Come on you suits

So here's the test for The FA. Seeing as they've just about fucked up everything else they've laid their seedy palms on this season - MK Dons, Wrexham, the Unibond League play-offs for a starter.

Cole, Mourinho and whoever else was involved have been found guilty of 'tapping up'. Big surprise. It took 3 months of shenanigans to establish something that was even obvious to David Blunkett when he'd got soap in his eyes.

But here's the thing. Chelsea have to be punished. But how do you punish the richest club in the universe? Do you deduct them points and risk a lawsuit and a defence team that would make the Michael Jackson case look like a fight in the school playground, or do you fine them a couple of thousand pounds which Abramovich will find down the back of his settee.

There is no precedent, other than UEFA punishing clubs pathetic amounts for racial abuse and crowd trouble, and which is worse?

What do you fine Chelsea which doesn't effectively give a message to the rest of the football world that you can tap up any player you want as long as you are willing to pay a couple of piddly grand fine on top of the value of the player. They'd all go for that, they wont mind paying an extra £100k if it means they can have a chat with Rio over headbutts at the local boozer.

You may as well set fire to all contracts now and have the managers pick their teams like we used to at school with the fat ones going to League 2 and Chelsea having the best ones.

'twill be interesting to see how The Ministry of Funny Fuckers handles this one.

Is it worth it?

Celtic fans are jumping around as though the Scottish FA Cup is the be all and end all.



Let's face it, it's either going to be them or Rangers who win it every year anyway, so they shouldn't be all that surprised that they managed to win the thing, especially as their opposition wasn't even Rangers this time.

So why get bothered about something you were expected to win anyway? Is the celebration just a release of the pressure that comes with being expected to win it once you've won it?

Because which ever way you look at it - it's probably the competitive equivalent of the Lincolnshire Senior Cup.

Wembley Bridge shortlist revealed

From BBC:

The shortlist of five possible names for the bridge leading to the new Wembley Stadium has been announced by the London Development Agency.

Sir Alf Ramsey, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Geoff Hurst, The White Horse and Live Aid have been chosen after the LDA received more than 670,000 suggestions.

Three panellists picked their way through the suggestions - BBC Five Live's Jonathan Pearce, LDA executive director Tony Winterbottom and Wembley Stadium's chief executive Michael Cunnah.

Pearce admitted it had been a difficult task trying to come up with a final list of five.

"It wasn't easy deciding the shortlist, so what we did was discount any of the suggestions that didn't have 'Sir' at the beginning, added a couple more for novelty value then fucked off to the pub" Pearce said.

European Seeding Changes in full:

Man U's breathtaking proposals wow fans

Following the cogent arguments put forward by Manchester United officials as to why the top clubs should be allowed to win all of their games, the club's Managing Director has now provided more details for an expectant footballing world.

As David Gill explained: "No-one wants to see the top European teams getting knocked out even if they're not actually good enough to win. We want a fairer system that will see any club with a small turnover stopped from messing things up for the rest of us. Well just us actually."

How it will work:

*Initial draw for Champions League will be made in Manchester. Balls to be drawn by Sir Alex Ferguson behind closed doors.

*United to be allocated a position in Group G against the champions of Malta and San Marino and the runners-up from the Bosnian league.

*Due to "fixture congestion", all United's games will be played at Old Trafford. Away teams will be awarded 10 tickets in row HH of the Scoreboard End, subject to assurances that they will not be sold to anyone "loud".

*After finishing group runners-up, United will be top seeded for the last sixteen due to "their large fan base".

*They will then be entitled to pick who they play.

*The size of their victory will be decided by the Pools Panel.

*Manchester United can only be eliminated by Real Madrid or Chelsea, as they have more money.

"This is what the fans want to see: the richest clubs appearing the most times," explained Gill, who went on to express bafflement at the few adverse comments to his innovative proposal.

Future improvements proposed by Old Trafford are understood to include the automatic awarding of the trophy to the richest teams on a rota basis and the eventual abolition of the need to play at all. "It's the only way forward," said Gill. "At present, and despite our enormous merchandising revenues, we do occasionally lose. That's unacceptable. We need to concentrate on running our Far East megastore franchise and managing our players' image rights without worrying whether or not the referee's going to give us the two penalties per game our balance sheet merits."

Big clubs in 'bad loser' shock

Manchester United want the format of the Champions League changed to help more big clubs reach the last eight.

Of course they do.

For those of you landing from Mars, just take a guess as to whether Man Utd progressed to the last 8 of this seasons champions league.

Of course they didn't.

"AC Milan were discussing this before we played them, so it is not a knee-jerk reaction." said Utd's David Gill.

Of course you were.

He added: "It's not good for the big clubs, not good for TV and sponsors if there are no Spanish clubs in the quarter-finals."

Anyone see any mention of the word 'fan' in that sentence?

Of course you don't.

And some still wonder why Manchester United are so hated.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, whose side coincidentally also exited the competition at the first knockout phase, is another calling for changes.

He said: "You can't afford to have Real Madrid and Manchester United - big clubs who invest so much money - going out in the last 16."

No that's right Arsene, getting knocked out of a competition over two legs by a team who you were drawn to play at random is totally unfair. Why don't you draw attention to other clubs demise, whilst not mentioning your own and hope to get the rules changed because of it?

Oh, you have done.

And some still wonder why Arsenal are so hated.

Shame? What's shame?

Savage attack.

"You only hate Robbie Savage because he's Welsh" CJ's Welsh housemate says to me.

"Being Welsh is probably his only mitigating factor" I told him

Don't you just wish one week could go by without this toy dog chucking something out of his pram?

I do. If it isn't his convoluted way of getting a move from one club to another then he's retiring from international football because the manager has decided to try other players in his position.

So the manager doesn't like him, so he doesn't like the manager. We'd have all thought a lot more of him if he decided to roll his sleeves up, keep quiet and try and work his way back into the team. But no, he's off firing rounds off at anyone who'll listen.

Then he says that he's obviously the best player in his position for Wales and that he can't beleieve he can't get in above players playing in League 1 and 2. It's demeaning to the his team mates. He says he's had supportive phone calls from them. Yeah righto Robbie.

He's the type of person who gives footballers a bad name.

Moaninho

I'm not much of a Premiership fan, but a breath of fresh air this year has been Jose Mourinho. He's really shown Fergie and Wenger up for what they are: 2 big kids. I think the way things are going Arsene Wenger will actually blow up soon - it is going to happen, set your videos.

But Mourinho is showing the first signs of weakness - his behaviour this week has been that of a sulking sore loser, we'd have all thought much more of him he he'd have come out and put that familiar now Portuguese prose into action.

I hope this isn't the start of him becoming like the other 2.