London, October 5 :

G14 chairman David Dein confirmed on Thursday that the grouping of elite European clubs would support Newcastle’s bid for compensation for Michael Owen’s injury suffered in the World Cup. Arsenal vice-chairman Dein was elected this week to a post which will put

him at the forefront of club-versus-country disputes.

Dein said he would back the Magpies’ right to take the matter to court but said he would use his new role to seek a compromise. Newcastle are threatening to sue the English Football Association (FA) and world football governing body FIFA over the injury which could sideline Owen for a year. “We have got the Michael Owen issue where he has been injured in the World Cup and could be out for a whole year,” Dein told The Daily Telegraph.

“In our case, we had Philippe Senderos injured in the World Cup and we haven’t seen him play for Arsenal this season and we are already in October. The G14 will back Newcastle and support them and I hope they would support Arsenal if we decided to do something over Senderos. Why shouldn’t we?” “In what other industry would you allow your employees

to go to someone else and then be off for a length of time because effectively they were on secondment to someone else?”

G14 are currently backing court cases against FIFA brought by Belgian side Charleroi over an injury suffered by Moroccan Abdelmajid Oulmers, and Lyon, after defender Eric Abidal broke his foot playing for France.