With Manchester City about to spend another £27m slug of the £573m Sheikh Mansour has invested in his club, this time on Edin Dzeko, the world football authorities now have the means to keep count.

Fifa's multimillion-pound Transfer Matching System is being formally introduced in the current transfer window. It will ensure Uefa receives human and computer‑monitored data for the spending of every one of their licensed clubs. And with Uefa's financial fair-play rules limiting spending on players to 70% of turnover, City are the likeliest to flunk the test.

"TMS can track, define and hold accountable what clubs are doing with each other," a senior Fifa source said. "We will have regular contact with Uefa's financial fair play department."

TMS is not restricted to Uefa licensees and for every one of the 10,000-15,000 international transfers each year club officials on both sides of the transfer must input data of fees, bank account details and instalment schedules to the system. Everything must have matched for the transfer to be given international clearance.

Although it would clearly be of no concern in City transfers, TMS officials will also have dialogue with Interpol when anomalous employment contracts or transfer fees might point to evidence of money-laundering.

"After the billions of dollars that have been flowing in to football, the regulators now have growing momentum so undesirable behaviour will be weeded out," said the source. "The overall benefit to football of a clean, credible [transfer] environment is incredibly important."

Chung faces royal fight



Chung Mong-Joon, the multi-billionaire major shareholder of Hyundai Heavy Industries, made a name for himself in this country with his outspoken comments at the Leaders In Football conference at Stamford Bridge in October. His announcement that he would consider challenging Sepp Blatter in the Fifa presidential elections in May caused a stir in football politics. But Chung's platform for any such challenge comes under threat today at the Asian Football Conference elections. The Korean occupies one of the 24 Fifa executive-committee seats but must contest it with the Jordanian Prince Ali al-Hussein. The latter has been portrayed as a 35-year-old arriviste who has only lately alighted on the world of football. The truth is his family has been working to bring the World Cup to the Middle East since 2004, when his half‑brother, Prince Feisal al-Hussein told the Guardian of his talks with the Iraqi Football Association over a possible Iraqi World Cup. With Qatar now due to host the event in 2022, it is job done, and with the support of the Arab caucus, Hussain can be expected to mount a strong challenge to Chung.

Ridsdale's risky role



The arrival of Peter Ridsdale as Plymouth Argyle's new "football consultant" coincided with the departure from Home Park of the executive director, Keith Todd, in what has been described to Digger as a "this town ain't big enough" moment. The League One club, for whom Ridsdale is operating as a de facto chief executive, faces a winding-up petition next month for bills totalling £760,000 owing to the taxman. If the hearing goes against them, it would be the second football‑insolvency event Ridsdale has been associated with, after Leeds United in 2003. So Ridsdale's decision to run the club from an arm's length "football consultancy" might give a clue as to his confidence – or otherwise – over the success of his Home Park rescue mission. Football's owners' and directors' test states that anyone who has previously been a director of any two clubs suffering insolvency events is disqualified from joining the board of any other club. Whether Ridsdale has found a way of his being involved without putting his career on the line depends on the football authorities' currently unpredictable perspective.

Arsenal fans feed enemy



The Facebook group Arsenal Fans Against Usmanov has 520 members. Every Facebook member is worth $100, according to this week's valuation of the firm. Ergo the group is worth $52,000 to the social network. Digger only mentions this because Usmanov is a major shareholder in the Digital Sky Technologies firm that holds a $5bn, 10% stake in Facebook. Analysts say his personal Facebook stake is worth about $1.5bn: plenty to launch a full takeover of Arsenal, should he see fit. Fancy that.