It is now time to switch to a new Money AM football blog as the world cup is now over and we all look to the future.....World cup 2010 is over, Bravo Espana, and Forlan, once again and bring on the new season !.....I never expected the last thread to be such a success...thanks all.... so this new one might go on for years without the need to edit the title...we shall see...

The president of the German Football League has warned that Uefa’s 54 member nations could take the ultimate step of quitting Fifa if Michael Garcia’s report into World Cup bidding is not published in full.

Dr Reinhard Rauball laid bare the tensions within Fifa over the split between the ethics committee judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, and Garcia, the US attorney who heads the investigatory arm and spent 18 months probing the race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Garcia has disowned Eckert’s summary of his 430-page report, which effectively cleared Russia and Qatar.

“The result was a breakdown in communication, and it has shaken the foundations of Fifa in a way I’ve never experienced before,” said Rauball.

“As a solution, two things must happen. Not only must the decision of the ethics committee be published, but Mr Garcia’s bill of indictment too, so it becomes clear what the charges were and how they were judged,” he told the German website kicker.de.

“Additionally, the areas that were not evaluated [in the report] and whether that was justified [should be published]. It must be made public. That is the only way Fifa can deal with the complete loss of credibility.”

He said that if the report was not published in full – and Eckert has already said that he will not do that, while Fifa argues it cannot intervene – then Uefa should consider its own position within Fifa. “If this doesn’t happen and the crisis is not resolved in a credible manner, you have to entertain the question of whether you are still in good hands with Fifa,” Rauball added. “One option that would have to bear serious consideration is certainly that Uefa leaves Fifa.”

Rauball’s intervention comes against the backdrop of Uefa’s calls for the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, to stand down, as he promised to do at the end of his current four-year term. Although the Uefa president, Michel Platini, has opted against standing against Blatter in next year’s election, Uefa is continuing to cast around for an alternative candidate to take on the 78-year-old Swiss.

Before the Brazil World Cup, a series of speakers at Uefa’s congress stood up to call for Blatter to make his current term his last, while the FA chairman, Greg Dyke, denounced Blatter for claiming corruption allegations in the media were motivated by racism.

Fifa confirmed on Friday night that it had received formal notification of Garcia’s intention to take Eckert’s summary of his investigation to its appeals committee.

Meanwhile, one of the two whistleblowers discredited in Eckert’s statement, Bonita Mersiades, the head of communications for Australia’s 2022 bid, was scathing in her assessment of Fifa’s handling of the investigation. “It’s an organisation that, in terms of governance, is just a farce,” she said.

“The only people that come out well in that summary report by Eckert is Fifa. [It says] they got their decisions right in respect to Qatar and Russia, and there’s even a sentence and a reference in there that Sepp Blatter ran a wonderful process. It’s almost like high comedy.”

The Observer
15 November

I am convinced that there is a criminal element amongst the commentating sports press.....some of these household names should be arrested and charged promptly !...

Tough match for Wales tonight, live on Sky now.

Strange to watch Wales playing in a yellow strip and the opposition in red.

Yeah a bit like watching Cardiff in red and every other b@gger we play in blue.

Good point for us but still plenty of time for us to cock it up and blow the last match by either missing a pen or getting a dodgy one given against us.

I think the home internationals were scrapped after 2 of the teams claimed the other 2 teams weren't strong enough competition. England and Scotland carried on playing each other for a number of years after the tournament was scrapped.

I remember watching an England v Scotland match years ago when Graeme Souness and Ray Wilkins were trying to kick chunks out of each other - and please don't remind of the result one year when we had Frank Haffey in goal!!

Hello Dil.. whats it like down there these days -):

If Sturrridge is playing tomorrow night he will be falling over in the box every time a Scottish player goes anywhere near him!

Hope Barkley gets a game, Scots will murder Wilshire.

Unfortunately I have to go out tomorrow night, so I trust you will give me an unbiased assessment of the match on this thread Chris! :-)

No worries db, may the best team win :0)

18 November 2014 Last updated at 11:49
Premier League TV rights to be probed by Ofcom


rights for its football matches in the UK.

It follows a complaint from Virgin Media, submitted to Ofcom in September.

In a statement, the Premier League said that the way it sold its audio-visual rights was "compatible with UK and EU competition law".

BSkyB and BT currently share the rights to televise Premier League football games.

The price for the latest rights deal - covering 2013-16 - rose by 70% to £3bn when it was announced in 2012.

In a statement, the Premier League said: "We note that Ofcom has launched an inquiry. Ofcom has stated that this is at an early stage and it has not reached a view as to whether there is sufficient evidence of any infringement.

"The Premier League currently sells its audio-visual rights in a way that is compatible with UK and EU competition law and will continue to do so."

Number of games
The Premier League will soon be starting the bidding process for the next tranche of rights from 2016 onwards.

But Virgin claims that the current arrangements "for the collective selling of live UK television rights by the Premier League for matches played by its member clubs is in breach of competition law".

In particular, it has raised concerns about the number of Premier League matches for which live broadcasting rights are made available.

"Virgin Media argues that the proportion of matches made available for live television broadcast under the current Premier League rights deals - at 41% - is lower than some other leading European leagues, where more matches are available for live television broadcast," said Ofcom in a statement.

Kick-off times
Ofcom said the investigation would be carried out under the terms of the Competition Act.

It added it was "mindful of the likely timing of the next auction of live UK audio-visual media rights, and is open to discussion with the Premier League about its plans".

Ofcom also says it will look at the issue of how many games are moved from their traditional 3pm kick-off times on Saturdays, because of TV scheduling needs.

As part of this, it will approach the Football Supporters' Federation and certain other supporters' groups to understand their views.

When Virgin's initial complaint was made, the Premier League said its audio-visual rights had "always been sold in a transparent and open process".

"Regulators have examined our rights packaging and sales process in considerable detail in the past and found both of them to be compliant with UK and European competition law."

By Rob Bagchi1:01PM GMT 18 Nov 2014CommentsComment
For those of us of a certain age for whom an annual England v Scotland match was a highlight of the football calendar in the past, the designation of Tuesday night’s match at Celtic Park as a ‘friendly’ is palpably preposterous. Not for reasons so trite as the fighting and vandalism that bedevilled meetings in the late Seventies and Eighties, and which plumbed new depths during its encore in the Euro 2000 play-off ties. But because the world’s oldest international fixture was played with a ferocity of commitment on both sides – whatever the Scots would have you believe about their superior ardour – that made so many of those Home Championship games at Wembley and Hampden Park utterly compelling.
Patently the supporters’ intensity is derived from their national pride. It is the same, too, for the players but there was also more to it for some of them, a desire to establish a supremacy for their native style. The long history of professional football in England has the defining influence of Scottish professional footballers at its core.
The roll of honour for the pre-war great exiles including the six Preston Invincibles of 1888-89, Huddersfield’s Alex Jackson, Arsenal’s Alex James and Newcastle’s Hughie Gallacher is impressive enough but it is difficult to think of a great post-war English side until the birth of the Premier League that did not have solid Scottish foundations on the field.
Portsmouth’s back-to-back championship winning sides had Jimmy Scoular as their driving force, Manchester United had Jimmy Delaney in Matt Busby’s first great side and Denis Law and Paddy Crerand in his third. Bill Nicholson signed Bill Brown, Dave Mackay and John White in 1959 – two years later Tottenham won the Double with their Scots’ spine. Bill Shankly turned Liverpool from Division Two strugglers into English champions two years after buying Ron Yeats from Dundee United and Motherwell’s Ian St John. Across Stanley Park Everton had Alex Young, the ‘Golden Vision’ himself, and the powerful, skilful winger Alex Scott. Don Revie’s signing of Bobby Collins in 1962 to play alongside Billy Bremner transformed Leeds United and the manager’s bountiful Scotland scouts later delivered Eddie and Frank Gray, Peter Lorimer, Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen. Arsenal’s 1970-71 Double winners were led by Frank McLintock with George Graham in front of him and Bob Wilson behind, John McGovern and John O’Hare won titles under Brian Clough at Derby and Nottingham Forest where they hooked up with the ingenious John Robertson, while Andy Gray and Graeme Sharp scored the goals that took the championship back to Goodison Park in 1985. Finally, Liverpool dominated a decade and a half with major contributions from Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish.
The last league title before the inauguration of the Premier League was won by Leeds with Gordon Strachan and Gary McAllister orchestrating midfield but subsequently it has been in the dug-out and in the person of Sir Alex Ferguson that Scotland continued its hold on the game in England.
What these Scottish talents brought to English clubs was a patriotism they chose to express in weekly, feisty training-ground England v Scotland matches with various Geordies and Celts adopted by the Scots should the numbers need evening. The energy and emotion they brought to these contests to win bragging rights was multiplied when they actually met in the colours of their country, most famously in Law’s response when greeted warmly by his Manchester United team-mate Nobby Stiles before the match in 1965. “F--- off you little English b------,” Law replied.
Those matches mattered to us because they mattered a great deal to the players. They still do, of course, but without the familiarity of intra-club rivalry that magnified the needle between the two sides. Over the past 142 years it has given us countless moments to savour and it would take a soul wholly extinct of the capacity for joy to hope that Tuesday night’s game does not join the rich list of classics.

By Rob Bagchi1:01PM GMT 18 Nov 2014CommentsComment
For those of us of a certain age for whom an annual England v Scotland match was a highlight of the football calendar in the past, the designation of Tuesday night’s match at Celtic Park as a ‘friendly’ is palpably preposterous. Not for reasons so trite as the fighting and vandalism that bedevilled meetings in the late Seventies and Eighties, and which plumbed new depths during its encore in the Euro 2000 play-off ties. But because the world’s oldest international fixture was played with a ferocity of commitment on both sides – whatever the Scots would have you believe about their superior ardour – that made so many of those Home Championship games at Wembley and Hampden Park utterly compelling.
Patently the supporters’ intensity is derived from their national pride. It is the same, too, for the players but there was also more to it for some of them, a desire to establish a supremacy for their native style. The long history of professional football in England has the defining influence of Scottish professional footballers at its core.
The roll of honour for the pre-war great exiles including the six Preston Invincibles of 1888-89, Huddersfield’s Alex Jackson, Arsenal’s Alex James and Newcastle’s Hughie Gallacher is impressive enough but it is difficult to think of a great post-war English side until the birth of the Premier League that did not have solid Scottish foundations on the field.
Portsmouth’s back-to-back championship winning sides had Jimmy Scoular as their driving force, Manchester United had Jimmy Delaney in Matt Busby’s first great side and Denis Law and Paddy Crerand in his third. Bill Nicholson signed Bill Brown, Dave Mackay and John White in 1959 – two years later Tottenham won the Double with their Scots’ spine. Bill Shankly turned Liverpool from Division Two strugglers into English champions two years after buying Ron Yeats from Dundee United and Motherwell’s Ian St John. Across Stanley Park Everton had Alex Young, the ‘Golden Vision’ himself, and the powerful, skilful winger Alex Scott. Don Revie’s signing of Bobby Collins in 1962 to play alongside Billy Bremner transformed Leeds United and the manager’s bountiful Scotland scouts later delivered Eddie and Frank Gray, Peter Lorimer, Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen. Arsenal’s 1970-71 Double winners were led by Frank McLintock with George Graham in front of him and Bob Wilson behind, John McGovern and John O’Hare won titles under Brian Clough at Derby and Nottingham Forest where they hooked up with the ingenious John Robertson, while Andy Gray and Graeme Sharp scored the goals that took the championship back to Goodison Park in 1985. Finally, Liverpool dominated a decade and a half with major contributions from Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish.
The last league title before the inauguration of the Premier League was won by Leeds with Gordon Strachan and Gary McAllister orchestrating midfield but subsequently it has been in the dug-out and in the person of Sir Alex Ferguson that Scotland continued its hold on the game in England.
What these Scottish talents brought to English clubs was a patriotism they chose to express in weekly, feisty training-ground England v Scotland matches with various Geordies and Celts adopted by the Scots should the numbers need evening. The energy and emotion they brought to these contests to win bragging rights was multiplied when they actually met in the colours of their country, most famously in Law’s response when greeted warmly by his Manchester United team-mate Nobby Stiles before the match in 1965. “F--- off you little English b------,” Law replied.
Those matches mattered to us because they mattered a great deal to the players. They still do, of course, but without the familiarity of intra-club rivalry that magnified the needle between the two sides. Over the past 142 years it has given us countless moments to savour and it would take a soul wholly extinct of the capacity for joy to hope that Tuesday night’s game does not join the rich list of classics.

That's it this mouse is going in the bin, I'll use my i'pad in future Grrrr!

lol, it's okay Chris , some articles are worth reading twice! Strachan is turning out to be as good a manager as he was a player. Nice guy, I met him a few years ago when he was playing golf at La Manga.

Right enough re Strachan db, can't really fault Woy on his record with England either, well apart from a personality transplant that is. :0)

Tried changing the battery in your mouse before throwing it in the bin Chris?!

No, sussed out what I was doing wrong db, using mouse to post message instead of track pad :0)

The trouble with FIFA is that they are all covering their own arses !....unfortunately the footballing world is pretty much corrupt.....Italy has had its scandals but England is pretty much the same except they don't get caught and are very careful.....it's stinky poo all round I'm afraid !.....you can bet that some of those delightful people that will be at that match in Scotland tonight will be deep in this shithole corruption...(I don't mean the players on the pitch )....sad but true....FIFA are just going to pretend :...big scandal...lot of fuss...and then whitewash the whole thing with nobody being really prosecuted.....the way of the world as it is....and even if they were....they'll be let off...