The Football Association are preparing to get tough with clubs after losing the equivalent of an entire squad of players in international week.
Across three matches at various age groups, England were without 24 selected players, including 11 from Stuart Pearce's Under 21 squad.
This has provoked significant concern within the FA, where senior executives have determined to use the ultimate sanction - keeping players who fail to report for international duty out of their next club fixture.
The FA were ready to enforce a FIFA regulation which would take him out of tomorrow's game at Blackburn, until it was pointed out that Pearce had allowed Chris Smalling of Manchester United to be absented from the Under 21 squad without reporting for a test.
A harder line is expected to be taken next month, however, with all players required to arrive for assessment before being excused.
Any player that does not could find himself subjected to a ban.
FIFA regulations governing 'restrictions on playing' allow for any player not reporting for England duty to be banned from playing for his club for five days after the match.
Fabio Capello, the England manager, lost his captain Steven Gerrard, who may yet be fit for Liverpool's match with Wigan tomorrow. Yet Gerrard reported for duty and was seen by the England doctor, who confirmed he had a groin injury, so the FIFA ruling would not be enforced.
This is far from England's problem alone. Carlos Tevez was left out of Argentina's game against Portugal as punishment for not playing against Brazil, in a week in which he then played for Manchester City.
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Meanwhile, Sparta Prague withdrew three young stars from the Czech Republic and Croatia Under 21 teams, before attempting to play them in a friendly with Zenit St Petersburg - wearing different names on their shirts.
Sparta Prague are facing disciplinary action after lying about the fitness, and skin colour, of former Tottenham striker Tomas Pekhart.
they withdrew Pekhart, as well as Manuel Pamic and Vaclav Kadlec, from representing their countries for "fitness reasons" this week. They then fielded all three in a friendly against Zenit St Petersburg in Spain on Wednesday.
And in an apparent attempt to disguise the players’ identities, their names didn’t appear on the teamsheet, and the three wore jerseys with teammates’ names on them.
Pamic played as Jakub Podany and Kadlec as Pavel Kaderabek as the Sparta technical staff tried to get away with what they thought was a foolproof plan in the low-key affair.
But such a plan was foiled by a Czech journalist who recognised the players in photos on Zenit's official website.
That, and the fact that Spurs academy graduate Pekhart, a white Czech Republic international, wore the shirt of Martin Abena, a black player who plays for Cameroon.
The club originally said a "relatively unknown Pavel Kaderabek scored both goals in a 2-1 win over Zenit", and only later acknowledged that Kadlec, playing in Kaderabek's jersey, was the scorer.
That was before trying to dig themselves out of a hole again, claiming the proper jerseys were not immediately available due to Chovanec's last-minute decision
read more on the epic trolling here
my internet is being a bitch, so i cant upload any pictures of naked footballers to make this post pretty.
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