MID-SEASON BREAK BECKONS

Last updated : 05 July 2004 By editor

"I have been speaking to people at Uefa and they feel the gap between European competitions and the European Championship is too small," Palios said. "From a medical and technical point of view there is not sufficient a gap to enable top players to come to a tournament fresh.

"Everyone knows Sven believes [a mid-season break] is part of the answer. Indeed all the Premiership clubs know this would be beneficial to them in the quest for Champions League success.

"If we qualified then perhaps we could have the mid-season break before the World Cup finals. We are working at it. We need to get everyone on board to make it happen."