First there is the rumour that when Kanu was late back from Africa last week, the club considered much stronger punishment than the 2 week fine that was eventually imposed. According to Soccernet and others, they went as far as enquiring whether they'd be in their rights to sack Kanu. Professional Footballers Association chief Gordon Taylor has said that Arsenal contacted the PFA to ask if they could sack Kanu while retaining his registration (so that a transfer fee would have to be paid if he signed for anyone else). In the end Kanu was just hit with a fine, but presumably left with no doubts about how important is it to toe the line.

Meanwhile various sources including Sporting Life claim that Arsenal have made a complaint to FIFA over claims that Barcelona have been having illegal "pre-contract" talks with representatives of Marc Overmars. So far it seems that the only substance to the story is that the brother of Marc's agent has said that it wouldn;t be a shock if the winger joined Barca in the summer. Marc has repeatedly denied that he's looking for a move, and there seems so far to be no reason to believe this rumour any more than the hundereds of others that come and go. But to be honest surely it would surprise no-one if Marc went there. Barca's dutch coach Luis van Gaal has been collecting his ex-Ajax players together again, and they have enough cash to make an offer Arsenal would find hard to refuse. But there are ways of doing things, and after the Anelka fiasco it's understandable if people at Arsenal are a bit twitchy about these things at the moment. I don't t