Kinnear has submitted a list of transfer targets to Newcastle executive director Dennis Wise, but has admitted he will have to sell players before he can buy.

BBC: N'Zogbia keen to stay on Tyneside

But that strategy would give him time to transfer his position and executive functions from the Yugoslav federal presidency back to his power base within the republic of Serbia itself.

BBC: Analysis: Milosevic's options

Like poets before him, he yearned for Greece and effected a transfer to the Special Operations Executive in Cairo with a view to going on there.

ECONOMIST: Epitaph for a poet