Only1cab - What are Corinthians comments on this business (Tezez and Mascherano)? I haven't read or heard anything, so I guess they could have been gagged by MSI.

Bobby – It was widely reported that the Corinthians’ President was in England and was actively “shopping” the players to English clubs. One of the clubs was reported to be Manchester United. Given that MSI held the players’ registrations at that stage, it is not clear what authority the President actually had. He was quoted as saying that he regretted “leasing” Corinthians to MSI. The original deal involved MSI paying off club debts, committing to a substantial transfer kitty and covering operating expenses. In return, MSI was to have a free hand in running Corinthians for a period – 10 years I believe. The deal came to a very premature end as the club rapidly descended into chaos. 

Porscheman - Can you expand a little more on why you thought Arsenal got the better of the Cole / Gallas deal last week?

Bobby – I will try to quantify my “logic”. The money is largely irrelevant to Chelsea so I discounted the $10M that Arsenal collected. Cole will replace Wayne Bridge – Bridge is a very good player but Cole is better. It improves Chelsea but if Bridge is a 7 – then Cole is an 8. However, Chelsea loses Gallas and he is at least an 8 – Carvalho gets more playing time and he is a 7. Chelsea is in a breakeven position. (Carvalho is not likely to improve – there again, he has a good few years before the decline sets in.) Cole leaves Arsenal (-8) and is – I assume - replaced by Clichy when he is fit. Clichy would rate a 5.5 but with a big upside if he gets more playing time. Gallas (8) comes in for Senderos (5). Net difference Arsenal +0.5.

It obviously comes down to how you rate the individual players but I would give Arsenal a slight edge and it gives Clichy more playing time. However, this is based on Gallas hanging around and committing to Arsenal beyond year. I doubt Arsenal would have signed him if that was not the case but you never know. One additional thought – Wenger might take the opportunity to play Gallas and Senderos together from time to time and it would allow him to take advantage of Toure’s versatility. Just do not mention left back to Gallas though.

Dmanufan07 - I was trying to imagine why United would want Hargreaves instead of Mascherano and I came up with a few ideas.
1) Mascherano is not a box-to-box player. When you are in Man Utd's position you can afford to pick and choose which players you want to fit you system, if you don’t, you become Real Madrid. Hargreaves does make an extraordinary amount of runs into the opponent’s box.
2) Ferguson has an ideal of midfielders being able to cover the entire field. Even Carrick, who is a deep lying player does push up the field and get involved in the action.
3) Mascherano strikes me as an A-B passer not someone who can creatively pick apart a packed in Bolton defense in February. Hargreaves' runs make him more of an offensive danger than Mascherano.
The whole Hargreaves thing does not make a lot of sense for the money being talked about, but that is what I came up strictly for on field reasons.

Bobby – Hmmm. With due respect to your analysis, I must have been watching a different Owen Hargreaves over the last five seasons. The Owen Hargreaves I have seen is liable to be arrested for loitering when he makes it into the opposition’s penalty area. Five goals (a couple from free kicks?) in what is coming up on 200 games certainly does not make him the reincarnation of Bryan Robson or Roy Keane. Hargreaves runs are generally across the park rather than up and down. When he moves forward, it is generally to take set pieces. Hargreaves was brought in to the England squad to be the holding midfielder, not as a penalty box-to-penalty box player. In the words of Eric Cantona, he is a water carrier, and although I should add that every team needs one, not at $35M. 

Realmadridcffan - My question centers around the UEFA Cup. Do you think that the UEFA Cup has lost its luster in recent years and if so, what do you think should be done to help re-establish the pedigree of the UEFA Cup?

Bobby – Absolutely. Too many teams and with third place sides from the Champions League it is a tournament that gets no respect and deservedly so. I always liked the Cup Winners-Cup and I would like to see it return. It would reduce the numbers in the UEFA Cup and its niche could be the only straight knockout tournament – no groups just home and home and then a single game final. However, it has as much chance of happening as Seep Blatter deciding to retire after two terms as he promised!

Henry14 - l just also wanted to hear your take on the Chelsea Gallas row. Although l am an Arsenal supporter l feel the way Chelsea have gone about their business is very childish and l feel that it is a shame, Cole's money issues are well documented but there is not even a single day you have seen it on the website, after all Wenger thanked him and l feel that it is very unprofessional. I do not know who should thank who for winning titles. There is an article on their website where they are responding to Thuram and Domenech and l believe that is short if having a good workmanship. What do you think about Chelsea's attitude?

Bobby – I do not understand why Chelsea decided to bring up the Gallas issue particularly as the Makelele / Domenech argument was going on. Of course, maybe they decided to start another controversy to take attention away from the original!

The rationale seems to be that they wanted the fans to know what Gallas had threatened to do. It begs the question why did they not tell the fans at the time, given that some of the incidents in question related to last season? I do not know who had the brainwave of issuing the statement but it seems to me that it just adds another unneeded distraction. I would have thought taking the high road in this case would have been a more sensible decision.

Venti vidi vici - What on earth is going on in Portugal? All I know is that Gil Vicente have been denied their 1st division status due to their fielding of an ineligible player last season. Now they are taking their case to civil court, and FIFA is threatening to throw all Portuguese teams out of international competitions unless the FA can resolve the matter internally by next week. Is this just a case of a club trying to hold their FA at ransom, or could this be a real mess?

Bobby – The Portuguese authorities have until the middle of next week to sort out this mess. At the centre of the dispute is the “right” of a club to take their case to civil court. FIFA regulations do not allow a club to take such action but unfortunately, the FIFA rule does not trump “natural justice” as practiced in most democratic countries. It is something we will likely see more of and suspending national associations every time it happens does not seem to be a viable long-term solution. Perhaps an answer for EU countries anyway, is to have sport and particularly football acknowledged as having special qualities. It was proposed at the turn of the century but was never passed into law. If it happened there might be the possibility of having the Court of Sport Arbitration acknowledged as the ultimate legal authority for football in the EU. That would take away the civil courts option.

Riocharlie - I have always thought that "tapping up" were one of the more silly, among many, British expressions, Bobby, what is the history to this term?

Bobby – I have no idea.

Alan V - What is your feeling on the Makelele retirement issue? I understand that the French team has the right to call him up under FIFA regulations. Under normal circumstances, I could live with that. But after so many years of putting in his time for the national team, you would think that Domenech (or his bosses) would just say, "Thanks for the Memories, Claude, bon chance" and let him retire to West London. France (Domenech) must be desperate after Germany to be so crass. Do you think that FIFA may take this up and set standards to allow a player to retire from international competition without fear of their club being penalized?

Bobby – I think Domenech has been very unreasonable in dealing with Claude Makelele. I do not think that when FIFA passed the regulation they thought it would be used to force a player to appear for his country after he had “retired” from international soccer. The ramifications of this could be extensive. What would happen in a situation when a player falls out with an international coach and refuses to play while the coach is in charge? Could the coach continue to name the player knowing that he won’t turn-up but because he is no-show the player would then be suspended for club games? I think the intent of the regulation was to stop managers applying pressure and “forcing” players to call off because of “injury”. I agree with you, FIFA should act and exclude players who have submitted some type of retirement notice to their international federation.

Venti vidi vici - I am very interested in the circumstances surrounding the transfer of Andy Webster from Hearts to Wigan. I am sure you will agree that this could have ramifications on the same scale as the Bosman transfer. As I understand it, for a player to be able to invoke the regulation he must a)notify his club 15 days before the end of the season; b) transfer to a club in another country; c) have been at their club 5 years and served 3 years on current contract [conflicting reports on that aspect]. I was reading about Milan’s long-term transfer plans, and club officials are very concerned because Andrea Pirlo and Alessandro Nesta could invoke this rule at the end of this season, despite having longer contracts. I am sure many other clubs have similar concerns. Do you see this as having a major impact on the way contracts will be structured, and will EU regulations eventually erode player contracts and the transfer system, as we know them today?

Buffytvs - So... based on the Webster move, when could Hargreaves move to Man U for nothing? We really need to know more about this loophole, since as someone said already, it could change the whole transfer market as we know it (not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO).

Bobby – It has been difficult to track down the specifics of the now infamous article 17. I read it but have to admit that I did not find it very clear. Venti – my information was that notice could be given within 15 days of the end of the season, so it might actually be either side of the last game. I was not aware of the provision of at least five years with the same club. The three years of the current contract is in cases when the contract is of a duration longer than three years. The transfer to a club in another country is also correct to the best of my knowledge. It does sound slightly similar to a situation in the late 80’s and 90’s in Scotland (and England I believe) before the Bosman ruling. Pre-Bosman, Scottish clubs signing out of contract players from other Scottish teams had still to pay the former club compensation. However, if the players moved to the continent (France was a favourite destination) then no compensation was payable. Under the regulation invoked by Webster (he has a smart agent or lawyer) the compensation payable to Hearts is equal to one years salary – in this case around $400,000 was the figure I saw quoted. With a contact longer than three years, Hargreaves could give notice to Bayern Munich within 15 days of the final Bayern Munich game at the conclusion of the 2008/09 season. He would then be free to move to a non-German club. The compensation payable to Bayern Munich would be equivalent to his salary for the upcoming season. The ramifications are extensive. Up to the Webster-regulation the magic date to either get a player to commit to a new deal or to sell him, was two years before his contract was set to expire. It was widely felt that anything less than two years and the advantage moved to the player and the possible transfer fee began to erode. Normally a player signing a four-year contract would expect a club to approach him with an extension offer at the halfway point. Now it would appear that to protect themselves, clubs need to look at offering contract extensions when three years remain on a contract. It seems bizarre that one year into a four-year contract a club will have to consider offering a contract extension. Something that would be repeated on an annual basis.

Article 17 was put in place by FIFA in 2005 to placate the EU as the Commission felt that long-term contracts were to restrictive. A rather obvious ramification is that this will only encourage more players to move to foreign leagues. The joint UEFA/EU sport study delivered in May recommended that domestic leagues contain more homegrown players. Left hand not in tune with the right hand perhaps?

Tremelo 3 – I am kind of surprised about Torres signing the new deal. He always seems to be linked to the big name teams. And after a good World Cup, I would have thought he would have moved this summer. Maybe this is just a way that Atletico can make $ off him when they sell? It seems only a matter of time before he moves. And with all the players they have added it seems like they have a good squad this year. But will they disappoint again like always?

Bobby – I think Fernando Torres is out to break Benni McCarthy’s record of “most rumoured transfers”. Without the extension, Atletico faced losing Torres for next to nothing. This should give them some comfort although the Webster-regulation might change that. Atletico does seem to have made some good moves – on paper the defense looks to be very good – but…. Aguirre may turn out to be the most important signing. 

Djnima - How do you think Baptista will do at Arsenal? Wenger wanted him last year. Do you think he will score a lot of goals this season? How about Mascherano? Are they players that will put the ball into the net? Or simply act as stop gaps?

Bobby – I think most folks expect Wenger to play Baptista up front with Henry and it should give Arsenal more of a physical presence in attack. He was originally a defensive midfield player before Sevilla converted to him so he might pop up in another position. If Baptista can score the dozen or so goals that Arsenal normally got out of Robert Pires each season he will be doing well. Mascherano is not a goal scorer – his value is as a holding midfield player who can pass the ball well. In terms of stop gaps – well after the discussion above it would seem that we are a step closer to the time when all signings should be considered stop gaps!

NYCDA - (1) Chelsea vs. Gallas
Who do you think actually won the battle here? The saga takes me back to the Adrian Mutu affair. When it came down to the end, Mutu was on his way out in addition to the penalty he incurred due to his recreational drug use. It seems that Mourinho's "don't cross swords with me" stance has taken somewhat of a dent. Or was this simply a nice distraction to Chelsea's never-ending campaign to get Ashley Cole (recalling the FA investigation into the tapping up of Cole last year)? Is Mourinho really the winner in all of this or has his invincible mantle suffered a tear?
(2) Zidane vs. Materrazzi
Who is the real villain in this matter after we learned this week what Materazzi really said. The press noted in the days following July 9, 2006, that Materazzi had provoked Zidane, but after reading the context in which Materazzi told Zidane "I'd rather have your sister," is it really provocation or an extension of trash talking?
(3) West Ham United
The talk around this club has focused on the signings of Tevez and Mascherano. But the real question I want to ask is whether West Ham United are priming themselves to be the newest Chelsea in the Premiership? Is this merely a stepping stone in a huge takeover bid that transforms another London club into champions? And if so, has the EPL entered into an era when championships can now be bought through outside money pumped into signings on the level of "fantasy football?"

Bobby – Chelsea and Gallas is covered elsewhere. My thoughts on Materazzi /Zidane have not changed since the World Cup Final. Zidane lost it for whatever reason and it was ridiculous that Materazzi was suspended. As for a West Ham takeover, I do not buy into the view that all you need is a buyer with almost unimaginable wealth to come along buy a team and that they will automatically turn into “champions”. Even if this were the case, surely it would fail as soon as another unimaginably wealthy owner came along to match the first owner in spending power. You would have two owners throwing money around and they both cannot win the Premiership. If all it took was money, then Inter Milan would have been dominating football for the last twenty years. Money talks but it also, in some cases, stutters.

Neophyte - Barcelona to run an academy like relationship with Arsenal of Argentina. "We won't have to take the kids out of the family..." to try them out and watch their progress. This seems to be a logical approach for the super clubs and quite a compliment to the Argentina League. Do you think that this is the future as far as academy/dev. programs go. Will this style of youth development create a bigger gap between the have and have-nots in European soccer?

Bobby – It is not a new idea. Ajax has had a relationship with a club in Cape Town for a number of years. I cannot see how something designed to make sure the best young talent is moved overseas can be considered as a compliment to the Argentine League.  Barcelona is not being benevolent here, they are only doing it so they can stay onside of FIFA regulations and to avoid charges of “trafficking” in young players. Mind you, it has not stopped them up to now.

Baggio - What do you think about Donadoni as Italy's coach? I looked at the starting line up and saw problems right away! I would have not played Barzagli in the France game. I would have played Oddo, Canavarro and Zambrotta as the back three. Pirlo and De Rossi as defensive midfielders. Perrotta as a left wing midfielder and Gatusso on the right. Casano playing behind Inzaghi and Gilardino. As a coach you always need to play to your teams strengths and the available players indicate an attacking style of play. Oddo had a good game last time so Donadoni should have rewarded him with a starting spot -this would also establish some competition in the starting positions. Zambrotta has already been playing in Spain, so he should have been in the left back position over Grosso. As for the rest of the players, they are just experienced players. It was obvious that France was coming out to win the game, so Donadoni should have taken the game a bit more seriously...

Bobby – Donadoni did very well during his time at Livorno – after two games it is a bit early to pass judgment on his spell as the Italian coach. If Donadoni had sat in the dugout with clown feet and a big red nose I might agree with you that had not taken the game with France seriously.