Arsenal News » The world of football meanders along, and carries us with it…

It’s a bit of a funny old world at the moment (as they say), and my ramblings herein have no overall focus, what with us not having a match this weekend.  But I thought I’d just throw in some of the stuff that has caught my attention of late.

If it is all too boring, you can always delete.

Fifa Vice President Jack Warner has given Colombian football Fifa’s full endorsement, and has praised the country.  He was quoted on about 25 web sites (so there is a chance he did say it)  “I feel safer on the streets here than I ever do at home!”

And just at this moment the Colombian FA have allowed Javier Flórez back into his club’s first team, nine months after he shot dead a fan who heckled him. Flórez was freed from three months in jail after paying £45,000 in damages.

But then that’s Fifa for you.

And it makes us all look forward to the world cup, with its appalling effect on the environment, and quite possibly the bankrupting of the South African economy.  (And that’s not an anti-South African thing – I rather suspect the UK economy will collapse under the strain of the Olympics in two years time, and the thought of us having the World Cup after that feels me with dread).

The point is that in football, people don’t always say what they mean, nor do they mean what they say, and anyway they always do something else.  Joel Glazer, one of the men behind, in front of, to the side of and up the rear of Man United said in July 2005: “Ticket prices in sport continue to rise and that’s not good. At United we are very, very sensitive about that and take it very, very seriously. Fans are the lifeblood of this club.”   And then he put the prices up by 48%.

Which by and large, and taken together, means football is a “funny old game” and not one that can be too easily predicted.

However, here’s a thought and a quarter.

Manchester United will not buy any more expensive players and will instead attempt to “do an Arsenal” and bring in lesser known names.  That’s the only conclusion to reach after the failure to spend much of the money from C Ronaldo, and the decision not to buy David Villa who is available for around £40m this year.   If Sir Alex Typical German was right in saying that he had all the Ronaldo money to spend then Villa would be right up his street – the sort of big time purchase that Manchester IOU has lived on for years.  Rub the faces of the opposition in it – we can buy big you can’t.

But instead they bought Javier Hernández for a little fee from Mexico.  He might be great, but he is not the ready made article.  He has scored 11 goals in the Mexican first division this year.

Liverpool are in a similar position, although they have a tougher route for sorting out because Tom Hicks and George Gillett have a deadline of July 24th to replay £237m they have borrowed from RBS and Wachovia, the American bank.

Of course they can’t pay it, but they might refinance – but that will cost and will put up their annual interest charges to over the current £40m – which means no more purchases – as they don’t make anything like that in profit each year to pay for all this.

Meanwhile there are the clubs that will vanish in the coming weeks and months.  Goodness knows where Portsmouth’s money went (well I have  a clue, but I don’t want to be sued so I am not saying anything), and I think it is touch and go for their survival in any division anywhere.

Same is true for Stockport – whose approach to administration has been scuppered by the League.  They could well be leaving us – just as Chester City did a month or so ago.   But fear not for all the smaller teams – Newport County who reformed themselves as a trust after years of dreadful mismanagement and disputes with the Welsh FA, have won the Conference South with about 10 games to spare, and are up in the Conference next season.

But there could be harder times ahead for Man City and Chelsea.  There are signs that players simply don’t fancy the semi-crazed merry-go-round of those clubs – and the uncertainty of how the clubs are going to react to the new Uefa financial rules.  The EPL are still appealing against the benefactor regulations, but Uefa are sticking firm, which means neither will qualify as things stand.

As for our old chums West Porno United and Birmingham Satan, it seems both clubs are suing each other over the sale of the Satanic club to a group of people fronted by Mr Yeung, but of whose identity we know nothing.  Well, wasting money in the High Court couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of rag-a-muffins.

Onto smaller things, and the people who cut and paste bits and pieces from other web sites which say how Arsenal is a failure and how Wenger should be sacked, have resurfaced.   Just a reiteration: I don’t edit out opinions, and certainly never change what anyone has said in a comment to the site, unless it is liable to get me up before the beak, or if it is copied from elsewhere.  If you do spot something that is clearly copied, pleased do let me know.

Anyway, as noted here a while back, Van Persie, is back with the squad and could play against the Tiny Totts, or the following match and Djourou and Gibbs are not far behind.  And that was pointed out here first, I think.  Well, if not first, we must have been second.

Or third.

Tony

PS Because of a technical glitch I am not updating the home page at the moment, but it does contain details of lots of jolly articles from the past few weeks.   Worth a look.

And another revelatory piece about the Tiny Totts comes up shortly.