Deloitte's always fascinating review of football finances is out this morning. It describes an industry, sorry a sport, in rude health: Premier League clubs remain by far the biggest earners in world football, with the top 20 clubs turning over £1.4bn.

Even player wages - clubs' biggest cost, their biggest asset and their potential undoing - appear to be under control. It's what nearly took Leeds out of business only a few seasons ago.  Nevertheless Deloitt's Dan Jones says that even if clubs are only able to maintain the current wages to turnover ratio of 62% in 2007/08, operating profits will almost double to £260m.

So is all well? I'm not so sure.

Jeremy Newman doesn't normally hold back. But his latest blog post will really set the cat among the pigeons. The BDO chief describes how his firm pitched for a due diligence assignment for the UK subsidiary of a (continental) European company.

It priced its work at a maximum fee of £200,000. 'The company’s auditor – a Big Four firm – was also asked to quote and the top end of their fee range was well over £600,000,' he says. Obviously BDO believed the work was theirs. But no.

HMRC has published its spring report, and very upbeat it is too. Interestingly it uses the report to reassure us taxpayers that it lives by the civil service code. The code is news to me - which isn't that remarkable - so I'm relieved to see it's news to the ICAEW tax faculty too.

The code states:

1. Customer focus – Putting our customers at the heart of everything we do; understanding them and responding to their behaviours and expectations

2. Trust – Believing our customers are honest unless we have good reason to doubt it. Being trustworthy and trusting each other

3. Support – Helping our customers to meet their obligations and receive their entitlements. Working together and taking pride in delivering great performance

4. Protect – Being vigilant and acting decisively in protecting society. Behaving professionally and with integrity

It's all laudable stuff. And while HMRC has made no great play of living up to these values - I'm talking words not deeds here - it is even starting to incorporate the language in job ads. Expect it to shout louder.

The launch of the first Women in the City Awards took place in, as you might expect, the City of London this morning. Val Singh, deputy director of the international centre for women business leaders at Cranfield School of Management spoke at the launch and revealed some grim stats about the state of female representation within upper tiers of management.

Among FTSE100 companies only 4% of executive directors are female. (She could have added that only 1% of CFOs are female: Helen Weir of Lloyds TSB). Some 12% of top team members are female, at least, suggesting a pipeline that may push up the alarming top table statistic a little in the coming years. This rises to 16%  among FTSE250 companies.

Any executive who feels the world of computer gaming has passed them by should worry no more. Here's a new game that souonds like a barrel of laughs. IBM has launched  Innov8, a three-dimensional video game designed to  to break down barriers between business and IT people.
The game uses 3D environments similar to those found in Second Life (in which, incidentally, there is  now a virtual European accoutancy firm operating).
But given my post last week on the gulf of expectations between project managers and divisional managers this sounds a little ambitious. Nevertheless apparantly this type of serious gaming is already being used successfully as a training device. Have a look at pics of the game here and here.

There has been much gnashing of teeth and furrowing of brows in Big 4 HQs this week over last Thursday's Accountancy Age front page headline: 'Consultants dismiss Big Four challenge'. It related to interviews I and my colleague Michelle Perry conducted with the heads of Accenture and Cap Gemini. Neither was particularly impressed with the much trumpted return of the major accountancy practices to the consulting business - to say the least. Accountancy Age (print and online) will carrying more news of the reaction to the story this week. In the meantime if you want to contribute to the debate you can do so via our online poll.

A US law is introducing a formal etiquette training programme for its junior lawyers, I read in our sister title Legal Week today.
Apparently Mintz Levin is concerned about its associates' social skills. Among the awkward social questions the course will deal with are: 'Where do you place your napkin when excusing yourself from the table mid-meal?’, ‘What if my glass is soiled?’ and ‘Is it OK to apply lipstick at the table?’.

Prize for the most alarming survey of the day goes to Parity Group, which reveals that most project managers couldn't give two hoots about either deadlines or budgets. Only 35% of project managers considered completing a task within budget was very important, the consultants report, while just said finishing on time was a top priority.
Not much comfort there for the FDs who are handing these project 'managers'  cash to  complete tasks by  a certain point in time and below a set financial ceiling. I've witnessed enough projects either as a journalist or within the publishing houses I've worked for to know that there are few guarantees in life. But I'd say at the very least offering some assurance that a project will be completed on time or within budget was only polite.
I suggest FDs setting up project groups who fear the sort of outcome that this survey implies is commonplace offers his or her own riders: payment for services rendered may not be made in a timely fashion nor will it necessarily be for the amount agreed.

Alistair Darling remains firm favourite to be the next chancellor, I see today. According to Betfair, he's at 4/5, comfortably ahead of Jack Straw (4/1) and Ed Balls (9/2). You're looking at rank outsiders after that: The Millibands (David at 15 or 16/1 and Ed at 20) or Des Browne at 23/1.
More interesting than that perhaps is the fact that you can still win money backing Brown to be PM. He's at 1/33 so, and I'm relying on an onsite calculator and not my intimate knowledge of betting here, you would need to stake £334 to win a tenner.
Have stranger things happened?

As head of the National Audit Office, Sir John Bourn has led a somewhat privileged professional life. Appointed directly by parliament, not the government of the day, he is seen as being above the cut and thrust of politics and has enjoyed a degree of immunity from the criticism that has engulfed civil servants in the last decade. That changed over the weekend as the rottweilers from the Daily Mail and then the Mail on Sunday got their teeth into him.

'£336,000 worth of travel expenses for civil servant paid to advise on saving money,' screamed Friday's Mail. It even went so far as to produce a graphic detailing his trips, based on information obtained by Private Eye.

The comments on the paper's website will make for uncomfortable reading. The Mail on Sunday went so far as to run a follow-up on page two of the main paper.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the trips (and the NAO is fulsome in its defence of Sir John), expect more on this story. Once it's got its teeth into something it rarely let's go.