Dion Dublin joined Aston Villa last night in a £5.75 million move from Coventry City.
The England striker passed a medical at Villa Park and was hugged by chairman Doug Ellis after completing the move. Dublin had turned down moves to Blackburn Rovers and Leeds United after both clubs had offered more money than Villa.
But it was revealed that the player had a clause in his Coventry contract that allowed him to talk to clubs offering more than £5 million for his services and he preferred to join Villa.
Rob Styles, the referee who sent off the Birmingham striker Peter Ndlovu last Saturday after booking him twice for diving, has withdrawn one of the cautions after studying a video of the match. This spares Ndlovu automatic suspension but cannot alter the result, a 1-1 draw at home to Huddersfield. Ndlovu had given Birmingham the lead after 53 minutes. Marcus Stewart equalised eight minutes later, immediately after the dismissal, when Birmingham were still regrouping.
After the match the Birmingham manager Trevor Francis spoke of "the worst decision I've seen in nearly 30 years in football".
City's joint owner David Sullivan welcomed Styles's decision. "We accept that in all football matches referees do make mistakes on the spur of the moment," he said, "and sadly this mistake probably affected the result of the game. However, we thank Mr Styles and the Football Association for reversing this decision and having the common sense to do that."
The human face of football was also evident at Sunderland, five points clear of Birmingham at the top of the first division, where the manager Peter Reid has granted his midfielder Alex Rae indefinite leave to sort out his private life. "Alex's welfare comes first," Reid said. Meanwhile, Sir Jack Hayward's patience finally ran out yesterday when the multi-millionaire chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers decided that Mark McGhee had had enough time to bring Premiership football to Molineux.
Wolves claim that McGhee, their manager for the past three years, left by mutual consent, but in fact he was asked to stand down before he was sacked. McGhee had guided the Midlands club into the first division play-offs in 1996-97, and last season took them to the semi-finals of the FA Cup. But Hayward's Premiership dream remained as distant as ever. This season they won their first four games but have slumped to 12th position.
McGhee was into the final year of his contract and will receive about £200,000 in compensation.
His assistant Colin Lee has been given temporary responsibility for resurrecting the team's fortunes. Wolves will seek a manager with a proven track record. But the club have already ruled out Ron Atkinson.
Italian prosecutors said yesterday that they had opened an inquiry for attempted murder after a powerful firework-type device exploded during Tuesday night's second-round tie between Fiorentina and Swiss club Grasshopper, injuring a Belgian match official. The match was abandoned.
Soccer bosses were yesterday urged to cut back on television coverage of football - or risk damaging its appeal. A clear sign of a backlash against saturation football coverage came on Tuesday when millions more British viewers tuned in to learn how to make a pizza base with TV cook Delia Smith on BBC2 than watched Liverpool's dramatic European battle with Valencia on Channel 5.
