Category: Section 2 Around the Net

Manchester City’s controversial owner, the former Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, may be looking to sell the team after just one year.   According to Ian Ladyman, Shinawatra “has spoken to an intermediary in the financial world over the past month about finding prospective buyers.” And he quoted “sources close to the situation” as saying […]

Tottenham Hotspur has been Europe’s biggest spender this summer, reckons Gavin Hamilton, having spent “a small fortune” on the likes of David Bentley, Giovani dos Santos, Luka Modric and Heurelho Gomes. And it’s not out of love for the beautiful game. Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy looks like he is “banking on spending his way into […]

Let’s hear the chants from Utah’s soccer fans: “No More Rice-Eccles Stadium!” The team will move into its new stadium in the suburb of Sandy for the season’s final two regular season games.

England’s second, third and fourth tiers kick off this weekend, a week before the Premier League. Read all about “potential surprise package” Lincoln City and their ilk in what we old-timers still call the fourth division. Come on, you know you need to know your Aldershots from your Darlingtons, and why so many teams are […]

Tuesday’s Superliga final was an entertaining game, but at the end it was maybe “too peaceful,” writes Frank Dell’Apa. Celebrations were low-key as players immediately exchanged shirts after New England’s penalty kick win over Houston, and “Revolution captain Steve Ralston could not have been much more subdued as he collected the SuperLiga trophy.”   Both […]

When a team wins or loses a European series at this time of the year, there is little talk of the defeat in terms of lost honor and prestige. The only thing that really counts is the cost, and Glasgow Rangers’ accountants will be gloomily doing their sums after the team’s exit from the second […]

The debate over the Superliga prize money seems to be rolling on like a European summer transfer saga. Now Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber has spoken out about what he sees as the misconception regarding the much-publicized $1 million prize money, and the fact that the players on the winning team will only take […]

L.A. Galaxy GM Alexi Lalas wasn’t fired Monday, writes Nick Green, but there’s a long week ahead. In the midst of a form slump, reports of locker room tension, and with Lalas reportedly not exactly bonding with Coach Ruud Gullit, it is surely just a matter of time before the team’s owner, AEG head Phil […]

The English Football Association Tuesday launched an initiative aimed at improving the behavior of players, fans and coaches across all levels of the game.   Starting this season, only captains will be allowed to approach the referee, and players will have to adhere to a basic code of conduct. Referees will deal more firmly with […]

Jonathan Wilson catches up with Yugoslav goalkeeping legend Vladimir Beara, who turns 80 this year. Such was Beara’s reputation that when Russian keeper Lev Yashin won the European Footballer of the Year award in 1963, he said that it was Beara who was in fact the best shot-stopper in the world.   Beara told Wilson […]

Reflecting journalism’s current obsession with creating lists, CNN’s blog tells us five good and five bad things about soccer at the Olympics.   On the plus side are the history of the game at the Olympics, the healthy crowds, the fact that players like to take part in such a ‘big feel’ event, and the […]

A dispute over pay for match officials threatens the start to the Scottish Premier League this weekend.

The L.A. Galaxy’s Guatemalan striker on the forthcoming World Cup qualifying campaign, and why it will be his last.

After the English Premier League’s proposal to play a 39th round of games around the world was rejected as both pointless and unfeasible by the teams, the English FA, FIFA and the fans, chief executive Richard Scudamore has gone back to the drawing board. His latest proposal foresees a winter world tour guaranteeing all the […]

FIFA President Sepp Blatter said in Beijing Monday that the game’s world governing body will review Olympic soccer regulations before the 2012 games to avoid a repeat of the current row between clubs and country over the release of players.   With just three days until the start of the Olympic soccer competition, the Court […]

There’s a timely pre-season primer from Tony Karon on the financial vagaries of the cut-throat European game, outlining the high-risk strategy of several top clubs as they compete to sign the highest paid players, and launch another bid for domestic and international success.   Citing the “giddily bullish market” in European soccer that belies the […]

Pat Noonan will likely re-sign for the New England Revolution in the next few days, and then be traded on to another MLS team, writes Steven Goff. “Four or five teams” are said to be interested.

Lowell Cohn outlines the difference between Beckham the commodity and Beckham the “ordinary” person.

Has GolTV suddenly disappeared from your TV channel lineup? Chances are that you’re a Dish Network subscriber. Read the broadcaster’s official statement on the move that will deprive many U.S. viewers of La Liga and the Bundesliga.

Luis Arroyave grabbed a few minutes with Barcelona’s striker Thierry Henry, and the player reiterated not only how much he loves U.S. sports, but how he’d like to live here some day, “and it might happen pretty soon.”   “I just realized recently in New York on vacation that soccer is growing,” Henry said. “I […]

L.A. Galaxy President Tim Leiweke has told the team to turn its season around or face the consequences, reports Jonah Freedman on his Inside Soccer blog. He quotes “a  source close to Major League Soccer’s glamour franchise” as saying that Leiweke “made an unannounced visit to the team’s locker room this past week and issued […]

Spiegel magazine takes a look how Juergen Klinsmann is starting his coaching tenure at Bayern Munich, which is by far Germany's most dominant club but hasn't had European success since its 2001 Champions League win. Among the characters in the in-depth piece are former Bayern greats Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, now in club management, […]

Craig Tornberg, general manager of the New England Revolution soccer team, who helped subdue a naked, threatening man when the team was flying from Boston to Los Angeles last month, talked about the incident and his 15 minutes of “superhero fame.” When Tornberg saw the nude made leaving the bathroom, he said he was shocked […]

U.S. goalkeeper Brad Guzan, who left MLS’s Chivas USA for Aston Villa, has been granted a work permit by UK’s Home Office. Now the 23-year-old’s only obstacle to getting on the field when he returns from Olympic duty is fellow American Brad Friedel, the 37-year-old veteran who was signed in the offseason from Blackburn. Friedel […]

England and Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, 22, has been questioned by police after allegedly spitting at a photographer. “At 12:10 am on Wednesday we received a third-party allegation that a photographer had been spat at by an individual outside a restaurant in Hanway Street, W1,” a Metropolitan police spokesman said. “Officers established the incident […]