The president of Fifa world football's governing body caved in to pressure from

The president of Fifa, world football's governing body, caved in to pressure from Uefa, the game's European governing body, and agreed to withdraw unilateral plans he had put to the European Commission. Blatter said that he regretted the bitter row between the two organisations. The proposals he had submitted to the EC last week were now "invalid" and a "non-paper", he said. Lennart Johansson, Uefa's president, who had arrived at an emergency meeting with Fifa yesterday with what he described as two "non-negotiable demands", could not have hoped for a more comprehensive victory.Blatter said that Fifa would re-start negotiations with the EC jointly with Uefa, which had been incensed by Fifa's decision to submit its own proposals alone last week."As president of Fifa I have taken the initiative to bring the football family together and work hand-in-hand to find a solution to this matter," Blatter said "We have settled our differences. Now we will reinstate the joint Uefa-Fifa Task Force [to petition the EC]."Johansson, who lost out to Blatter in the Fifa presidential elections in 1998, was happy with the talks. "We start again now from the point where we had the Task Force," he said. "We are satisfied."The EC threatens to rule the current international transfer system illegal under EU law if it is not changed to allow players to have the same freedom of movement as other workers.Fifa's unilateral proposals would have enabled players to end their contracts if they disagreed with a coach's tactics, gave three months' notice, or the club was relegated.

The Uefa consensus is that clubs and players have to respect existing contracts.The EC is likely to accept an agreement somewhere in between. The EC's main gripe with the current system is that clubs and not players have the ultimate power in moves. It is still possible that transfer fees could be replaced with voluntary release clauses that would serve much the same purpose and that the transfer system will remain largely intact.The Task Force will meet on Tuesday. The group will discuss duration of contracts before resuming negotiations with the EC on Wednesday in Brussels.The EC said this week that it was prepared to give the football authorities more time to settle their differences."There is great relief that there has been a halt in the backsliding in negotiations," a spokesman for the English Premier League, which was party to the talks, said. "All parties can now concentrate on finding a workable solution for football.".

John Gregory will today prime an Aston Villa side deprived of Gareth Southgate's defensive leadership to stifle the attacking wiles of Teddy Sheringham - after hailing Manchester United's born-again striker as the potential Footballer of the Year. John Gregory will today prime an Aston Villa side deprived of Gareth Southgate's defensive leadership to stifle the attacking wiles of Teddy Sheringham - after hailing Manchester United's born-again striker as the potential Footballer of the Year. Three weeks after losing 1-0 at home to the champions and runaway Premiership leaders, Villa step out for the return fixture at Old Trafford under the scrutiny of the new England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson. Gregory, who is likely to blood his record signing, the £9.5m Colombian attacker Juan Pablo Angel, believes that United's young players are certain to form the core of the Swede's squad.However, it is Sheringham, who will be 35 in April, who has really excited the Villa manager's imagination this season, making him all the more frustrated by Southgate's absence with a knee-ligament injury sustained during the midweek FA Cup win over Newcastle."A lot of managers thought about going for Teddy last summer," Gregory said. "They probably thought he was content to just sit there on United's bench, picking up his money. But he has got back into the team and effectively told the manager: 'You can't leave me out because I'm playing so well'."He still has that passion, and desire to win things, that all players should have.

People within the game are already talking about Teddy winning the players' player of the year award or the Footballer of the Year trophy, and I wouldn't argue if he did. Not just because of what he has done, but because he has achieved it against the odds by breaking up the thriving partnership of Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke."The Villa manager was once a fervent advocate of "British is Best". While he has since broadened his sweep in the transfer market, he maintains that Eriksson has inherited "an abundance of English talent", nominating United's Wes Brown ("quite incredible") and Liverpool's Jamie Carragher ("outstanding wherever he plays") as the pick of the bunch.Gregory also name-checked the West Ham trio of Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Frank Lampard, the Leeds pair Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, Southampton's James Beattie, Liverpool's array of forwards plus Villa's own Gareth Barry and Lee Hendrie in support of his argument.Hendrie is often excluded from such lists, reflecting the personal and disciplinary problems which saw him lose momentum after a sparkling England debut in 1999. Now, just in time to remind Eriksson of why he was capped, Gregory believes the 23-year-old midfielder is returning to his best form."Old Trafford is the big stage for him to prove his quality and show the new England management team the true Lee Hendrie," he said "Apart from his family, I've probably been his biggest fan. I see a lot of myself as a young player in him - an angry young man who wants to win everything he goes for."He has grown up after his two sendings-off and car crash last year But he has to appreciate what being a professional entails. In my day, being able to drink 12 pints with your team-mates was seen as the way win people over. I'd like to think it's the opposite now, and that not touching it [alcohol] shows the real courage."As for Angel, Gregory has yet to decide whether his capture from Argentina is sufficiently match-sharp to be plunged in at the deepest of deep ends, though he seems certain to play some part.