Reflecting on yet another tumultuous Albion week

THE ups and downs of the business that is Burton Albion give way to some football today and what a welcome diversion that will be at the end of what suddenly became another tumultuous week.

- By COLSTON CRAWFORD

Obviously, the Brewers' first team have already played a couple of friendlies and the academy side will play their second today, away to Mickleover.

But for the first team squad, today sees League One champions Birmingham City visit the Pirelli Stadium for the first of the three big preseason tests, to be followed by Sheffield United on Tuesday and Derby County next Saturday.

The club's decision to close the home end for the game indicates that, as is so often the case in preseason, no matter the opposition, friendlies do not really drag too many punters in.

It is likely that Birmingham will fill the away end, though, and there should be a decent atmosphere.

Perhaps, among supporters, there is the feeling that they are not quite going to see the finished article, with a good deal of business surely still to be done.

Let's recap where the Brewers find themselves at the moment.

The FA investigation: It came as a bolt from the blue to most and yet must have been going on for a while.

It must be a huge frustration for chief operating officer Tom Mahon and the other senior people who have come on board in the recent reorganisation to have to deal with a situation that was not of their own making.

Bendik Hareide, when he was sporting director, preferred not to name the outsourced recruiters the club were using and it would seem that they are at the centre of the investigation.

The problem appears to lie with the fact that, in the months following the end of the 2023-24 season, Ben Robinson and the Nordic Football Group were finalising the sale of the club from one to the other.

But they could not wait until NFG had been announced officially to start work on getting players in, so the work was outsourced.