Stone Cold Truth

I was re-listening to last week’s It’s Up For Grabs Now Arsenal podcast and was surprised that one of the commentators used the words “War Torn Angola” to describe the ACN, and this was before the Togo bus was attacked. Unfortunately for many, that term is actually just the way that we see much of, if not all of Africa. Wenger has issued a stern admonition to the rest of the EPL not to use the Togo bus attack for selfish reasons and has ripped the nearly apoplectic reaction that folks like Martin Samuels and others at the Daily Fail have perpetrated in the name of news.

Behind things like that, is it a selfish motivation or is it a real issue over security? We, here, are not in the best position to judge the security of this competition. That’s why I don’t want to do it [recall my players]. If you organise the European Championships and you have an incident like that – it can happen, and has happened already – you do not want all your players suddenly to move home. International competition is international competition.

If the security within the country is well-organised [then that is what matters]. You hear many noises now that they [the Togo squad] were told not to travel by bus, I’ve heard, and to fly in. So I don’t know what happened there. And, as well, why no one from the official organisation was travelling with them. I don’t know.

It’s always like that, when you hear sometimes there’s unrest in the suburbs of London, you still live well in London. When I speak to my friends in France, they ask me: ‘Is a revolution happening in London?’ It’s the same in Paris, you know. You immediately think it’s a revolution everywhere. It’s not always the case.  You have to judge the place, whether the competition can go on or not, and I don’t know [the intricacies]. I don’t like this culture of fear, either. I hate that.

Meanwhile, Darius over at Stone Cold Arsenal has written the definitive article on the tragedy in Angola. He describes some of the failures that led up to the Togo National team bus attack. He informs us of the political climate in Angola. He also give a run down of the international forces at work, why Cabinda was chosen by Angola, and most importantly, he takes on the press corpse who seek to conflate Cabinda with South Africa or who print obviously xenophobic headlines like “Michael Essien flies into the Death Zone.”

My reader knows that I’m no fan of international competitions, I think they are all just exercises in archaic nationalistic masturbation. I’ll also freely admit that my first reaction was to say “bring Song and Eboue home” out of purely selfish reasons, but the more that people I respect, like Wenger, and people who have keen insight, like Darius, speak out on this issue the more I’m inclined to insist that the games must go on.

Arsene to Denilson, cheat?

The word “cheat” is thrown around a lot and especially, it seems, when it comes to Arsenal players, but this is going too far. Arsene Wenger admitted in his post-Everton interview with the dot com that he spoke to Denilson after the bizarre incident which saw him collapse in the middle of the pitch, turn the ball over, and but for an Almunia save, nearly concede a goal.

No. I wasn’t upset that Everton played on. I said to Denilson afterwards: ‘If that happens again you have to commit a handball.’ I’m very serious. If you go down, and there hasn’t been a foul, you cannot ask Everton to stop their counter-attack and not to score. So, if you go down like that, at least put your hand on the ball and it’s a free-kick.

Yes, either that or kick it out of play, or do what Phil Neville would do and elbow someone in the chest, whatever it takes but stop play so that you can be properly cared for. Is that cheating as The Spoiler would have us believe? Hardly.

Though, if you do, Denilson, don’t expect anything less than a straight red card from the English refs. I’m afraid you don’t have the right passport or club crest to get away with handling the ball in the EPL.

Man U Ties That Bond

I’ve written pretty extensively about debt in the Premier League and the fact that ManU and Liverpoor look dangerously overextended but I’ve always thought that of the two it was Liverpoor who were most likely to sink first and sink hardest. This was mostly down to the fact that of the two clubs, Man U has the most intrinsic value, topping Forbes’ list of the world’s most valuable sports franchises. I reasoned that if the debt started to eat up too much profits, some rich dude could come in and buy the club. But that intrinsic value turns out to be a curse as well. The club is worth £1.3bn but the debt, including the onerous PIK loans where United is rolling debt and interest, is thought of to be at £700m. Paying off that kind of debt takes seriously deep pockets.

There are folks out there who can do it but it needs to happen soon, before the debt gets too big for even the deep wells of money that are out there. Which is one reason why United are going to float bonds.

All the rest of the details of this bond issue are explained in that link above, check it out.

Setanta Update

The Irish Times are reporting that Fox is working with Setanta USA to buy the channel. If true, that would explain why Fox withheld Setanta’s broadcast rights this weekend; they wanted to put the squeeze on them. Though, I still think it was f-ing stupid for Fox Soccer Channel to show Serie A re-runs instead of the Arsenal v. Everton match.

Some kind of official announcement is expected soon.

Fergie Rants, The FA Cowers

SHOCKING: the FA are going to investigate Fergie for his comments about Mark Clattenburg after ManU’s pitiful performance against Birmingham. What is there to investigate? It’s true that Ferguson said “He did the Arsenal-Tottenham game – you had to have someone hit with an axe before he’d book anyone in that game, and he sends a player off here.” and called Clattenburg’s decisions “wonderful and weird.” It’s also true that Crapenburg is one of the worst referees I have ever seen. Worse than Uriah Rennie.

So far this season, Crapenburg has refereed at least three Arsenal matches which have been the scenes of some seriously dangerous play. The first was against Manciti where Mark Clattenburg mysteriously didn’t see Adebayor’s stamp on Cesc followed by Adebayor’s stamp on Robin van Persie’s face, despite video showing him LOOKING AT THE INCIDENT. Then, despite the FA’s retroactive action against Adebayor, he was put in charge of the Arsenal Tottenham match that Fergie aludes to, in which Rat Faced Chav did a two-footed, studs up, challenge on Vermaelen. And just last week, he was put in charge of the West Ham Arsenal match which saw Jiminez try to perform oral surgery on Diaby’s face with his boots.

Before the year is out, Clattenburg will referee a game which has a career ending injury. I guarantee it.

So, the FA should throw the book at both Clattenburg and Fergie. Clattenburg, because he’s a disgrace, and Fergie, because well, I hate United.