If someday he leaves Man Utd (he will, dunno if now, in 1 year or 2) it will be for R.Madrid. He and his entire family consider them the biggest club in the world and his/their dream.

PS: Only a fool would reject Man Utd for Barcelona.

Though we do look like we'll be getting owned in the Premier League. They seem hesitant to buy big, which was the same mistake Derby did.

weird transfer. too bad he dint go to villa, i could see him doing well there. and you need to sign some strikers that can score!

How much do you think he will cost?

Platini : Man Utd are cheats

Platini has also started a crusade to rid the Premier League of debt-ridden clubs, branding the Chelsea v Manchester United Champions League Final as a battle of the "cheats".

He said: "Look at the deficits of Chelsea and Manchester United. FIFA and UEFA are going to have to combat that because, today, it is the ones who cheat who win.

We are starting to work on this. It’s a race for money. The passion in England is exceptional and hooliganism has been fought but, as for the rest, we are going to have to find something.”

Chelsea and United have reported combined debts of £1.5bn but have signed a string of top names for top prices, such as Wayne Rooney (£28m) and £31m Andriy Shevchenko.

His comments came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a plea to the Football Association and the other home nations to avoid any future repeat of a non-British finals.

Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/euro2008/...ter-United.html

It's a fact. Man Utd should get banned for having 1B debt. It's just pathetic.

just wondering does the debt belong to the club itself or the Galzier family or is it the same thing?

Club itself.

What does Figo mean "No fear'? He means the fear of failure?

All big four in England are in debt, it's not just United. And I don't see why they should get banned... I mean... football is now also business... and United as a company can be in debt right? Who can tell them not to be?...

What does Figo mean "No fear'? He means the fear of failure?

All big four in England are in debt, it's not just United. And I don't see why they should get banned... I mean... football is now also business... and United as a company can be in debt right? Who can tell them not to be?...

Yeah, I've never understood why guys like Carson Yeung and Mittal/Ecclestone are interested in buying teams with small fanbases/no history like Birmingham and QPR,

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/catala/noti...0606104518.html

Giovani dos Santos sold to Tottenham.

how much for?

£4.7m and could rise to £8.6m depending on appearances also a 20% sell on clause for the first 2 years  then 10% there after

So Barry to Liverpool for 14 mill pounds?? Are you guys nuts? Or is Barry raising a fuss?

Ufff. I don't know. Something around 70-80M/euros.

I mean, now. In 1 or 2 seasons I dunno if he won't cost half of that. (Look at Ronaldinho... in 2006 he was a 100M target, now he's 25 M worth)

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/catala/noti...0606104518.html

Giovani dos Santos sold to Tottenham.

Really bad signing! In pre-season I heard alot of hype about this kid, barely heard a thing about Bojan. But Bojan was about the only bright spot in what was a bad season for them. Dos Santos? Scored a hat-trick against an already relegated team, didn't score at all in his other 25+ games, didn't offer the team anything at all, doesn't surprise me Barca let him go for next to nothing, even the fans were booing the kid. He's small and not built well either.. he's going to be snapped in two by guys like Rio/Laursen/Gallas.

The defender scored an incredible nine goals for the Blucerchiati this season and he has attracted interest from several clubs including Napoli, Milan and Villa.

He is currently co-owned by Samp and Fiorentina and it has been suggested that he could move back to Florence.

However, Calciomercato claim that Aston Villa are preparing to swoop for the player by offering a mega-money deal.

The Birmingham based club are ready to offer €13m in order to try and prize the stopper away from Serie A.

Aston Villa’s offer would have to be considered carefully as it is double from what Milan and Napoli are willing to spend for the player.

It seems as if Villa are now in pole position to swoop for Maggio.

The player came within touching distance of a place in Roberto Donadoni’s Italy side this year and he has been earmarked as Christian Panucci’s replacement at rightback for La Nazionale in future.

Goal

Real Madrid plot Ronaldo escape
Real Madrid have outfoxed Sir Alex Ferguson, who will now struggle to keep his star player



John Carlin in Madrid

Prising Cristiano Ronaldo away from Manchester United will be less of a challenge than was the case the last time Real Madrid went to war for a prince of Portuguese football.

Luis Figo’s defection from Barcelona in 2000 for a then world record fee of £38m was Real’s first transfer coup of the century, causing incredulity and pain at the Nou Camp in equal measure, and their most audacious by far. They did not do too badly over the next three years either, adding Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo (the Brazilian) and David Beckham to their superstar collection.

Does that mean Cristiano Ronaldo is destined to be Real’s next big-name scalp? Probably, though not necessarily. Real do not always get their man. Not any more, not since the departure 2½ years ago of their formidably ambitious president Florentino Perez, the father of the gloriously failed galactico project. Ramon Calderon, his distinctly uncharismatic successor, tried hard last summer to prise Kaka from Milan but failed, settling instead for Arjen Robben, who could not command a place in the Chelsea starting XI, as his big new-season signing.

They spent £70m in 2007 on new players, none of them remotely household names. It worked, in a distinctly unglamor-ous sort of way, in that a workmanlike team won the Spanish championship for the second year running, but they were easily beaten in the Champions League by Roma (who were even more easily beaten by Man-chester United) and, save for a couple of mightily celebrated victories against a deadbeat Barce-lona, the team failed to stir the blood of the Bernabeu fans. As for the Chinese, Thais, Japanese and Singaporeans, they were mad about Real when Beckham, Zidane and company were there, but have no interest whatsoever in Gago, Pepe and Higuain.

Hence, suddenly, the desperation to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, whatever he may cost. The brains behind the push to sign the Portuguese prodigy, the man who understands best of all that a club with Real’s reputation does not live by bread alone, is not Calderon, or even the club coach, Bernd Schuster. It is Jose Angel Sanchez, Real’s chief executive, originally brought to the club by Perez eight years ago as marketing director. Of all the people on the Perez team, it was Sanchez who got the message most clearly when his enigmatic boss, a business genius in his own right, would say, “the most expensive players are the cheapest”. Perez realised that the impact on the global Real Madrid brand of acquiring players who were famous beyond football itself was enormous and, cleverly administered (which was where Sanchez came in), would translate into big money. The return on the Beckham investment is still being felt now, because of the long-term deals signed during his time at the club.

What Sanchez sees, and the reason he has encouraged Calderon to spend whatever it takes to get Ronaldo, is that if Real do not give themselves a boost of galactico adrenalin, not only are they going to lose their status as the world’s richest club, but a serious risk exists of a big gap beginning to open up between them and the top British clubs, in terms of money in the bank and quality on the field.

The manner in which the Ronaldo soap opera is unfolding bears the unmistakable stamp of Perez, meaning in this case the carrier of the Perez flame, Sanchez. The script was first written for Figo, then repeated with Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham.

You begin by approaching the player secretly, planting seeds in his mind, tempting him (and his agent) with the offer of huge money and the fabled white Real shirt. You then deploy the friendly Spanish sports press, whose reports are picked up within seconds elsewhere in Europe and the world, to generate some momentum, to get the player’s family and friends talking, to elicit quotes in support of the move from your own coach and potential future teammates, to make the whole prospect more substantial and real and enticing in the player’s mind.

If you get lucky, the target club, the one from which you are trying to filch the player, will show signs of panic, and start issuing angry threats. The good thing about that is that the player you seek may start waning in his loyalty, in so far as it may go, and cooling in his affection for the club to which he belongs.

Real have got lucky this time, prompting increasingly intemperate outbursts from Sir Alex Ferguson, who first accused Real of behaving unethically (to which a number of Spanish commentators have responded by recalling the way he set about snatching Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich last year) and then made what must surely be the mistake of threatening the player himself. It is hard not to imagine the cool, calculating, collected Sanchez rubbing his hands in glee when Ferguson said that he would have Ronaldo watching football from the stands all year rather than let him go to the Iberian enemy.

The objective of the exercise, now as with Real’s previous big-name signings, is to reach that checkmate point where the player unequivocally wants to move, and says as much. At which point all talk of condemning the player to Siberia, of owning him and not playing him, becomes so much guileless bluster. All the more so if the money on the table is vast, as in the case of Ronaldo (£80m is the figure mentioned in Spain).

News reports yesterday that Ronaldo would not welcome a visit from Ferguson to the Portugal national team camp sounded as if they might not be too far off the mark, which is not to say the transfer is a done deal. These summer soap operas have a habit of going on and on, and holding surprises in their tails. But as of now, the balance has swung Real’s way. Barely a month ago signing Ronaldo from United seemed like mission impossible. Today it is United who have all the work to do.

John Carlin is the author of White Angels: Beckham, Real Madrid and the New Football

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle4087648.ece

Ah, who cares anymore this has dragged on longer than the Ashley Cole situation...

Glory on the never-never is recipe for disaster

Chelsea and Manchester United have thrived with huge debts, but changing times could be on the way

ACCORDING to a new report, Manchester United have 333 million “followers” worldwide - roughly the same as the populations of the USA and Canada combined. I like the word “followers” in connection with this great club: those old-fashioned terms “fans” and “supporters” don’t really do justice to the franchise. “Followers” is much better. It will include, for example, the cheerful taxi driver who picked you up from Changi airport last year and who said, as soon as you got in his car: “Harro Engrish people! Manchester United! Denis Raw!”

I assume it includes, too, all sorts of people who “follow” Manchester United in much the same way as I “follow” the Conservative Party - taking a vague interest in them and hoping all the while that they fail. By rights, that makes me a “follower” of Manchester United as well. I check their results, with fingers crossed, on a Saturday. Or a Sunday or Monday evening, whatever. “Followers” is close to the correct name for the sort of people who one typically pompous football columnist last week said he wished were the norm for the game - not people who “parochially” support one club and loathe the rest, but people who enjoy a lovely game of footie wherever it is played, without fear or favour. Typical West Ham fan. Or “follower”, take your pick.

The boss of Uefa, Michel Platini, has incurred the wrath of the cynical monkeys who run our top Premier League clubs by calling Manchester United and Chelsea the “cheats” of English football, claiming the former “won the Champions League final on the never-never”. Once again he lamented the “never-ending gold rush” of the Premier League, epitomised by its magnificently objectionable scheme to add a 39th game in the middle of the season to be played in some benighted foreign capital (a scheme they still haven’t dropped entirely). But the majority of the contents of his bile duct were sprayed in the direction of our top two clubs.

The cheating stuff referred to the fact that Chelsea and United have combined debts of a remarkable £1.5 billion. “The goal is not to win titles but to make money to pay off debts,” he said. The response to this was, as you might imagine, furious. A “source” at Chelsea - not the medal-collecting millionaire Peter Kenyon, I’m sure - stamped his little foot and said: “People in the Premier League will not just stand for being slagged off like this.”

Well, yes you will, mate, because you can’t do anything else, unless you want to break away and form a new Champions League consisting of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Platini is right about this as he has been right about almost everything else that is horribly amiss with the English game. And despite those 333 million “followers” of Manchester United, you suspect that the force is with him; with Platini and indeed with Sepp Blatter, the boss of Fifa, who is no more greatly enamoured of the greed of the English Premier League. There will be plenty of people - Kenyon, Scudamore, Barwick, the Glazers - who will insist you can’t buck the market, and that both it and the laws of international finance are in some way inviolable and based on solid foundations, beyond dispute. Therefore debts of £1.5 billion are perfectly legitimate, providing they are underwritten somehow; interest payments of £100m a year are fine, so long as they can be met. But of course money is loaned according to the fashion of the day, and fashions change. What was once a sure thing suddenly becomes, overnight, more risky. The loans are then called in. Those vaunted 333 million “followers” are United’s equivalent of Northern Rock’s sub-prime mortgages, the stuff the company diversified into because it wasn’t satisfied with being a normal building society - it wanted evermore money, quickly, secured on the most slender basis. Money loaned to people who could not possibly pay their debts. It is borrowing based upon smoke and mirrors - and sooner or later, someone gets twitchy and takes the mirrors away and all you are left with is smoke. Where will those 333 million followers go then?

For Chelsea, read Gretna - except on a much more elevated plateau, obviously. Remove Roman Abramovich from Chelsea, which is not an inconceivable scenario, and you are left with a mountain of debt and fairly ordinary players earning £120,000 a week. And with the removal of Abramovich, the removal of success too - and thus the rapid evaporation of Chelsea’s new fan base, the ones who have arrived in the last 10 years attracted solely by the prospect of vicarious success, of being part of a winning team.

Platini also took a swipe at the England side. They would not be missed at Euro 2008, he said, and their failure to qualify was their own fault. Right on both counts, but he might have added that our failure to qualify was a direct consequence of the malaise he correctly identified within the top tier of the British game - too much money invested in the most tenuous of causes. Smoke and mirrors.

“Followers” is much better. It will include, for example, the cheerful taxi driver who picked you up from Changi airport last year and who said, as soon as you got in his car: “Harro Engrish people! Manchester United! Denis Raw!”

Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. will no doubt be forced to endure increased animosity from supporters following the publication of the club’s accounts…

More than 300 disgruntled Reds fans congregated yesterday to post eviction notices all around Anfield, continuing their push to oust the Merseyside giants’ warring possessors.

And the pressure on the bickering Americans will only continue to mount after the release of their first set of financial figures since they took control of the club in February 2007.

The Times reports that, according to accounts submitted to Companies House last week, one of Liverpool’s parent companies Kop Football (Holdings) Ltd endured a ₤33million loss as of July 31, 2007.

The club’s ₤350million in loans must be refinanced by January, while they will also have to pay interest on a ₤64million borrowing from Kop Football.

The accounts also revealed that Hicks and Gillett wrote off some ₤10.3million when ditching designs for Liverpool’s new stadium, while claiming in excess of ₤1.4million for personal expenses – figures which will do nothing to improve their standing with Reds fans.

Man Utd report Real to FIFA

On 27 May, Manchester United made clear its intention to report Real Madrid to FIFA if it continued to involve itself in the future of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Unfortunately, Real Madrid has not kept its own counsel and the Club feels it has no alternative but to make a formal complaint to the world governing body, which it has done today.

The precise content and nature will remain confidential.

Communications Department,
Manchester United Limited

http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid=...&newsid=6611277

Plus this is a bad idea for United as Cristiano may react badly to this attempt to limit his choice.

(Off-topic) OK, what bet did you lose Kurt and who is the girl in the Croatian jersey?

That England would qualify for the European Championships.. not sure who the girl is, Fillipo gave me a few links to some pics that I could choose from for my sig.

Gareth Barry tells Aston Villa: Let me go to Liverpool

Gareth Barry has told Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill that he must now let him join Liverpool.

The England star called O’Neill to beg for a move and his agent Alex Black confirmed: “Gareth has spoken to Martin since he returned from England’s game in Trinidad and told him how he feels.

“Gareth wants to be playing Champions League football and believes this is his chance to do it.”

Villa have turned down offers of £10million and £12m for Barry but will find it impossible to keep their skipper against his will.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/200...89520-20602153/

For some reason, this makes me laugh...  It's a little weird and out of the blue since England not qualifying was a long time ago...

I'm guessing Scolari will be killed by the Portugese press if they don't win the competition.. who the hell announces they're joining another team during the tounement!?

He'll have to learn English quickly, hopefully he doesn't use the same teacher as Sheva!