FFP FFS

"Go on then. One extra year."

The verdict is in. File away Financial Fair Play (FFP) with the 'Fit and Proper Person' test. As Manchester City's two-season European ban was rescinded by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland, the big dead albatross that had been hanging over City’s head for a year was chucked into the sea in return for €10m-worth of pocket change. Ergo de Bruyne and Sterling stay, and financial spiral is avoided. As you were. New money 1-0 UEFA *fake crowd noises*. It’ll make for a fun summer at least.

Sod's Law

"I just scored a perfectly legitimate goal."

In yet another big-money coup, Magic Spongers snap up the ever-excellent John Dobson, who explains why UEFA need to play by their own rules. Or not.

It's not cricket.

No it's not, it's football. One of the unique things about cricket is that the concept of 'the spirit of the game' is enshrined in it's laws - also note the use of the word 'laws' as opposed to 'rules'. The nature of the game lends itself to this as you're in the field for five days at a stretch with the same people. This is not the case in a fast-paced hour and a half and while the nebulous concept of 'fair play' is rewarded to an extent, it's not mentioned in the rules.

Enough is Enough

Whenever we’ve found ourselves ‘compelled’ to write something on this blog in the past, it’s usually been at the revocation of decorum and very much at the behest of some semblance of sanctimony. Wrighty and Brighty have copped it a fair few times for crimes against punditry and speaking/writing. Adrian Chiles, too, may have been labelled by us, variously ‘a potato that a child of below average intelligence has drawn a face on’ and ‘the peawet on a fish supper: only popular in one pocket of the country and reviled everywhere else. Green, disgusting and irrelevant. THAT’S YOU ADRIAN’.
And even England’s bravest man was never immune either from the abuse of two washed-up, semi-alcoholic, northern bloggers.

Fair Play At A Price

Since time immemorial, Uefa’s financial fair play rules have been skulking around in the shadows of polite chat in football circles. It was Arsenal’s Herbert Chapman who first busied himself snaffling the brightest and best from across the country – Alex James, Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood, Herbie Roberts and David Jack – in the late 1920s in a bid to thwart Michel Platini jr jr jr and the other suits at Europe’s governing body as he pre-empted said regulations*. From Chapman to latter day incarnations, managers have always attempted to prize as much filthy lucre from their chairman’s cold hands as possible. And after a quiet January transfer window for once, following the batshit mentalness of last year, bracing oneself for an equally capricious summer of transfer activity would be a sound idea.

Levein The Past Behind

Wonderful experience as it will be to see Scotland play Brazil at the Emirates, there are other subtexts within the national side that are masked somewhat by the occasion. The game itself will be the culmination – the final big lobotomy – of a therapeutic process that has been ongoing since Scotland failed to attack from a 4-6-0 in the Czech Republic and almost failed to win against Liechtenstein at Hampden, preceded, lest we forget, by a failure to convince in Lithuania in the very first game of the Euro 2012 qualifiers.

Champions League, You're Having A Laugh

'No, I don't know what happened to that unicorn'

Well bugger me, it’s the Champions League this week. AGAIN. Where are we up to at the moment? Oh, it’s the penultimate group games. Well, that could be exciting – maybe Real haven’t qualified ye- oh no, never mind. Maybe United-Rangers will be a mouth-watering contest, as surely United need to go and get a win to be sure of- oh no, no they don’t. What about a real continental fixture? Maybe if Panathanaikos get something off Barcelona at home it’ll make things diffi-, oh no, Barca’s last game is at the Camp Nou against a team with no wins. Well they still want to win their group of cour- NO. NO THEY DON’T. NO ONE CARES.

The Bigger Pitchure

This plastic pitch stuff is a right old bru-ha-ha, isn’t it? ‘It’s not an excuse’, harrumphed Harry Redknapp, before going on the claim that at least four of his elite, highly-paid, professional sportsmen ‘couldn’t handle’ playing on what was essentially a soft flat carpet. I’ve heard all about the ramifications of artificial pitches for the knees of Ledley King and Tom Huddlestone, but then I’ve also been hearing about how hard and unforgiving ‘these new grass pitches’ are for the last five years. Surely spraying gallons of water over any pitch before kick-off makes them reasonably dangerous too?