One of the Independent European Review of Football’s main objectives was to find ways to help restore competitive balance in domestic leagues and UEFA competitions.

Pleasingly the back pages are carrying stories which show that some of the review’s recommendations and the initiatives it supported are being taken on board.

The review was strongly in favour of UEFA’s limits on squads sizes, which is behind Chelsea’s sale of Damien Duff to Newcastle for just £5million.

In order to stop clubs like Chelsea hoarding players in their squad (Winston Bogarde, who earned £40,000 a week and made 12 appearances in four years, springs to mind!), teams playing in the UEFA Cup or Champions League must, from this year, name a squad of 25 players at the start of the competition.

With Duff unlikely to make the cut he decided there was very little point in staying at Stamford Bridge and was allowed to move on for a cut-down price.

Believe it or not more good news emanates from Italy. With World Cup glory running parallel to a corruption scandal, it’s been a rollercoaster of a summer for Italian football but it looks to be ending on a high after the Prodi government decided to reintroduce the collective sale of television rights in Serie A.

Previously, clubs were left to sell their own TV rights which left Juventus, AC Milan, Internazionale, Roma and Lazio to scoop 80 per cent of the 500million euros the rights earned. The smaller clubs were left with the scraps and little hope of realistically challenging the big five.

The English Premier League led the way with the collective sale of TV rights, and it is something the review wanted to see implemented across all European and domestic competitions.

The desire to restore competitive balance in Italy is to be applauded and, if you can take a positive from a corruption scandal, the relegation of Juventus and points deductions from Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina will give Serie A’s smaller clubs a real opportunity to challenge for honours in the forthcoming season.