If the Premiership League was a person then there is no doubt that it would be considered to be a serial solicitor. And when I say solicitor I don’t mean in the context of a lawyer but rather, in the context of a hooker.
The announcement made yesterday that the Premiership intends to extend the season by one game to be scheduled for warm foreign climes starting in 2011, just reinforced the belief that when it comes to money nothing will stand between the Premiership and the possibility of collecting another pound note.
The Premiership proposal would have ten additional matches played on one day in January with the draw rigged to ensure that the top five teams do not play each other. The Premiership expects cities throughout the world to bid for the “privilege” of hosting these games that involve teams from what porn-king and reluctant Birmingham City owner David Gold calls the “the greatest league the world has ever known.”
The initial reasons put forward for intensely disliking the proposal – an unbalanced league, a rigged schedule, even greater fixture congestion – are all valid and in most situations would be grounds to mercilessly ridicule the poor sod that hatched the idea. However, none of these compelling arguments will stand in the way of the Premiership pushing forward with the scheme.
After all, what has fairness got to do with it when more money can be made? Particularly when you have a system that now needs an ever increasing amount of cash to feed a seemingly insatiable appetite. Any denomination, any source – no questions asked.
Of course, in support of the Premiership announcement we again read of the totally fictitious 1B people that watched the Arsenal vs. Manchester United league game at the end of 2006 - a number unjustifiable by logic and research but apparently quite reasonable to the fertile imagination of a Premiership P.R. hack.
What’s more we are told the NFL, NBA and NHL all do it so why not the Premiership? These leagues do it for a number of reasons – one of which is they are trying to sell sports that clearly the rest of the world could not give a toss about.
These foreign based match ups should be considered demeaning and a sign of weakness rather than one of strength.
A case can also be made that the foreign audience does not actually have an appetite for the Premiership – their appetite stretches to perhaps five or six Premiership teams.
Despite the tone of the self serving announcements the fact that the Premiership intends to ensure that a top five team will be at each of the venues is a clear admission that they know that the core appeal of the Premiership is limited to the usual suspects.
As for the others - toss some money their way and make supportive comments about selling more Birmingham City jerseys to the folks in Miami and that should satisfy them. Rather like the way the Premiership has gone over the last decade. Who cares about winning when mediocrity can be so profitable? Danny Blanchflower called it the “Glory Game” for most it has become the “survival but still make gobs of money game.”
And so is this move inevitable? Probably not. Because no matter how self important the Premiership has become and no matter how insatiable its appetite for money, it is still a midget when set against Big Daddy – FIFA.
After the early headlines had grown stale late Thursday someone got around to asking FIFA what they thought of the proposal. Reuters reported a senior FIFA source as stating "The statutes of FIFA are quite clear, so from a first glance it would seem the Premier League will find it difficult to get their way."
Behind the bureaucrat-speak there are a number of powerful reasons why the Premiership’s idea to conquer the globe is in for a rough ride. First off it is difficult to come up with one national association – even the FA as will see later - who would or should be in favour of this proposal.
How many associations are going to willingly accept the Premiership juggernaut rolling into town, giving prominence to conflicting sponsors, taking attention away from the domestic league and then leaving a few days later with a suitcase of cash that wasn’t spend on supporting the local product?
Then you have sanctioning and jurisdictional issues regarding players, security, officials and a host of other logistical details. All could be overcome given the existence of goodwill on both sides. But how much goodwill can you expect when confronted by a modern day Robin Hood-in-reverse intent on taking from the footballing poor while further enriching pampered players and robber-baron owners?
Beyond possible “host” associations the other associations especially in Europe are not likely to embrace the proposal either. The mammoth income enjoyed by English Premiership clubs already threatens to tip the balance of power between the big five associations (an argument could be made that it already has) and any threat of additional income flowing the Premiership’s way would not be considered as a positive move by the likes of Italy, Spain, Germany, and France.
So these national associations are far more likely to campaign against the idea than sit on the sidelines even though they may initially make some glib semi-supportive noises – just in case.
The implementation date of 2011 is also interesting and should the Premiership eventually succeed and receive FIFA approval there is always the possibility that some residual resentment might surface when the twenty-four man FIFA Executive Committee vote later in 2011 to award the hosting rights to the 2018 World Cup. Is that really a risk worth taking for the Football Association?
But more important than any of these reasons is that if this idea goes ahead and is implemented then a massively important precedent will have been set. Initially it will mean that other leagues will be free the try the same thing with the possibility that patchwork schedules will become the norm rather than an original small exception.
However, far greater is the potential for such a move to be used to engineer a European league or ultimately a Global league.
The G14 may have disbanded just a few short weeks ago but that does not mean that their power base and ideas have evaporated never to return.
UEFA and FIFA know that an Escape Committee could easily be reformed if the scent of more money is in the air and a precedent such as the Premiership is seeking is at hand. So in the end the Premiership can study and fine tune their proposal all they want but do not expect it to be given the green light by FIFA.
Simon Kuper on the pleasure of playing just for the sake of playing.
Moritz Volz talks of player platitudes and interviews.
John Giles’ thoughts on the arrival of Dennis Wise at Newcastle.
I received an e mail over the weekend that said I was full of you-know-what when I claimed that Guinea was ranked third by FIFA in Africa. Sorry but here is the FIFA ranking for Africa.
An excerpt from an interview Robert Pires gave to Champions magazine.
You can find the draw information by federation tucked away near the bottom right hand corner of the page . As I mentioned at the end of the show last night it is seems curious that UEFA seeding is based on the FIFA rankings from November 2007.
Concacaf however, has opted to use May 2007 which is prior to this past summer’s Gold Cup. Anyone smell a rat? (Africa is using July 2007).
Country (May-Nov) Mexico 1-1 USA 2-2 Costa Rica 3-7 Honduras 4-3 Panama 5-5* Trinidad & Tobago 6-10 Jamaica 7-12 Cuba 8-8 Haiti 9-5* Guatemala 10-13 Canada 11-4 Guyana 12-11 St Vincent & Gren. 13-9
* tied for 5th. (Should the tie breaker not have been the respective penalty kick shoot out records?)
I’ve never put any credence into the FIFA World rankings but if there are to be used for seeding purposes surely then the most current version should be used.
There has been a significant amount of discussion on Sepp Blatter’s latest utterances. To start off with here are some statistics that were provided to me a couple of months ago courtesy of James Pavlick.
“I used the list of FOREIGN EPL players on the www.soccernet.com website. I considered Wales, Scotland, and N. Ireland as "foreign" as they have their own FAs and national teams. I listed them by nationality as listed on the rosters on wikipedia. I excluded reserve players. I labeled nationality in terms of national team. For example, I count Arsenal's Eduardo as a Croat as opposed to a Brazilian and Spurs' Kevin Prince-Boateng as German as opposed to Ghanaian.
Here is the list of players by nationality:
26 - France 19 - Rep. of Ireland 16 - Spain 14 - Scotland 13 - Holland, Wales 12 - Portugal, Nigeria 11 - Brazil 10 - Australia, Cameroon, Senegal 9 - USA 8 - Sweden 7 - Germany, Denmark 6 - Ivory Coast, Northern Ireland, Trinidad, Norway 5 - Czech, Argentina, Iceland 4 - Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Italy, Ghana 3 - Austria, Switzerland, Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, Poland, S. Korea, Tunisia, S. Africa, Egypt 2 - Greece, Ukraine, Ecuador, Peru, Iran, China, New Zealand, Jamaica, Canada, Congo 1 - Belgium, Russia, Belarus, Paraguay, Mali, DR Congo, Togo
By confederation: UEFA -201 (not including England) CAF - 56 CONMEBOL - 21 CONCACAF - 19 AFC - 17 (including Australia) Oceania - 2 (not including Australia)”
Here is a press release from MLS on foreign born players and it contains comparisons to other North American sport leagues.
I might just be cynical about this but I don’t believe that Blatter’s stance has anything to do with the benefit of the game at the domestic level. For FIFA it about trying to ensure that the club game does not dominate – something that would impact on FIFAs cash cow the World Cup. As a pure defensive action FIFA instituted the Club World Cup so they have a fallback position at least.
You also have to consider that FIFA and UEFA have paid and continue to pay for their arrogance in dealing with the European Union in the 80s. Both organizations believed that they were above the civil courts and European Union legislation.
The Bosman ruling and others were made by the EU without UEFA or FIFA fully understanding the implications nor realizing that times had changed and that EU regulations had to be adhered to. It is only in the last five or six years that the governing bodies have really understood the need to work with and to influence political policy within the EU.
There is a very good chance that sport will be recognized as being different (the EU have shown sympathy to that position on many occasions) but the current argument goes beyond that. What we are seeing is negotiation on very important wording and it appears that Blatter is pushing for full control through inserting the word “autonomous”.
It is almost inconceivable that the EU would allow UEFA / FIFA to operate autonomously which would essentially provide the soccer bodies with free reign to impose what they wish. (You can see why the IOC would be supporting the FIFA position.) The EU is not about to give up free market regulations (an oxymoron perhaps) for soccer or any other sport – special yes, autonomous I can’t see it.
The other part of the ongoing discussion has related to the development of young players and how it affects national teams. If – and I am sure that it will not – Blatter’s proposal every come into existence then it will lead to a rapid escalation in domestic players wages.
The Premiership is generally considered to be the best paying league but if the supply of foreign talent was suddenly cut off, the supply of English talent would remain the same but the demand would instantly increase – impact, a rapid escalation in salaries for domestic players.
The ripple or tidal wave – a fall off in standards throughout the domestic league structure. Those that argue that the overall standard would increase more broadly as European players returned home fail to acknowledge the part played by African and South American players.
There is more than enough money in the system to help develop young domestic players. What doesn’t exist is the will to impose such a system in the likes of England. The FA have been cowardly when dealing with the Premiership since the inception in the early 90s and they still are.
The FA should insist on a larger share of the TV money generated by the Premiership and put it into youth development and the grassroots. That is of course a simplistic solution but the concept is valid – the game in England and other top European countries is awash in cash – there just has to be the political will to spend it differently.
Rwonfootball - While all of the spotlight is on South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, I am as nervous about the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Should the host bid process be changed and what would you do if anything?
Bobby – Well I don’t think it is clear as to whether or not there is a process at the moment or not. FIFA has to decide is there a rotation policy or not and. Just because Brazil is the only CONMEBOL nomination the award of the 2014 World Cup is not a slam-dunk by any means. The evaluation committee could find that Brazil is unable to comply with all the requirements. Rio is hosting the Pan American Games next month and they are hoping to use the Games as a launching pad for a 2016 Olympic Bid. If next month’s Games go badly then it will be a major black eye and call into question both the 2014 and 2016 bids. I would not be surprised if the USA hosts in 2014.
Footiefan – Thanks for fixing that link, Bobby.
Henry14 - What do you make of Poll's media antics of talking about his football experience, and can he be blamed and what difference is what Poll is doing from a Rooney / Gerrard/Vieira autobiography and lastly do you feel the press 's criticism of coming out in public to speak about these things is fair?
l personally thing Owen is not the same player he was and may never be the same again, how would you rate Owen among the world's best strikers.
Who is the better player between these examples Maldini vs. Kaiser Zidane vs. Cruyff Buffon vs. Schmeichel
Do you get the feeling that the United team is being build for Carlos Queiroz to take over? He is a 4-5-1 merchant and all the players they have suit the system perfectly. and Ribery is going to Bayern, the guy is a joke, he said he wanted Madrid or England last week and all of a sudden changes his mind. Personally l hope Wenger gets one player out of the hat, who is incredibly good who is not known a lot
Bobby – Poll is trying to sell books just like the players. The problem is he has to work harder because the market for a referee’s autobiography is pretty limited. Regarding Owen – I will reserve my comments until he gets himself match fit and with a decent number of games under his belt.
As for who are the better players - the smart arse answers are Maldini, Zidane and Buffon because Beckenbauer is 62, Cruyff 60 and Schmeichel 44. Somehow I don't think that is what you meant though.
Maldini vs. Kaiser – very different players. Maldini much more a defender while Franz Beckenbauer invented a position. Zidane vs. Cruyff – Cruyff by a mile. Buffon vs. Schmeichel – nothing between them.
I don’t think for one moment that SAF is building a team to satisfy someone who might take over in the future – why would he do that? He’s building a team that he believes will win trophies next year, not one that is tied to one formation.
CIAO - SAF has been with United for a long time. Considering the years of service and the handful of players that have had issues with him... I'd say you have to cut the man some slack. And for the record I am not an SAF fan. Regardless, Marcotti makes an interesting point by indicating that the current transfers are Carlos Q's vision of the future. Maybe he is in transition to take over from SAF in a couple years time. What do you think? Regardless, I would also have to say that in current years the most balanced team in the dressing room and on field has to be VVV's beloved Milan. Ancelotti is one of the top 5 managers. Along with Lippi, SAF, Mourinho and Hiddink. (Runner ups: Capello, Wenger, Del Bosque, Dino Zoff and Benitez) (Future tops: Klinsmann, Mancini and Big Sam) What do you think of Shakhtar coach Mircea Lucescu? Would you say he is one of the most underrated coaches? I think it would be great to see him given the opportunity to manage a competitive team.
Bobby – Regarding SAF I don’t think he is looking to retire soon. Carlos Queiroz could finish up waiting longer than Prince Charles. Just look at Guy Roux who is returning to coach Lens at 68 after being retired for two years. I would have to disagree with your choice of Hiddink over Capello. Lucescu has a good record and would make an interesting choice for a club in one of the big 5.
Neophyte - My U-10 player just tried out on a U-12 team on fluke...the coach needed another player to scrimmage a complete team and he was there so they put him in. Three goals, two earned corners and an earned penalty kick got the attention of the coach. Should he play up at U-12 or play on his U-10 team?
Bobby – I don’t think there is a hard a fast rule on something like this. As an 8-year old I played for the under-12 school team without any trouble or problem. Seven years later I was very small for my age and got regularly pummeled. It wasn’t until I hit 17 that I caught up physically and was able to compete again. If your boy can handle it physically then I think the next question would be whether or not he wants to move up or does he want to play with his friends? Does he have an option move back and forward between levels?
Ringo - With Ryan Giggs retirement from international football, does he now become the second greatest ever player, not to appear in a World Cup?
Bobby – I would not have him as high as second.
CIAO - Does anyone know where Nakata is playing now? How about Ilhan Mansiz (Turkish player that shined during the 2002 World Cup)? Do you think Italy and England will qualify for the EURO 2008? Did anyone watch the Italy game over the weekend? How did they play?
Bobby – Nakata and Mansiz are both retired I believe. As for qualifying – Italy without a doubt, England yes but with a greater level of doubt. I didn’t see the Italy game just the highlights. Italy got three points – enough said and be thankful. Scotland has to play there tomorrow - it will be a bad night's sleep.
Mistafantastic - I heard Alan Green (a man I had a lot of respect for) babbling on 606 Friday that Beckham was going to hinder his career by going "to that joke of a league MLS". Only Andy Grey & Martin Tyler have at least given MLS the benefit of the doubt for the time being. I know all these so-called "experts" wouldn't be hammering Becks if he went to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Japan, or even Australia, but have no problem ripping a league that's given England a helluva lot of players the past few years. Why exactly is this the case? I'm the last guy to ever defend MLS but this is irking me something awful! Any comments? Cheers!
Bobby – My only comment is the vast majority of comments coming from England regarding MLS is based on total and absolute ignorance.
The realrico - At first I thought there was no way Henry leaving Arsenal, but with him now being linked to AC Milan, it seems like it is more likely now then ever he might go. My question is if he leaves, whom does Arsenal get with the money from the Henry sale?
Bobby – I don’t think Henry is leaving. My question is what is Milan actually up to – the Henry transfer hint is a smoke screen for something else.
Neophyte - Since the Beckham rule, we have seen an increase of foreign players come into the MLS. Now Claude Makelele and Shevchenko have stated playing in the MLS might be something they would consider. If Beckham actually plays in the league, do you see more players from Europe coming to the MLS?
Bobby – Will more players come from Europe – the answer is yes but it will not be a flood. I wouldn’t read too much into the comments by Makelele or Shevchenko. They are professional players and in Shevchenko’s case his wife is American so there is no reason not to consider a moved to MLS. MLS just has to make sure that a balance is maintained and that the players that come from Europe don’t come with a #### attitude.
LosAngelesChelseaFan - Why do think that West Ham or Newcastle would risk putting Joey Barton in their dressing room? I just don’t get it. Is this an $11m charity donation?
Bobby – When you have a player with ability – and Barton does – there will always be managers who think that they can control players with bad reputations and turn them around. Out of all the players who were trouble but with genuine talent that you can think of over the years, how many were dumped and never picked up?
Gongatore - What do you think of the US squads' performance vs. China and since it starts this week how they may do in the Gold Cup? I was impressed by Bradley's kid, he really has some bite to his game, what do you think?
Bobby – I didn’t see the game so I can’t really comment on the specifics. The team that played against China is very different than the one that will play in the Gold Cup. If the USA don’t make it the Gold Cup Final Bob Bradley may find that the honeymoon period is over. As for young Bradley I haven’t seen enough of him to form a decent opinion.
David Beckham will make he return to the England squad for the friendly against Brazil this Friday (on FSC at 3 p.m. ET) as a Real Madrid player. However, most of the speculation regarding his international future has centred on his next stop - the Los Angeles Galaxy.
During the interview Lalas expressed reservations (not surprisingly) about releasing Beckham for friendly matches. But the bottom line to the issue is that Lalas and the LA Galaxy have no say in the matter as long as the FA restricts call ups to dates reserved on the FIFA international calendar.
The calendar details dates reserved for competitive fixtures as well as friendlies although strangely it does fail to block time for next summer’s European Championship.
So how many friendly internationals can the Galaxy expect to lose Beckham for? As it turns out the answer is not many. The only remaining date in 2007 reserved on the FIFA chart for international friendlies is August 22. That means that if McClaren decides to keep Beckham around for the fall qualifiers – assuming of course that McClaren is still around – then the Galaxy will be missing his services for the ESPN nationally televised derby game on August 23 against Chivas.
Looking further into the future dates are reserved for friendlies on February 6 and March 26 in 2008. The February date is unlikely to conflict with Galaxy commitments although March 26 might be a problem should LA qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League – albeit an unlikely prospect at this time.
So once you get past the headlines you find out that there is very little substance to the rash of headlines relating to the release or non-release of Beckham for friendly internationals.
As it turns out David will not even have to miss the 2008 Oscars scheduled for February 24.
Jim White tells you how you can own a team or at least part of one. I heard Will Brooks being interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Service two weeks ago and meant to post a link…… but didn’t get around to it.
An article on Jack Warner's best buddy -not - investigative sport journalist Andrew Jennings.
An audio story from Stefan Fatsis, sportswriter for The Wall Street Journal, that was on National Public Radio.
And finally one of the blog's regular readers is looking for some help and is hoping that some of you might take a couple of minutes to complete a fan survey that will be used for classwork.
Another packed weekend of action with league titles decided, the Dutch Cup going to Ajax after an extended penalty shoot out, relegation fights continuing across Europe and Glenn Roeder resigning his position at Newcastle.
Premiership is suing YouTube over copyright infringement.
Meanwhile West Ham may find that they are sued into oblivion.
But Ian Bell contends that the likes of Wigan are missing the point.
On Friday’s FSR we mentioned that FIFA/UEFA might not take of any civil court action by Premiership clubs against West Ham to well.
Amy Lawrence looks at how the Premiership has changed as it reaches 1,000 games. Based on 380 games being played each year I can't work out where the number 1,000 comes into it. On the other hand one of the responses that lists the Premiership nightmare eleven is fun to consider. Who would be in your nightmare eleven for the 2006/07 season and you might also want to select a manager?
Philip Cornwall looks at the value of the Premiership at birth.
Patrick Barclay looks at Manchester United on what turned out to be the eve of their ninth Premiership title.
Guy Hodgson’s review of the City – United derby is worth reading for the first three paragraphs alone.
And remember to nominate your dogs and stars from this week’s televised games.
It is official - Newcastle are the winners of the Intertoto Cup.
Neil Warnock the manager of one of the Premiership’s hottest clubs Sheffield United, has been writing a regular column for the Independent.
Stewart Robson on the pros and cons of Chelsea’s current midfield set-up.
Daniel Finkelstein and “The Fink Tank” takes a look at the Champions League draw.
Another clear indication that UEFA is willing – or must – align with the European Union in order to control the G-14. The article may point to Chelsea, but this is only because they are an easy target.
Rob Hughes provides more details on the FIFA-Mastercard-Visa court case. The article includes the following comment from the Judge on Jack Warner’s right-hand man Chuck Blazer. “Mr. Blazer’s testimony was generally without credibility based on his attitude and evasive answers on cross examination.”
After this week Speakers’ Corner will be taking a break over the holiday season. However, I will continue to post during that time and create open forums for discussion over the next few weeks.
Thank you to all the regular blog readers and contributors and a happy holiday season to you all and a guid New Year.
This is a follow up to some questions that arose after I mentioned the income generated by the Champions League.
Here are a series of links that you might find interesting. UEFA distributes Champions League money based on a number of different criteria including final position, television revenue generated in the country of each entrant(s), points gianed in group play, and performances in the qualifying stages. It also looks like this money is distributed through the national associations which can be confusing. It is not wrong then to say that the national associations receive money from the Champions League, however, the national associations have to them move the money to the clubs.
UEFA also distributes money generated by the European Championship with all countries benefiting at some level.
As the FIFA link shows each national association received $1M per year in the last 4 year cycle - one of the prinmary reasons why small countries vote for Sepp Blatter. the GOAL project funding is another.
With the amount of "guaranteed" money being spread around to "national" associations you can see one of the reasons why Gibraltar is so eager to join UEFA/FIFA.
As a follow up to Howard Bloom's blog highlighting the Visa-Mastercard-FIFA ménage a trios this story broke today.
From the Reuters story:
In a statement on Tuesday, FIFA acknowledged its World Cup sponsorship negotiations with rival credit card firms Visa and MasterCard had "breached (FIFA's) business principles", adding that "FIFA cannot possibly accept such conduct among its own employees".
Mmm...an organization that cannot accept such conduct by its own employees - but can accept misconduct by members of its Executive.
Richard Winton describes Steven Pressley's exit from Tynecastle.The latest rumours have Pressley heading south - Southampton perhaps?
Brian Cooney attempts to solve one of the great mysteries of Scottish football. Why did such a rare talent as George Connolly, walkout on Celtic in the 70s?
Amy Lawrence comments on the situation at Milan. Milan looked poor and quite stale against Torino on Sunday.
After giving Friday's announcement by U.S.S.F. President Sunil Gulati of Bob Bradley's appointment more thought, I am more convinced than before that this has been badly mishandled.
Gulati had the chance to simply announce that Bob Bradley would be taking over responsibility for the USA Olympic team. Further, negotiations with Jurgen Klinsmann had broken down after being at an advanced stage and that in the meantime, until a permanent coach was appointed, Bob Bradley will also be in charge of the full national team. Nothing more.
Unfortunately, when Gulati started to talk about Bradley being a potential candidate to stay on long-term, he started to dig himself a very big hole. What possible criteria, could you apply to Bradley's performance over the next six months - over three years before the next World Cup - that could possibly tell you more than is known now?
Finally, some comments on the Chelsea - Arsenal game.
1. Chelsea did hit the woodwork three times, and had one shot cleared off the line.
2. I thought Gilberto Silva and Michael Essien were absolutely outstanding. Just like at Old Trafford a few weeks ago, Essien turned the game for Chelsea.
3. Are Shevchenko's critics the same people who wrote off Drogba and Essien?
4. If referee Alan Wiley yellow carded Jens Lehmann for this push on Didier Drogba, then booked Drogba for retaliation, why did the referee not award Chelsea a penalty?
Tucked away in the news from the FIFA Executive meeting is the play off set-up for 2010. The fourth place finisher in CONCACAF will have to beat the fifth place team from South America. Oceania will face the country finishing the equivalent of fifth in Asia.
Jack “get your tickets here” Warner is in front of the FIFA Executive committee this week as he attempts to slither his way out of another in a long line of “misconduct” allegations. The November edition of “World Soccer” has an article by Lasana Liburd that details at length the ethically challenged Warner’s exploits over the years. Liburd points out that despite Warner’s initial threat to sue FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi and Ernst & Young – whose leaked report set off the investigation – no action has ever been taken.
It seems that threatening to sue is all part of the Warner act. He threatened to do the same to Andrew Jennings but nothing came of that either. No doubt Warner prefers to take his chances in front of stacked FIFA committees rather than a court of law.
Rob Hughes looks at the imminent arrival at Old Trafford of Henrik Larsson and the current problems of Thierry Henry.
With SAF’s loan capture of Henrik Larsson and the transfer window just around the corner I’m interested in finding out how you would go about strengthening your favourite team. What kind of player (just one) does your team need and who would it be?
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
Thank you to all who take time to visit this blog and especially to those of you who post your comments and thoughts.
PS - If you have questions please post them on the regular Monday blog. I am unable to answer e mails posted to the inbox on this site.
And one more thing. If you have questions or complaints or compliments about programming please contact Fox Soccer Channel or Fox Sports World Canada directly. I have no control over what the stations televise.
