Maple Lions

MLS has changed its rules to allow each team to pay one (and only one) player an unlimited salary - and the L.A. Galaxy has its sights set on the one footballer* the average American will have heard of:

…The US football league has just amended its salary cap to allow teams to pay one star player an unlimited amount, a change openly dubbed the “Beckham rule”.

The former England captain has reportedly been stalling on signing up for another season at Real Madrid, but a return to the Premiership also seems unappetising. It seems increasingly possible that Beckham will choose to blow the final whistle on his European football career. And if this is the end, the moment has been prepared for. Philip Anschutz, the billionaire leisure industry mogul and sometime friend of John Prescott, has been building up his relations with Beckham and hopes to lure him to join his Major League Soccer club, Los Angeles Galaxy.

This would be a huge publicity coup for Major League Soccer - but it also threatens to turn MLS into another NASL, which collapsed after paying too many aging stars too much money. The North American league will really have arrived when European players in the prime of their careers are willing to come over.

*well, I guess Mia Hamm is a household name - and maybe even Zidane, whose infamous head-butt has been parodied in everything from The Family Circus to a recent episode of Family Guy.

Damian P.

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The Curse of Curbs lingers on as Ian Dowie departs the gaffer’s post at Charlton.

The Beeb report notes he is the first Premiership manager to be sacked this season. And you know he won’t be the last.

Roeder? Anyone? Roeder?

Paul Canniff 

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The Home Office reports that banning orders for football supporters are at a record high, increasing by 7% in the past year.

While the Premier League has gone ahead of the Championship in fan arrests, the top five havens of hooliganism reside in both the old Divisions One and Two:

Banning Orders

1. Leeds
2. Portsmouth
3. Cardiff City
4. Stoke City
5. Manchester United

Arrests

1. Tottenham Hotspur
2. Manchester United
3. Chelsea
4. Sheffield Wednesday
5. Coventry City

However,

[B]oth Hull City and Luton Town had the highest number of fans arrested for violent disorder - both clubs had 21 hooligans detained.

Fourteen Birmingham City fans were arrested for the same offence in the year.

[…]

Thirteen people were also held for violent disorder at both Coventry City and Sheffield Wednesday.

Notwithstanding that data, in my visits to a number of football grounds I have not encountered any particular violent incidents. The police protection was high but not as paramilitary in flavour as I witnessed in Stuttgart, by contrast. The Premiership has in fact become rather family-friendly, thanks to all-seater stadia and enforcement in the stands. That being said, the Great British Night Out — a pint and a fight — has not vanished entirely from football.

Paul Canniff

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The FA won’t take any action against Jermain Defoe for biting West Ham’s Javier Mascherano this past weekend:

The Football Association last night passed up the chance to take action against Jermain Defoe for biting the arm of Javier Mascherano — even though it could have done so with Fifa’s blessing, The Times can reveal.

Steve Bennett, who refereed the Barclays Premiership match between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United on Sunday, is understood not to have mentioned the incident in his report, leaving the FA free to impose any sanction it wished without fear of upsetting the world governing body by issuing a retrospective punishment.

Leading referees are dismayed at the message the FA is sending out by not pursuing the case against the striker, fearing a “trickle-down effect” at the lower levels of the game. One refereeing source professed “amazement” at the FA’s decision.

An FA spokesman said it was “unable to take any action because the referee has already dealt with the incident”, but The Times has learnt that Bennett did not report any bite. He showed Defoe a yellow card but only for “aggressive behaviour”, presumably a reference to the grounded player crawling towards the Argentinian angrily after he had been tripped from behind.

Damian P.

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As if they weren’t already over-exposed in so many ways during the World Cup, England’s WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are forcing their way back into the media spotlight with their own reality TV show:

Ten WAGs - wives and girlfriends - of footballers are to run rival London shops in the ITV2 series, WAGs Boutique, due to be shown next year.

[…]

The WAG who individually makes the most money will win the opportunity to design her own clothing range.

Two problems:

1. Do the WAGs actually know how to sell tasteless, overpriced tat off the rack, versus buying it?
2. If they’re doing the selling, who out there has enough cash and lack of fashion sensibility to be their customer base?

Paul Canniff

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We may be only six games into the new season but already the results give us cause to consider the fate of the EPL’s likely lads:

Tottenham

After a dizzying year under Martin Jol that nearly took the Yid Army into the Champions League — with the high of a classic derby against the poilus of Highbury and the low of the final day botulism run — fans were expecting much more at White Hart Lane. Over the summer Tottenham kept Davids and acquired Berbatov but lost Carrick to Manchester United. And the result? 17^th in the table, including a right shellacking at the hands of the Scouse. Two wins in hand could in theory take them back up but their form (no away wins, GD -6) isn’t encouraging.

Wigan

Dave Whelan’s boys burst onto the scene with an opening day nail-biter against Chelsea and kept their form to finish midway in the table in their first year of promotion. Their start this year was much less flashy and one wonders what impact the sales of Nathan Ellington and Jimmy Bullard may have had.

Reading

The new Wigan. Their disciplined drive through the Championship has barely faltered, especially when they recently held the Red Devils to a draw at the Madejski Stadium.

Aston Villa

This season’s Cinderella tale, without question. After a player uprising and the humiliating departure of gaffer David O’Leary, there was genuine doubt over the future of Birmingham’s last outpost in top-flight football. But with the arrival of Martin O’Neill and the club’s purchase by financier Randy Lerner, the Villans have escaped the clutches of both the sheriffs and the Grim Reaper. Their current form is encouraging, going undefeated thus far.

Paul Canniff

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The Times Online reports that Everton’s Tim Cahill owns a Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Is it about time he shows up on Top Gear? Auto Trader reports,

The whole country’s gone Bugatti crazy. There are now two Veyrons in the country. And I got to sit in one of them this week. Seriously. I got to sit in it. In the drivers’ seat.

Aaaanyway… the other 253mph Veyron has been spotted in Manchester - being driven by WAG Rebekah Greenhill.

The girlfriend of Everton player Tim Cahill parked the £800,000 car in a busy Manchester street, and came back to find it surrounded by a crowd of admiring petrolheads.

Anyway, who else owns what? And who else’s girlfriend has been seen trying to park it?

Mike C.

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The Beeb reveals in a Panorama documentary two alleged incidents of payments by agents to football managers.

1. Luton Town’s Mike Newell says freelance football agent Charles Collymore offered him a cut of a player’s fee that he tried to negotiate.
2. Two agents have claimed they made illegal payments to secure transfer deals with a former candidate for the England football manager’s job. In an undercover BBC Panorama film, agent Teni Yerima says he bribed Bolton manager Sam Allardyce. Agent Peter Harrison says he paid Mr Allardyce’s son to secure deals with Bolton and Craig Allardyce is filmed boasting about access to his father.

Newell drew notoriety earlier as the first manager to make public claims about illegal payments. The timing of the Panorama program is interesting in light of the upcoming Stevens report on transfer payments.

Update: The FA is launching a probe into the allegations in the Panorama documentary.
Paul Canniff

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Stambridge United, which plays way down the ladder in the Baliston Essex Olympian League, signed a sponsorship deal to advertise a book called The Referee’s a W*nker on its jerseys.  Needless to say, the referees - and the league - didn’t like it much.

Damian P.

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England has reached fourth in the FIFA rankings. Here is the latest top ten:

1. Brazil
2. France
3. Argentina
4. England
5. Italy
6. Netherlands
7. Czech Republic
8. Germany
9. Portugal
10. Spain

Paul Canniff 

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