agent, has been contacted by brokers claiming to be working on behalf of the club and has expressed his desire to be considered. He has not as yet been offered the job.

Capello resigned as England coach in February and has spent the last three months between Italy, Spain, Dubai, London and at his family home in Lugano. He has received offers from Spain and Russia and, having opted against retirement, is seeking a return to an ambitious leading European club. He has accepted opportunities will be limited in Italy and Spain and, with his compatriot Marcello Lippi having been appointed by Guangzhou Evergrande ? an £8m-a-year role for which Capello had also been considered ? considers the Premier League his most likely route back.

His reputation may have been damaged in this country by England’s toils at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa but his record as a club manager remains impressive. He has won nine titles in 16 seasons with Milan, Real Madrid, Roma and Juventus ? his two Juve titles having since been revoked ? although his sole success in the Champions League remains the Rossoneri’s victory over Barcelona in 1994. His appointment would find favour with the likes of John Terry, whose removal from the England captaincy had prompted the Italian’s resignation earlier this year.

Capello still owns an apartment in Chelsea and recently expressed a desire to work in the Premier League. “England would be very interesting for me because I know very well the teams and the players and everything would be less difficult,” he said in an interview with The Times this month. “I’ve refused some really good offers for a lot of money, from clubs in China and different places in the world. I want one more challenge.

“At the end of my career it would be interesting to find a team with big motivation to arrive at the top. I want to manage a team that is able to play in the Champions League and fight for lots of trophies. If I don’t find the kind of club I want I’ll return to being a pundit.”

Chelsea had quickly identified Guardiola as their primary target following Villas-Boas’s sacking but the 41-year-old has reiterated he will now be taking a year-long sabbatical from the game after leaving Barcelona. José Mourinho, another who was under consideration, is to remain at Real Madrid, leaving the likes of the France coach, Laurent Blanc, and Capello as viable alternatives.

Di Matteo, who has claimed the FA Cup and could win the club’s first European Cup against Bayern Munich, has intimated in recent weeks that he does not expect to be offered the role on a permanent basis despite his successes during his 10-week spell in temporary charge.

Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/football/rss/~3/HUfhbeB8NXc/fabio-capello-chelsea-manager

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