There’s little love lost between the UK football media and our highest profile soccer export, Harry Kewell. The fractious but fading star is taking his battles with the UK media to a dangerous new level today, with London’s High Court listed to hear a libel action launched by Kewell against high profile TV media pundit and former England captain Gary Lineker over an article in the Sunday Telegraph in 2003.

The column was strongly critical of the circumstances surrounding Kewell’s Premier League transfer from Leeds United to Liverpool. Under the headline “Kewell move made me feel ashamed of the game,” Lineker suggested that the manner of Kewell’s transfer had done the game no favours and questioned how Kewell’s move appeared to take millions out of the game at a time when Leeds was in dire financial straits.

Lineker believes clubs need to get back to dealing directly with each other to protect the integrity of the transfer system.

According to The Times, Kewell’s action alleges the article portrayed him as a willing participant in a dishonourable and financially dubious transfer, and as naive and stupid for allowing his agent to manipulate him. Kewell also believes he was shown as a cunning and disloyal player who had circumvented the transfer negotiation rules.

There is much about the controversial circumstances of Kewell’s transfer, and the way modern football operates, that makes his case something of a legal minefield. By opening Pandora’s Box on the game’s behind-the-scenes transfer market machinations, he might yet have performed his greatest service to football.