Where Barber loves schmoozing with world leaders and opinionating on TV, Gowers is a more "rough round the edges" performer. "He is not as polished or authoritative as previous editors, Richard Lambert and Geoff Owen," says a senior colleague. Several embarrassing mistakes were made, leading to an incendiary attack in June this year from Andrew Neil, the former Sunday Times editor, who said: "I don't see how the FT can be called the City's bible any more."Gowers, who beat Barber to the editor's chair last time, was not the most natural FT ambassador to the City. They thought he was losing the FT's place as a specialist publication - fears exacerbated by negative feedback from top figures in the City who thought it was becoming narrow and sensationalist.Accuracy - normally the sine qua non of the FT - had also become an issue under Gowers. It was a double irony, then, that the tide in UK sales had finally seemed to be turning after Gowers stepped up its home coverage.But that, in its turn, had led to internal rows.
Some Pearson people thought he was going too far and dumbing down the FT with too much UK and general stuff, "with large pictures, making it look more like a normal white broadsheet," says one senior executive. While the FT has invested much of its time, money and energy in building itself into a global superbrand with editions all over the world, it may have forgotten that most of its revenues still come from its home ground. "Barber hasn't been a corporate reporter since he covered the Westland saga in the mid 80s," says one close FT-watcher."There's no material difference between the two men. Both are steeped in countries and politics rather than what the FT should provide, which is companies and markets. "They both see UK company coverage as something of an irritation. So what does this change?"The rumblings of dissent about Gowers within Pearson had seemed to stem largely from his failure to halt the decline in UK circulation, which had fallen 40 per cent on his watch. Over the past two years, board members have departed with a frequency that is staggering.
The surreal preliminaries to the Sheffield United game are indicative of the turmoil within the club, which at the time of writing has no chief executive."We had two people," Ian Holloway explains, "Gianni Paladini and Bill Power, in the highest positions and they had a great relationship I liked them both. Their relationship has broken down and things aren't stable any more I have never been a child who has been in a divorce. But now I feel like their kid."Until last year, Gianni Paladini was a Fifa-registered football agent, who represented high-profile players such as Benito Carbone and Fabrizio Ravanelli. He bought a 22 per cent stake in QPR for around £650,000, but is also closely linked to two Monaco consortiums, Wanlock and Barnaby Holdings, that have invested £1.7m in the club; together, they own 46 per cent of QPR.Paladini, now 60, was a striker on Napoli's books until injury forced him to retire at the age of 22. He settled in the Midlands in 1968, and build up a portfolio of restaurants and clubs. Certain aspects of his CV - the fact that he's a Neapolitan, who went from waiting on tables to owning nightclubs, and brokered many football deals in southern Italy - have led some to leap to stereotypical judgments. As Paladini said recently, "People must think there is Mafia involvement.