The weather warmed up again and Sepp Blatter got very hot under the collar, as FIFA was again rocked by corruption scandals; England faltered and Derby County chased their transfer targets.

The domestic season was wrapped up when the Championship play-off final took place at Wembley on Bank Holiday Monday. Swansea City clinched promotion to the Premier League when they won the so-called “£90m Final”.

They beat Reading 4-2, ending 28 years of exile since the Swans were last in the top flight when John Toshack took them there for just two seasons in the early 1980s.

Across the Welsh valleys, their rivals Cardiff City have reacted to their latest play-offs defeat by sacking Manager Dave Jones. They have come close to promotion for several years but couldn’t cross the line and make it to the top level - and now feel it is time for a change.

Barnsley FC has appointed Rochdale’s Keith Hill as their new manager to replace the departed Mark Robins; that may assist Derby County to pursue negotiations to bring defender Jason Shackell to Pride Park Stadium but the clubs can’t agree on a fee.

The Tykes’ general manager called Derby’s reported £700k offer for Shackell ‘ridiculous’….anyone would think we were trying to sign Bobby Moore - I don’t see a Barnsley defender costing any more than Sean Barker did, so I anticipate that Barnsley are holding out for about £1m for Jason. Barker certainly needs a reliable and commanding partner.

New manager Hill now seems resigned to losing his captain to Derby County and Derby will increase the fee to get their man.

Aberdeen striker Chris Maguire has passed a medical and agreed personal terms with Derby County. The Dons’ manager Craig Brown (once a short-lived and rather invisible ‘technical director’ for Derby in the Billy Davies era) whined on about the mooted £400k compensation fee for the 22-year old Scottish international.

Maguire has been described as ‘a bit raw’ and is an all-action, aggressive forward - not a prolific scorer, though he’s often been deployed in a wide role.

If Maguire can adapt to the demands of the Championship - and perhaps team up with ex-Forest free agent Nathan Tyson - whom Derby want to sign, the Rams should have more attacking potency than last season.

Adding those two players to Jamie Ward and Theo Robinson will broaden Clough’s options - though there is still an urgent need for an effective centre-forward.

Kilmarnock midfielder Craig Bryson is close to becoming a Derby player; as seems the way of these transactions currently, Derby have had bids rejected by Killie but it’s reported that the player will ultimately cost Derby around £350k, plus another £100k in appearance clauses.

So Derby are set to sign two highly-regarded players from the SPL and we will have to wait a few months before we can judge if they are capable of crossing the line and growing into a more demanding and high-profile habitat in the English Championship.

There’s a paucity of quality in home-grown Scottish players at the moment, as we know the league north of the border is dominated by the two giant Glasgow clubs and there are many imported players in squads of the major Scottish clubs.

The Rams have had a hit-and-miss experience with their ‘imports’ from Scotland; Stephen Pearson has gained more consistency and effectiveness under Clough without convincing us he can be part of a more successful Derby team - and he (like most of the Rams’ players that season) had a torrid time in the Premier League.

Chris Porter and Russell Anderson have fallen short of the required level, and all three players have been plagued by injury.

Ben Pringle left Derby for Rotherham United, the ex-Ilkeston Town midfielder signing a two-year deal with the Millers for ‘a nominal fee’. Pringle, an honest trier, represents the ‘Clough fringe’, one of the manager’s young hopefuls, corralled from his non-League portfolio.

He was brought into the rarefied atmosphere of Pride Park Stadium alongside such as Jake Buxton and Saul Deeney, to make up the numbers in a penny-pinching era. Ben didn’t quite cross the line to prove he was of Championship quality; we need to recruit players of higher potential.

Young midfielder Jeff Hendrick won another Republic of Ireland Under-19 cap as Eire beat Italy 3-0; they now top their elite U-19 European Championships’ elite qualifying group.

Derby goalkeeper Frank Fielding helped the England Under-21 team to a 2-0 win over Norway in their warm-up friendly prior to the U-21 Championships next week, which are being held in Denmark.

Derby County held their 2011-12 first team home kit ‘reveal’ on Saturday; the new kit (black & white…what else?) has marginal tweaks on the trim and piping contrast and those that wish can take delivery of the new replica Adidas items in the first week of July.

There were calls on Monday from the media, football associations, sponsorship partners, fans and politicians for the impending FIFA elections to be postponed in the wake of the latest bribery scandal. Fresh revelations and counter-claims are snaring the Executive and FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who simply says: ‘crisis, what crisis?’

The beleaguered Blatter faced the media on Monday in a solo press conference; his expression was rather different to that impishly glib and satisfied look he gave when he opened that envelope last December to award the 2018 World Cup to Qatar, confounding most football fans and observers and humiliating several other expectant bidding teams, including England.

He again batted away accusations from The Sunday Times and from Lord Triesman alleging corruption and stated that the 2018 World Cup (in Russia) and the 2022 Qatar competition ‘would not be touched’. He declared that FIFA were ‘in difficulty’ rather than in crisis and journalists felt that Blatter merely hoped that the organisation would carry on as before with him remaining at the helm.

Election candidate Mohammed Bin Hamman had withdrawn his nomination last weekend as the FIFA Ethics Committee decided that he and FIFA Vice President Jack Warner were found to have a case to answer.

President Sepp Blatter crossed the line in a farcical one-horse race, the only presidential candidate in the wake of the corruption scandal(s) rocking their Geneva HQ. Critics were demanding reform at the top of the world game with new leadership but that’s been deferred. The election process enabled Blatter to be re-elected unopposed in what is seen as a case of ‘the emperor’s new clothes’.

Blatter rode on the back of generous voting from emerging countries and the Caribbean, where FIFA has invested developmental funding, though you cannot help feeling that his triumph may eventually ring hollow if the many allegations and scandals lead to Sepp’s ‘ship being holed’ sometime in the future. There needs to be a far-reaching, independent review of the organisation.

The English and Scottish FAs had proposed postponement of the presidential election to a largely dismissive assembly - but the Australian government followed up in opposition of all that Blatter represents, in declaring that they would not bid to stage a World Cup until FIFA is reformed.

There was no mechanism to alter the 2011 presidential voting process so the walking anachronism kept his position as ‘captain of the ship’, as he described himself. He might need a lifebuoy to bail out far earlier than his new 4-year term suggests. We will wait and see how real the promises of FIFA reforms prove or if further investigative journalism produces incontrovertible evidence of corruption and bribery.

Blatter’s declaration that the future World Cup bid voting process would be radically reformed to involve the whole of the FIFA Congress was an admission that the ambiguous, shady charade that denied England, Australia and others a fair chance of staging the tournament was unacceptable.

Back home, England had enough worries of their own, trying to overcome Switzerland at Wembley on Saturday in and important Euro 2010 qualifier. The Three Lions collapsed on the half-hour to concede two soft goals in the space of a few minutes.

Goalkeeper Joe Hart had a touch of the ‘Robert Greens’, first letting a long-range free kick drift past him into the net and then failing to guard his near post for Switzerland’s next set-piece. The ball squirmed into the net when a feeble England ‘wall’ failed to block a free kick. Frank Lampard struck back with a penalty before the break but England had been decidedly mediocre as the Swiss gained in confidence.

Substitute Ashley Young levelled the game at 2-2 early in the second half but after Darren Bent then missed a sitter, England had to be content with just a draw. Elsewhere in England’s qualifying group, Montenegro (thankfully) was held to a 1-1 draw by Bulgaria.

England missed the chance to establish any significant advantage in their group table in dropping those points and won’t be crossing the line to qualify for Euro 2012 until the autumn. They top the group on goal difference and their three remaining qualifiers in September will decide who goes through to the 2012 finals.

The weekend’s rash of Euro qualifiers have finally wrapped up the domestic, European and international football fixture calendar for 2010-11 - but RamsWeek will continue to chatter on Rams’ matters and other football stories throughout the summer. Plus - it’s only a fortnight until the 2011-12 fixtures come out, innit?

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In RamsWeek 23 last year it was ‘time for a change’ as RamZone switched internet platforms from Club Fanzine to Fans Network, but it was a period of slow change in Derby County’s squad.

The Rams managed to complete the permanent signing of loanee David Martin from Millwall and Paul Connolly was in talks with Leeds United.

England were warming up for the 2010 World Cup and the media waffled on about how our ‘golden boys’ would perform and if injuries to various players would clear up.

Ex-Ram Craig Short took over as manager of turbulent Trentsiders Notts County.

Photo: Action Images

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