And yesterday we heard that the English press were being blamed for England’s pathetic showing in trying to host the 2018 World Cup.

At least four of the FIFA delegates who voted on Thursday, have since said their decision not to vote for England was because of the English media – so what do the FA do?

They say they don’t believe it.

The FA was well advised to find out what was going on with that vote, when England acquired only 2 votes in the first round, and one of them was their own.

That’s so they could see what they did wrong, if anything, and need to do differently, if they are to ever bid again for the World Cup, which seems unlikely anytime soon.

This is what one delegate – Japan’s FIFA executive committee member told the BBC yesterday:

“I thought England was a very strong candidate,” “Their presentation was one of the best presentations.”

“But I think there was a big influence from the BBC and the Sunday Times. These reports possibly influenced people. It made damage for some people.”

And when they did get the answer, and it’s presumably not what they wanted to hear – the England 2018 bid chief executive, Andy Anson, said he didn’t believe the vote had anything to do with the media.

Andy Anson thought the problem was that FIFA president Blatter spoke to members of the executive committee about the evil of the media, just before the vote:

“I think that was unhelpful – the last thing those guys hear before they go and tick the box is the evil of the media. That is not helpful and actually inaccurate.”

“I was told by someone who was in the room that that’s the last thing they were told by Sepp Blatter.”

“There was a final sum-up before they voted and I think it was at the beginning of that. That’s not helpful to our cause.”

But surely if the Sunday Times and BBC’s Panarama hadn’t written those stories, then nobody could have blamed the English press, so isn’t Andy saying the same thing – it was indeed the English press that caused the demise?

That talk was only unhelpful to the English bid, because only the English media were being seen as being evil – and that’s the inconvenient truth.

The FA asked the delegates what was wrong with England’s bid, and presumably because they didn’t get the right answer – they say they don’t believe it.

You have to be mature, and seek the real truth, and then confront whatever that may be – not deny things – if the reasons turn out to be rather inconvenient and even embarrassing.

But the FA are saying they want to keep a free press in England – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that the English gossip press go their own way to publish stories – which are often untimely and inappropriate – even when they know they may be detrimental to the England bid.

More mature people would never do that.

It could be that our demise was self inflicted, and we have to be big enough to confront that, if it is indeed true, however hard that may be.

We don’t know if those stories actually hurt the World Cup bid, but we know for sure - they certainly didn’t help it.

Comments welcome.

England’s St. Georges’ Cross

The basic premise seems to be that England believes that FIFA are just completely bent – but that’s like saying they didn’t pick us – so they must be crazy and probably corrupt too.

But we think FIFA picks the World Cup sites on how much will the game expand around the world if the tournament takes place in that country.

If you believe that, then Russia and Qatar are good choices, because there’s no doubt football will expand at least in those regions of the world, and football is a big game in both areas of the world.

If England had won the bid, football wouldn’t have expanded at all, because by their own admission England could host the World Cup next month. That was not an advantage to the England bid.

It’s almost like if a country has to do a lot of building new stadia and the like, that’s even an advantage because football will expand greatly in that country and the surrounding area.

What the English could do is to understand why Panarama and The Sunday Times produced those reports that were not at all complimentary to the FIFA executives, and they were the people who did the voting.

That’s not to say what they reported wasn’t true, not at all, but they could have delayed their reports until now – self interest, selfishness and profits is the answer to that question.

Maybe, just maybe, the media in England smashed the bid – and it wouldn’t be the first time that the gossip press in England had looked little short of a disgrace.

We know the feelings in England are very high right now, but if you agree that FIFA indeed picks the countries based on the above premises – it at least makes England’s loss much easier to take, and after all we hammered Australia in the first day of the Adelaide test.

It will be an even worse day for Australia today, because they got just one vote in the first round of voting for the 2022 World Cup.

We have to be very wary of being accused of being really poor losers, and we like the way David Beckham has reacted to the disappointment.

David has gone up in our estimation the way he handled himself as part of England’s bid, and he’s already congratulated the two winners and he is already looking forward.

It’s hardly surprising that David has handled his career so well – and it’s clear when he finally hangs up his boots that he’ll have big big things still to do in his life.

Comments welcome.

Tom Hicks – loses case in High Court

Judge Christopher Floyd at 10:30 am this morning in London,  ruled that Liverpool’s American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have no legal power to stop the sale of the Liverpool FC club to Boston Red Sox owner,  John Henry for £300M.

The Liverpool Board had last week voted 3-2 to sell the debt-ridden Premier League club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), but that wasn’t before Tom Hicks had tried to sack two Board members and replace them with his son and another member who would have both voted against the sale.

The judge had referred to that move by American as being breathtaking it its arrogance and he wasted no time this morning in giving his ruling.

While you would think things would now be straight forward in selling the club the New England Sports Ventures and John Henry, Singapore Billionaire Peter Lim yesterday increased his bid for the English Premier League club to £320M,  just before yesterday’s High Court got under way.

Obviously that was deliberate timing by Lim, who has said he will put his own money into the bid, which is a total cash deal for £320M, with an additional £40M to buy new players in January.

But we think the bid may be too late, and since Hicks has to repay around £237M debt to the Royal Bank Of Scotland by this Friday, money which he doesn’t have, we expect things to move quickly in the next day or two – otherwise Liverpool could be put into administration and have 9 points deduced.

That is now very unlikely to happen as Liverpool Chairman Martin Broughton  is expected to wrap up the NESV deal within a day or two, and then repay the loan to RBOS by Friday.

However, Hicks could again try to put a spanner in the works, by lodging an appeal of the verdict, but in his ruling the judge disallowed any appeals,  so that hurdle has also been removed.

It looks like the American owners will lose about £140M on the sale, after making it obvious to everybody over the last three years, they were only in it to make a profit.

You live by the sword – you die by the sword.

Comments welcome.

Former England captain John Terry - misses Montenegro game

The Chelsea skipper has apparently jarred his back in training at London Colney on Friday, and the medics had him rest it completely on Saturday in a bid to be fit to play against Montenegro, who like England, have won all their first 3 games in Group G.

The 29-year-old was in too much pain yesterday to train, and although he started the session he couldn’t finish it, and to add to his back problems he also had a knee problem, which came up during the session.

You talk about getting old.

Terry returned to Chelsea last night in an effort to recover in time for the London club’s Saturday trip to Aston Villa, but he’s out of the important England qualifying game tomorrow night at Wembley.

That’s the last thing England manager Fabio Capello wanted,  and it looks like Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott will now be drafted in to play alongside captain Rio Ferdinand in central defense for the game, which will not be an easy one for England.

Lescott played in Switzerland last month, and will therefore retain his place for tomorrow’s game.

Phil Jagielka of Everton was ruled out on Friday, which means England will be without both of  their new first choice central defenders.  Only Bolton’s Gary Cahill remains as cover unless Capello decides to bring in another center-back as extra cover, just in case.

Comments welcome.

Having dealt in financial matters at IBM, we are interested that the famous Manchester club are saying they have made profits of over £100M, and they call that an operating profit.  Translation – not really a profit.

But that new style of accounting, which completely ignores some of the costs of the business (an inconvenient truth) –  including massive interest payments of over £40M, and a one time cost of  £107M relating to the club’s bond issue launched in January to restructure the massive debts accrued by the Glazer family, in buying the club –  cannot just be ignored – convenient though it may be.

You just cannot ignore the costs to the business when reporting these financial figures,  and this is what some companies were doing in the late 1990s to make their financials look better – that was just before the stock market collapse on Wall Street.

This is how the club announced the figures on their web-ste today:

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Reds announce record figures

United announces record revenues and operating profits.

Manchester United has announced record operating profits of over £100M for the year ended 30 June 2010.

The results, which show a significant rise in commercial and sponsorship revenue, were announced at lunchtime today.

Chief executive David Gill said:

“These results show record turnover, record operating profits and exceptional growth in our commercial activities. We will continue to concentrate on generating the resources to invest in the team and the club to keep us at the top of world football.”

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That’s hardly accurate financial reporting,  and is swayed far too much towards the good news, and never even mentions the club actually made a loss on the year.

Manchester United’s revenue was £286.41M, for the year ended June 2010.

Wages rose by 7% to £131.7M, while the overall debt rose to £521.7M, on which they seem to be paying an average of around 7.77%, if the total interest payments were £40M – that seems to be too low somehow.

The previous financial year’s profit figure was £77M, largely due to the world-record sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

Gill told the UK Press Association:

“We are not a club that needs to sell. We have money in the bank so there is zero pressure on that, no pressure at all to sell any star player whether it is Wayne Rooney or X, Y or Z. I can categorically say that,”

“There was no desire at all from anyone at the club to sell Cristiano — he wanted to go, and as a result we managed to extract a world-record fee. The philosophy is to retain and attract the best players.”

“We have £165M in the bank, but in some ways we would prefer to have £80M in the bank and Ronaldo on the pitch.”

We wonder why £165M is in the bank when the club have a debt of over £500M, and why not pay down some of the debt and save on interest payments.

Overall,  it shows Manchester United can still generate very good revenue, and that’s the good news, but the club is still weighed down heavily by the half billion pounds in debt the Glazer family are still carrying, since buying the club.

It seems the club did not want to report their financial figures in that way – true though it may be.

Comments welcome.

John Henry - potential new Liverpool owner

It seems New England Sports Venture, John Henry’s company,  is more than interested in making a good start when he finally buys the famous Liverpool FC,  by meeting with their best players and laying out what the impressive new plans will be for the club.

It is understood they are willing to build a new stadium, which will help immensely with increasing their annual revenues, which lag behind other top English clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. And they will also invest in players come the January transfer window.

The player they most want to talk to is of course Spanish striker Fernando Torres, who has looked unhappy at the club this season, and his performances reflect the uncertainty at the club surrounding the ownership.

And it seems that current joint owner Tom Hicks knows no bounds to his pure greed, as he refuses to go quietly, after making a complete mess, with the help of  George Gillett since he took over the club in August of 2007.

He announced yesterday that he confront fellow American John Henry in the High Court to stop the deal – anyway he can.

The £300M offer for the club grossly underestimates the value of Liverpool FC,  but that’s mainly because of the incompetent way that Hicks and Gillett have managed the club these last three years.

But from John Henry’s viewpoint, it’s a great opportunity to buy one of the world’s most famous football teams, who have won the European Champions Cup 5 times, the UEFA Cup 4 times, the UEFA Super Cup 3 times, the English Football League 18 times (a record), the FA Cup 7 times and the League Cup 7 times.

Hicks values the Reds at around £600M and has the audacity to say that Henry’s bid is invalid because he had sacked board members Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre before the offer was discussed on Tuesday.

That was a ruse to replace those two board members with his own people,  so they could then vote against the offer, and get the best deal for the current owners in the future,  and not necessarily the best deal for the current owners.

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko – greed is good

The actions of Hicks and Gillett in this affair make Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko, the greedy character played by actor Michael Douglas, look like a saint.  How low they will be willing to go is still to be seen, but together they stand to lose £144M if the NESV deal goes through.

Comments welcome.

Is it a goal or isn’t it – of course it is

With the whole world watching in South Africa,  FIFA was totally embarrassed when England’s Frank Lampard scored a goal against Germany that was then shown by the big screen videos to be about two foot over the line, but the “goal”  amazingly wasn’t given by the officials, who must have been asleep at the time.

That was one huge embarrassment in the world’s most popular sporting tournament,  which comes around only once every four years.

Sepp Blatter and his governing body are ready make a decisive move later this month in favor of introducing the new technology, and there is a two day meeting going on right now in Zurich, with 16 different submissions for technology solutions that will be able to tell without question,  when the ball has crossed the goal line.

Thank goodness for that.

FIFA  will have to decide which of the technology systems will be presented to the  annual business meeting of the International Football Association Board in Cardiff,  to take place on Wednesday, October 20th.

It seems that after the October meeting the next step will be to give formal approval and the new technology will become adopted at the full IFAB meeting on March 6th next year, back in Cardiff.

Currently UEFA is using additional assistants behind each goal in the European Champions League this season, but it appears that Blatter is finally ready for a system that takes human error out of the reckoning completely, and gives an instantaneous verdict on whether it’s a goal or not.

The potential technology solutions fall into three basic categories – computer chips in the ball, camera technology and the computer simulation system of the  “Hawkeye” technology that is currently used in both tennis and cricket.

It seems the favorite is to have chips embedded into the football, which has been developed by FIFA’s long-term partners Adidas. Yes they were the makers of that terrible Jabulani ball used in the World Cup.

The problem with the Hawkeye system, which has been used successfully in some other sports, is the delay in reaching a conclusion, and that will count against that specific technology.

It’s been a while coming, but anything that ensures there will no more huge embarrassments of the dominant world’s game, that we all witnessed South Africa, will be well worth it.

Comments welcome.

However, yesterday the current American owners attempted  to bring in two new members of the board, that would allow them to then vote against the sale, but they lost by a 3-2 vote by the current board, and subsequently the bid was officially approved.

The Premier League has said they will approve the bid as soon as this Friday, October 8th, but it seems that Americans, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who will lose on the deal, are busy taking legal advice to see if they can stop the deal – somehow – anyhow.

How’s that for acting in the best interests of the Liverpool club?

Unfortunately the two owners have come across in the last few years as simply using Liverpool FC as a means to make a big profit, and if this deal comes through they will be the losers, but the Liverpool club looks to be the big winner.

Broughton is confident things will progress and the prospective new owners, an American sports investment company, which we know have vitalised the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise, and won their first two World Series in 2004 and 2007, for the first time since they last won back in 1918. They also won World Series Championship sin 1916, 1915, 1912 and 1903 – so the new owners certainly brought success back to the famous Red Sox baseball club.

We hope they will do the same thing for Liverpool, and if this deal goes through it looks like Liverpool will be back on the right road – for sure.

This si the rather lengthy statement the Liverpool Chairman has made about the new potential owners, but it does go through that most of the current Liverpool  debt will be paid off:

“This is a great day for Liverpool Football Club and the supporters,” “I can understand why there might be an instant reaction about them being American. But being American is not a problem, leveraged ownership of a football club is the problem.” “I just hope we can deliver what we have set out to do. We have found the right owners. There will be money to invest in the squad.”

“It is all about winning, that is their philosophy.” “You have to look at what they have done. (they being New England Sports Ventures) .  This is all going to be about not ‘What we promise to do’ but to see what ‘We do actually do’ on their part.”  ”If you look at the Boston Red Sox, they have taken a major traditional team, previously successful but not at their peak, and resuscitated it to be a winner.” “They understand winning on the field helps winning off the field and makes the investment an attractive investment and they have a track record to prove it.”

“They have been the most successful team since acquiring the Red Sox in 2001 – there are parallels with Liverpool.”  ”They don’t want any hostages to fortune, very sensibly, so they’re not going to make any comments about how much (money) or anything like that,”

“Let’s look at what they have done at Boston, what they said in Boston, what they have done in terms of investing in players and I think you get a high degree of confidence of their willingness to do that.”  ”If you look at the Boston Red Sox, when they arrived everyone said ‘We have to build a new stadium, this one is clapped out’.” “They looked at it, its tradition, and decided to invest heavily to reinvent Fenway Park, rather than move to a new stadium.”

“There is definitely a commitment to invest in a stadium and we will finish up with a 60,000+ seater stadium. Where they haven’t finalised their view is whether that should be the new stadium or whether there are still opportunities to build at Anfield itself.”  ”This is a very profitable organisation, it has a substantial number of wealthy investors – about 17 I think – and it has very little debt in the organisation,”

“I don’t know to what extent they are taking debt into the holding company or to what extent they are calling on the owners – frankly that is their affair – but it is not debt which will be close to Liverpool.”  ”I understand the concerns but they are not [replacing one massive debt] with another one.” The deal agreed with NESV will see Liverpool freed of £200M of debt with £37M  of “external debt” – a typical working overdraft facility – remaining.”

It would also mean Hicks and Gillett would lose around  a£140M, as the NESV acquisition would only remove the burden of the acquisition debt, effectively paying off most of what was owed to Royal Bank of Scotland.

However, the money the Americans themselves put in a holding company would not be covered, so you can see why the current owners are trying to submarine the deal.

But it seems to us that Tom Hicks and George Gillett have had their fingers burned in the Liverpool purchase – and what’s that famous saying again - you live by the sword you die by the sword.

But sometimes, being burned is a good thing – because it teaches you a lesson.  Greed is not good – and never will be.

Comments welcome.

Roy Hodgson and Ian Holloway on Sunday

The 2-1 defeat at home to Blackpool was hard to take for Liverpool fans, but the seaside club have made a surprisingly good start to the season, even through they are odds-on favorites at William Hill to be relegated this season.

When a new manger joins any club there is always a period of adjustment needed, as the manager sees what he’s got in terms of players, and starts to use his own systems in training and during games.

But the very last thing the Liverpool club need to do right now is to over-react to the difficulties, by for example,  sacking Roy.  Hodgson has shown many times before that he can get the best out of his players,  once he has settled in and to get Fulham to the final of the Europa League was a monumental achievement last season.

Patience is needed right now, and probably the main problem for the famous Liverpool club, is how to get rid of their incompetent American owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks.

They have made it very clear they are only in it for the money, and former manager Rafael Benitez has already said they know nothing at all about the game of football. Well they are Americans, after all, and soccer doen’t make it in the top 9 sports in the country.

Here’s what’s at the top of the sports page in the USATODAY newspaper – MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, College Football, College Basketball, Motor Sports, Golf, UFC, More   ………….. and  you guessed it, you will find “soccer” under the More tag.

Both George Gillett and Tom Hicks are certainly giving American ownership of English Premier clubs a very bad name.

Give Roy some time and he’ll put things right – a little patience is all that is needed – even though right now some of the results are really hard to take.

Comments welcome.

Emile Heskey – he’s certainly not England’s future

With Jermaine Defoe and Bobby Zamora both out injured right now it seems that England manager Fabio Capello has asked the 32 year-old striker to help out with England’s striker crisis.

Capello had explained earlier this week:

“I saw Emile against Wolves and he played very well. He is in very good form.” “We need him at this moment and we will try and speak to him. We are talking about one game against Montenegro so he will have to decide.”

It seems amazing that after Heskey’s poor form in the World Cup, not to mention he’s scored just 7 goals in 62 appearances for England, that Capello would think of going back to a player who is well past his best.

And the recent form of West Ham’s Carlton Cole is not good and he was recently benched by new manager Avram Grant.

Fabio should be building for the future and thinking of drafting the new young guns of England, such as Andy Carroll of Newcastle, as just one example.

The news is that Heskey turned down the approach because it was just for the one game, so that’s probably for the best, and will force Fabio to look at some of the younger England players for the future, which is what the FA want him to do in any case.

Comments welcome.