Well it’s not a rumour or even a secret as apparently the decision about who will take over the 2010 Olympic stadium has already been leaked and Spurs are the big losers. West Ham United are set to come out of this messy bidding cycle as the victors, primarily because they decided to stick with one of the key criteria, namely keeping the athletics track around the pitch.
Quite why Spurs, with all their cash and, I have to say arrogance, decided they could play above the rules is surprising really. Who in their right mind would opt to go with a proposal from a football club who think they have the right to determine the fate of British Athletics for the next 50 years?
No, if the rumour is true and West Ham do earn the right to take over the Olympic stadium and build a new Upton Park (of course it may not be called that) then many football fans will be happy and so will many athletics fans. The only ones with sore heads will the Spurs board who will now have to cook up plan C. Back to the drawing board boys!
Filed under: Barclays Premiership | Tags: Champions league, FA Cup, Ferguson, Manchester United, Tevez
Sir Alex Ferguson has taken to using the media more frequently these days. Despite his reluctance to appear in front of the cameras to discuss his team’s performance following a game, he seems more than happy to lay out his opinions of the opposition before a game and now to play out the Tevez negotiations, presumably to get a better deal for his club.
It does seem odd that Tevez’s agent is saying one thing while Ferguson is claiming the opposite. surely they are talking to each other directly and not just through the media channels? As the stories from each side seem to contradict one another then someone is lying or at least bending the truth somewhere. You have to analyse exactly what is being quoted to understand what may be happening.
Kia Joorabchian, the advisor ( not exactly the agent) for Tevez is saying that Manchester United have not yet offered Tevez a contract that is encouraging him to stay. Last week Tevez said he hadn’t been made an offer of a contract but Ferguson says that Joorabchian has met with the Club’s Chief Executive and an offer has been made.
Well, try making sense of that if you can. Perhaps they have backed Tevez into a corner by delaying the offer so long that he may be forced into accepting soemthing he is not entirely happy with; hence the claim that the club have not made an offer to try and persuade him to stay.
Apparently Tevez is disappointed and thinks he will not be playing at the club after the summer, but after his crucial goal yesterday that help take Manchester United to within one point of the Premiership title, things may become a little clearer in the days to come.
Whatever the outcome it appears that Ferguson is seeing the advantage of playing the media game at any opportunity. With the Champions League final looming, he may want to have the whole affair settled by then so he has all his options available on the big day.
Filed under: Barclays Premiership, European Football, FA Cup | Tags: club ownership, finance, money
The recent revelations about cricket’s involvement with questionable sources of sponsorship and funding should serve as a warning to football’s governing bodies. It is obvious that they should be extremely diligent in ensuring similar situations do not develop in their sport.
Of course the financial aspects of top level football are well documented and the levels of money involved are very high, even in comparison to cricket, but how much scrutiny are football’s backers placed under when they enter the sport? Many of the UK’s top clubs are now fully or part owned by foreign investors and with such high finance, the need for high levels of examination and regulation become par for the course. But have the UK’s footballing bodies stepped up their game to match the stakes?
I’m expecting to see a whole round of press announcements from football’s official bodies, informing the community at large that the sport is totally under control from a financial standpoint. Given the amount of pressure Giles Clarke, the current chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, is facing, I would expect the equivalent heads of UK’s football to be immediately checking their own vulnerability should a similar situation emerge in footballing circles.
Filed under: Barclays Premiership | Tags: Arsenal, Referees, Spurs, Stoke, Sunderland
It now seems long overdue that serious consideration is given to providing technical assistance to referees.
This weekend saw several refereeing decisions fundamentally affect the outcome of big games, so should the abilities of one man, and whether he gets a clear view of any incident, swing the outcome of a Premiership game in such a significant way?
Football now stands almost alone in professional sport in forsaking the help of available technology to ensure a fair result is achieved. Tennis for example now has the help of Hawkeye technology to judge the correctness of every line call. Rugby Union uses a fourth official and video replays to ensure decisions on try scores are correct. Formula One, a sport that has technology at its very heart, has track-side referees who can use video replays to assess fair or foul maneuvers and impose drive-through or retrospective penalties even after a race is over.
Match changing refereeing decisions were once again under examination this weekend after incidents at the Spurs vs Arsenal game and and at the Sunderland vs Stoke game where referee Rob Styles made what must have been the biggest mistake of the day when he failed to spot Stoke player Pugh using his hands to stop the ball crossing the goal line. Sunderland players and fans alike could not believe that the action of Pugh went unpunished. On TV Pugh certainly had a guilty look on his face but unlike some other sports where honesty and honour are upheld, no professional footballer is encouraged to own up to a foul when the stakes are so high. Another thing that should change perhaps.
So with such high stakes and so much money now involved in the game it must be time to reconsider the use of assistance technology to make sure important refereeing decisions are made correctly. It would certainly reduce pressure on referees and remove the weekly complaints from managers that now seem par for the course.
Filed under: Barclays Premiership | Tags: barton, bellamy, Chelsea, Gerrard, Liverpool, Manchester City, Robinho
When the Brazilian footballing superstar Robinho left Manchester City’s training camp in Tenerife during January without team permission, he said at the time that he had gone back to Brazil because of a “family matter”. His spokesman at the time also failed to shed any clarity on the situation, saying just that it was unfortunate that a negative light had been cast on Robinho’s actions.
Well what a surprise when Robinho was arrested by Manchester police this week on allegation of “sexual assault”. The date of the alleged actions are placed just 8 days before Robinho’s unannounced departure back to Brazil. Seems a bit of a coincidence if you ask me.
What is it about professional footballers that seem to make them a magnet for criminal controversy? Stephen Gerrard is still facing charges of actual bodily assault and affray after an incident in a Southport nightclub at the end of December. Gerrard is due to appear in court again in March. And we all know about other footballers who have felt the long arm of the law on their shoulder. Back in 2004 West Brom player Lee Hughes was jailed for six years for causing death by dangerous driving when a 56 year old man was killed after his car was hit by Hughes’ Mercedes.Plymouth goalkeeper Luke McCormick was jailed for 7 years 4 months for killing two young boys in a vehicle collision and Joey Barton was jailed for six months last may after being involved in an attack outside a McDonalds in Liverpool. Welsh captain Craig Bellamy has twice been involved in events that attracted the attention of the police in 2002 and 2006.
Back to the current Robinho affair. I can’t honestly see him playing next season with Manchester City. I’d suggest that he’ll either end up at Chelsea, where he originally wanted to play before the City deal was concluded or he’ll leave the UK for either Italy or back to Spain.
Filed under: Barclays Premiership, FA Cup | Tags: FA Cup, mowbray, player loans, West Brom
The issue of player loans is not one that makes many headlines but recently there appears to have been more interest in the activity. West Brom manager Tony Mowbray has one person speaking openly and frequently about loan players, especially as his club appears to be in a precarious League position with huge squad injury worries to contend with.
The typical player’s ( and most likely public ) view of player loans is articulated by Gavin Strachan in his BBC blog and is seen as a means to give players without regular first team spots the chance to play competitive games with another club in the meantime.But is there more to this than meets the eye.
In one article Tony Mowbray mentions the willingness of higher ranked clubs to offer loan players to teams lower down their Leagues as a potential means of taking points away from their main competitors. By loaning a decent player to a club who subsequently achieves a draw against key opposition, the top teams can steal vital points away from their rivals.
That started to raise my suspicions of possible darker implications and I think the area needs closer scrutiny and monitoring by the FA Cup and League bodies. Perhaps an investigative journalist with an interest in the matter could undertake some thorough research into the area.
Consider Team A loaning a key player to Team J lower down the league. Team J then scrambles a draw against Team C, a key rival of Team A. Team J are glad of the extra point and Team A steal a two point march on Team B. Not the real objective of player loans but an expected consequence none the less. But what happens when Teams A and J play each other? Are there some conflicts of interest at play now.? No-one would expect Team J to put up much of a fight in normal circumstances anyway, but would the team managers concerned see further opportunities for co-operation? Perhaps manager A would be allowed to field an under-strength squad, saving his top players, safe in the knowledge that Team J is not going to make his life too difficult. Makes you wonder doesn’t it. What we need is someone with time on their hands to go back over the results of previous seasons and drag together some statistics. It may make interesting reading.
Filed under: Barclays Premiership | Tags: AC Milan, Arsenal, Barcelona, Drogba, Henry, Kaka, Manchester City, Manchester United, Robinho, Ronaldo
The breakdown of Manchester City’s negotiations to sign Kaka from AC Milan, followed by the unexplained departure of Brazilian striker Robinho from City’s training camp in Tenerife could be indications of signs of unrest amongst the top foreign strikers in the English game.
The failure to sign Kaka was not unexpected, after all he has been linked with unsuccessful transfer negotiations in the past, most notably the £50m attempt by Real Madrid to lure him away from AC Milan in 2006, but the hold the Premier League has on the world’s top players seems to be waning.
Arsenal lost Thierry Henry to Barcelona in the summer of 2007 and there have been numerous rumours about Christiano Ronaldo leaving Manchester United, including last summer to Real Madrid. Even as recently as yesterday Ronaldo was required to restate his allegiance to Manchester United, but we all know that saying you are happy at a club can mean nothing when an attractive offer, both financially and in football status comes along. I’m expecting one or two big name foreign strikers to succumb to the lure of the Spanish or Italian game before the season is over and Drogba may be first to go.
