Paolo Di Canio's claim that Paul Alcock, the referee pushed to the ground by the Sheffield Wednesday striker on Saturday, took a dive may well send the Italian's career in English football into free-fall, with David Elleray, the referees' spokesman and one of Alcock's Premier League colleagues, urging the Football Association to take the strongest possible action against the player.
Yesterday the FA charged Di Canio with misconduct, a formality since the incident occurred in full view of its director of public affairs, David Davies, and was seen in close-up by the nation's television viewers. As things stand, Di Canio is likely to receive a suspension somewhere between the four-match ban imposed on Birmingham City's Gary Poole two years ago, for an incident with an official at Manchester City, and the ban of nine games handed out to Chelsea's Frank Sinclair in January 1992 when he was on loan to West Bromwich Albion.
The Sinclair incident involved a clash of heads with a referee in a match at Exeter. Coincidentally, the injured official on that occasion was one Paul Alcock.
Di Canio was sent off by Alcock for kicking Arsenal's Martin Keown amid the fracas which followed Patrick Vieira's fierce reaction to having his shirt pulled by Wim Jonk. Keown was also shown the red card, but Arsenal have formally asked the FA to invite Alcock to reconsider his decision. This appeal has rather more chance of a sympathetic hearing than Di Canio's allegation, made when he arrived in Rome on Sunday, that Alcock had overreacted to a mild shove. "He took three or four sideways steps before falling over in rather a strange way," Di Canio insisted, "like someone diving to win a penalty."
Elleray described this view of the incident as extraordinary. "It is quite clear that the one thing Paul was trying not to do was fall down because he wanted to preserve his dignity."
Vinnie Jones has been snubbed by QPR in their search for a new manager - Iain Dowie has been appointed as caretaker-manager at Loftus Road after Ray Harford quit the club.
Jones is player-assistant manager at QPR, and the decision to favour player-coach Dowie will not be welcomed by the former Wimbledon hardman, who thought he was destined to manage the club he joined last season from Wimbledon.
Everton's manager Walter Smith has agreed a fee of £4.2 million for Newcastle's Steve Watson but must sell before he can buy.
He hopes to offload defender Carl Tiler to Sheffield United and midfielder Mitch Ward to Nottingham Forest. Their combined value is only £1.5 million but Smith will expect his chairman to sanction the move for the 24-year-old defender. In Italy pressure was growing on deputy prime minister Walter Veltroni yesterday to sack the country's sports chief Mario Pescante.
Pescante, the national Olympic committee (CONI) president, is under pressure to quit following the exposure of Italy's drug-testing programme as a sham. Only a fraction of footballers' samples were ever tested for steroids by the CONI-approved laboratory and Veltroni, who also has the government's sports portfolio, has ordered an enquiry.
Meanwhile Ronaldo is definitely out and Roberto Baggio and Ivan Zamorano are both doubtful for Inter Milan's crucial Champions League game against Sturm Graz tomorrow.
