One last photo from this week's Japanese League Cup final, as FC Tokyo fans utilise some toilet paper.

Photo credit: dokool on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Related posts:

1. Photo Daily: Nabisco Cup Final Kawasaki Frontale vs.

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Your editor is behind today, as I spent last night meeting with Chicago Fire owner and chairman Andrew Hauptman, discussing many of the issues I raised in my open letter to Fire ownership last month.

Nabisco Cup final, Kawasaki Frontale vs. FC Tokyo, November 3rd 2009.

Photo credit: dillo-h.com on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Related posts:

1. Photo Daily: Kawasaki Frontale Tifo Big flags and little flags in the Asian Champions League.

Our Thursday programme series last week went back 56 years, to the first ever floodlight match at Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart lane. Today, we hop across North London to Highbury, and Arsenal's first major floodlit fixture against Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Programme cover courtesy of the highly-recommended Footysphere.

Last week, we reported on exhibit A in how to alienate fans in Australia by A-League expansion team Gold Coast United's billionaire owner Clive Palmer. The club closed three sides of their stadium, Skilled Park, and capped capacity to just 5,000, forcing supporters out of their usual position in the stadium.

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Jack Warner has returned a handbag given to him by the England World Cup bid because of "embarrassment", launching even by his absurd standards a bizarre rhetorical attack on the Football Association.

Today, our tifo series swings to Asia for the first time.

We check out Japanese fans at the Nabisco Cup (also known as the J-League Cup) final between Kawasaki Frontale and FC Tokyo, held earlier this week.

This video is a little slow to get going, but there's some gorgeous colour, some impressive banners, and generally well choreographed displays from supporters of both teams.

Before kick-off, Uruguay vs Argentina, World Cup 2010 qualifier. Centenario Stadium, Montevideo, Uruguay. October 14th, 2009.

Photo credit: Joelr on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Related posts:

1. Photo daily: Nacional fans, Uruguay Fans of Club Nacional de Football, Montevideo, Uruguay.

The first round of MLS playoffs (aka MLS Conference Semi-finals)Â always spurs heated discussion about its playoff format as well as the League's two conference structure.

Let's take an overview of various playoff format options and League structures for Major League Soccer. There should be three objectives to a playoff format and League Structure:

1) Crown a worthy champion

2) Entertain the fans

3) Maximize revenue for the teams and League

No matter what playoff format is used or what tweaks are made to improve it, a percentage of fans will criticize it and offer other imperfect solutions.

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So, despite protests from fans and politicians, Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has further cemented his unpopularity on Tyneside by announcing the renaming of St. James' Park apparently believing that adding an "@" symbol to it means the club is respecting history.

Time is short today, so the weekly stadium spotlight series takes a brief look at a stadium that has a considerable transformation planned for it.

In May, the twelve host cities for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil were announced. One of the winning bids was Fortaleza, the state capital of Ceará in Northeastern Brazil.

Stan Kroenke continues to edge closer to a takeover of Arsenal. He is now at a 29.6% shareholding, just shy of the 29.9% that by city rules would trigger a takeover bid. The Arsenal Supporters' Trust (AST) sent out a press release about the news today, which stated that they were opposed to a takeover by Kroenke (and also mentioned they did not believe one was imminent anyway).

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The dramatic failure of Toronto FC this year, after a struggling season was concluded as the club blew its chance of making the playoffs by getting torn apart 5-0 by Red Bull New York, has thrown the entire direction of the team up for debate as well as the future of general manager Mo Johnston.

It looks like the Women's Super League in England, a new semi-professional venture (not fully professional, as some are saying), will finally launch in 2011 and the application process is now open for clubs who wish to participate.

The plan is for eight teams to compete in a summer season from March to October, thus minimising schedule conflicts with the men's game but also going up directly against Women's Professional Soccer in the United States.

Well, no-one saw this coming: Ebbsfleet United, the "world's first web community owned club", has lost most of its community in its second year of operation and the club is spiralling towards disaster on and off the field.

It's hard to say just how unsurprising this is.