Roeder Denies Owen is Off

The Newcastle United manager, Glenn Roeder, has denied rumours on Tyneside that Michael Owen will leave the club this summer having not played for the club this season.

Locally it is believed that Newcastle will not play in Europe again for some time, a prospect that cannot enthuse the £18m England striker. But Roeder said: "I would be shocked if, when Michael Owen is fully fit, he was not playing his football here. I would be shocked if he is not here next year. If there is no European football next season, there will be the year after."

Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, believes the image of the game has been tarnished by the recent outbreaks of violence on the field and that changes are necessary to prevent the kind of scenes witnessed in the Carling Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea and the Champions League game between Valencia and Internazionale. He said he would be raising the issue at Fifa's next congress in May.

Blatter said: "We have come to a crossroads of football, our football is ill. Look what happened recently in the Millennium Stadium, when highly paid players got involved in fights, which was nothing compared to what we saw later in Valencia. What will people think if they see these pictures? We must act."

Barnsley have launched an investig- ation after the arrest of three players in connection with a racist attack. A taxi driver has claimed he was the victim of a racially motivated assault by two players while a third racially abused him at the end of a night out earlier this month.