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!

Capello is obviously a very capable man, his past record of achievements is fairly strong evidence of that, but with the England team playing so badly in their four games during the World Cup, his position has obviously been called into question and rumours of an impending resignation by the Italian were rife.

Rightly or wrongly Capello may regard himself as blameless for the team’s performances. The pre-tournament qualifying games and even the friendlies in the weeks before all boded well, but suddenly, once the pressure was on in the games that mattered, the team’s confidence started to disappear.

Capello himself is a very proud man and with all his years of experience, vast wealth and current age (he’s 64 now), I wouldn’t expect that he would want to walk away from the England job and start looking for something new. It’s a very well paid position, not that he needs the money, but to resign would be a costly exercise for him we suspect, so he was always going to say that he wanted to stay unless he was pushed out (when significant compensation would be likely to be paid).

We all expected to have to wait a week or two before the FA came up with a comment about the manager’s position, presumably giving them time to work out whether they could afford to pay him off, but already today the FA have given Fabio their backing.

There are two years until the next European Championships, so they are probably considering Fabio’s role in the qualifying games and reflecting on how well he managed England’s World Cup qualifying games. A repeat of that would be perfect so why get rid of him now? Assuming England successfully qualify for Euro2012, then memories of the World Cup situation will have faded slightly and Capello’s job would be fairly secure again until his contract needs renewal in 2012.

Quite why the FA agreed a new contract with Capello just before the 2010 World Cup and not afterwards is put down to rumours of him possibly being tempted back to his home country to take up the Inter Milan managership which was eventually taken by Jose Mourinho on 3rd June; Capello signed his new deal with the FA on the 1st or 2nd of June. Whether one event influenced the other may never be known, but the possibility of Capello returning to his homeland to manage Inter Milan in the twilight of his career remains.

Capello has already managed several of the top teams in Europe with two spells at AC Milan, two at Real Madrid, and periods managing Roma and Juventus. He has been in top flite football management since 1991, almost twenty years, and with a personal fortune estimated to be in excess of £30 million and a private art collection worth £17million, Capello’s years at the top of the game must be numbered. Surely he wants to retire and enjoy his wealth soon?

Our posts last year on Tevez turned out to be true and the Argentinian star left Old Trafford and has spent the 2010 season causing pain all over the league, not least at Manchester United, which he seems to be relishing. We wonder why?!

Ferguson himself seems to be finding it harder and harder to keep his cool and like more and more Premiership managers seems to be taking the bait when it comes to responding to journalists and broadcasters giving them the spotlight to air their opinions. Wenger is another who is quick to critique. In fact Martin O’Neil is slowly emerging as an example of contained competence, even though his side were on the receiving end of yet more refereeing incompetence at the weekend.
Rooney continues to impress though and if his own maturity keeps pace with his obviously improving skill, then we could be in for some exciting World Cup moments later in the year.

Michael Owen has been given a new lease of life by Man Utd and Ferguson has been sticking to his guns by playing Owen as regularly as his fitness allows, but, with the league looking ever closer at the top, Sir Alex may be forced to put emotion and national loyalties to one side and make more use of Rooney than Capello would like.

It certainly looks like a three horse race at the top now and Chelsea’s domestic worries are not going to do them any favours, with Terry and now Ashley Cole both receiving massive media attention for matters other than football and that can’t bode well for Ancelotti’s boys. That all seemed to come home to roost last weekend as they entertained Man City at home in one of the crunch games of the season. It was Chelsea’s first home defeat of the season and even though Lampard’s goal gave them an early lead, they seemed on the back foot all through the second half and never looked like even securing a draw.
With Cech’s replacement Hilario looking very unsteady in goal, that could well be the undoing of the Stamford Bridge side unless Ancelotti can act quickly. Something to think about there.

The FA Cup resumes next weekend and Fulham, Aston Villa and Tottenham will be hopeful that a demoralised and under-pressure Chelsea will be easier to beat. Chelsea have to get past Stoke City first, who could well provide an upset that will ease the path of the other contenders to Wembley.

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.

Of course Ferguson is himself no stranger to using press interviews to play mind games with future opponents. Recently we noted his part in a run-in with Harry Redknapp prior to an earlier FA Cup game against Spurs when Redknapp was suggesting who he might put up to play against Ferguson’s team given his injury worries and poor league position. In the end Spurs lost the game and Manchester United went on to the semi-final stage while Spurs have gone on to recover their Premier League position and are even chasing a European competition place for next season. meanwhile Liverpool and Manchester United are almost locked to gether at the top of the league with six and seven games remaining respectively.

Prior to the semi-final Everton’s manager David Moyes made a comment about the match referee Mike Riley being a united fan. In the past Riley has been accused of making decisions biased towards United. Perhaps he should never have been selected to referee the game but he was and found himself in the hot seat when United had a strong claim for a penalty. When the penalty was not awarded Ferguson could be seen jumping around in rage on the side of the pitch and after the game accused the referee of being fearful of awarding it given the pre-match accusations. Had Moyes planted that seed in the ref’s mind?

Benitez has been known to heap praise on Chelsea in the past, saying he thinks it’s a fantastic club and he likes their style, so we may be set for some further rallies between the two managers in the run up to the FA Cup final in May.

Oh and Ferguson was also moaning about the state of the pitch at Wembley this weekend. I think that sums up his state of mind at the moment.

Fabio Capello has just announced his squad for the forthcoming friendly game against Slovakia and the 2010 World Cup Qualifier against Ukraine and of the 24 players only 8 come from those top 4 teams. Manchester United are the exception, providing four players, but teams like West Ham, Everton and Portsmouth all provide as many or more players to the squad than Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. In fact there are no players in the Enland squad from Liverpool, the top team in the English league of the moment.

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.

Obviously he wants to carry on playing in Italy, they want him to stay and for someone with so much wealth, he’s not going to be made to do something he doesn’t want to do.  Given the fact that he would be free to leave LA Galaxy in November anyway, I’m pretty certain they are resigned to the fact he’s leaving them but are just trying to eek out the best financial outcome. Beckham’s advisers and AC Milan’s money men all know that, so expect this one to be a money-related affair and to go right to the wire which may be 9th March.

AC Milan have already offered £5 million, but LA say Beckham is worth £10 million. Fairly big numbers, but small beer in Beckham’s world and maybe AC Milan will ask Beckham to cough up some cash himself to buy himself out of his contract (in much the same way as F1 driver Jenson Button did to get away from Williams to join Honda in 2005).

Of course Beckham is also taking a renewed liking in playing for England who have nine international games lined up between now and October. As much as AC Milan want Beckham, they won’t want to shoulder the whole cost of bringing him back to Europe, especially if the English national team are going to see significant benefit from the move. Cash may be brought in from elsewhere to oil the wheels here.

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.

It is thought that LA Galaxy want him back, but if Beckham himself wants to remain in Italy I would expect LA Galaxy to take the next best option and secure a nice financial deal out of the issue. AC Milan clearly want Beckham on their books either temporarily or permanently.

Having the chance to play alongside superstars such as Kaka, Ronaldinho and Seedorf must be more attractive to Beckham at this stage of his career than returning to US football where real player talent is thin on the ground.