Untold Arsenal » Doomsday postponed

Doomsday postponed, but Paradise Lost, maybe.

We now know it is to be EPSN that shows the Setanta programmes – probably charging us a fee per game. So the EPL have got their money – at least for this season. Although the small print suggests that there is a question about how much the 3 year contract from 2010 is costing them.

I was only fractionally right in my predictions: I said ESPN (which is not much of a call since there was nobody else who could get it together in time) but didn’t realise how much they wanted to beat Sky on the rights that Sky could compete for. Which will make it interesting to see what they paid for that final package for the next 3 years.

Next up – who picks up Arsenal TV and how much do we have to pay for it?

Liverpool are buying again – although from Portsmouth. They have a vested interest in buying from them, as they are owed money by Portsmouth for the Crouch, so they can just write some of it off, and not pay the rest for several years. (Portsmouth will take any deal since they still don’t know if they have a new owner.) The Americans are selling off sports interests back home in order to have the money to finance the £350m loan – which are current rates will be used up (without building a brick of the stadium it was intended for) by the end of the coming season.

Yesterday there was a big rumour that one of the ruling families in the Arab kingdoms had bought an EPL club and that an announcement was forthcoming. Then it went quiet. Who was buy what? Maybe it was just talk or even a hoax, but the story went around at terrific speed. If it was a hoax it was brilliantly done.

Back home Robin VP seems to be signing things, and the latest is that Bendtner is going to sign for Milan. Since that comes from the Mirror I suspect not. Even when the fans were horribly impatient with Saint Nic the Lord Wenger has been committed, and almost unnoticed, Bendtner crept up the scoring ranks. True he missed some goals that apparently the awe-inspiring Appy “On Bail” Arry’s wife could get, but he has shown enormous growth in ability this past season. Bendtner, Vela, Eduardo, VP, Ade, with Nasri, Diaby (remember Turkey), Theo and Arshavin in reserve. Fairly good I’d say.

In internal matters, if you read the correspondence column you’ll have seen we picked up another nutter. He was making statements about how useless everyone was, so I argued with him, and invited him to put forward proper arguments, not just statements of uselessness. My letter to him without any of the previous correspondence was published it on TeamTalk which is owned (I think) by Sporting Life. I have complained to them before about using plagiarized articles but they say they can’t remove anyone “unless they are abusive”.

Thanks for the good wishes for my birthday (it was my birthday not the site’s birthday, but that notion makes me think that like the Queen the site ought to have its own official birthday). I spent the morning playing zig zag with BBC Radio 5, first I was on – then that was pulled because they discovered this thing called Wimbledon. Then I was back on two hours later, but the election of the Speaker to the House of Comics got in the way, but eventually they let me have my say. The talk was not football but education (the subject I spend my money-making life writing about) – I was having a little debate with the Secretary of State about the way dyslexics are treated. It wasn’t big time, but it livened up the morning.

So all in all a jolly old day (the big party was last weekend, which is why I am moderately coherent this morning). Now, about this issue of global warming. I must have a word with the Prime Minister…

(c) Tony Attwood 2009