With a Michael Jackson statue outside Craven Cottage, Fulham decided that the next step was to have eight live chickens live at their Motspur Park training ground. So they've gone ahead and made that happen.

The club says the move is a part of an environmental initiative that also includes planting fruit trees and a vegetable garden at the complex, but it sounds like their accountant figured out a clever way to save on egg costs and start a petting zoo at the same time.

According to Diego Maradona, the man responsible for Carlos Tevez's triumphant return to Manchester City after months in exile after his fallout with Roberto Mancini over whether he would enter a Champions League match is Diego Maradona.

From the Belfast Telegraph:

"I told Tevez, 'you must go back now'," Maradona told national press.

There has been some very bad news for football over the last week. The fact that Glasgow Rangers have been put into administration, by the club's owner, is an indication of the sorry state the Beautiful Game is in both financially and in terms of management.

This latest occurrence has come about as a result of Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC) demanding up to £50 million in unpaid taxes and National Insurance contributions due on money paid into Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs).

After the FA decided to strip John Terry of the England captaincy for the second time in two years over a charge for which he has not yet been tried, Fabio Capello has decided that he's had enough of being disrespected and undermined and resigned from his position. With Euro 2012 mere months away, FA chairman David Bernstein must find a suitable replacement to lead England out of the current cycles of scandals and disappointment.

Harry Redknapp has been pleading illiteracy and ignorance of his own tax affairs during his current trial for tax evasion. Prepare yourself for a double dose of irony then when you learn that 'Arry has documented tax advice... in his autobiography. The Spurs boss says he never pays any attention to his financial affairs and [.

Very interesting revelations are emerging from the Harry Redknapp tax evasion court proceedings. On Thursday, the Southwark Crown Court heard some very amusing statements from the Tottenham Hotspurs manager.

Apparently, Redknapp is illiterate. He cannot read or write. In a tape recording played to the court, Redknapp said that he did not know what an email was and that he had never sent a text or fax in his life.

As you probably know, Tottenham coach Harry Redknapp is currently been investigated for tax evasion offenses committed over 3 years ago and things got interesting yesterday when in tape recordings presented to the court, Redknapp said that he could not have fiddled his tax returns because he is illetrate.

And that's his defence An unexpected upshot of Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp's tax evasion trial is his claims that he is a near-illiterate, disorganised technophobe who cannot even fill in a team sheet. Southwark Crown Court heard that Redknapp writes "like a two-year-old" and "can't spell".

Article by Pedro Gomes [Editor's Note: FY = Fiscal Year]
On December 12, Soccer Insider Steven Goff dropped a budgetary bombshell on the soccer world. He revealed an inside look into the United States Soccer Federations's Budget for FY'13. No one knows exactly how this journalistic wizard came to this information and quite honestly I don't think many cared because its juicy details lit the Twitter Sphere ablaze with questions, comments, excitement, and disbelief.

Being meaning to link to this one for a while. Snarkshelf at her best:

Every Monday for the last 15 years or so, these guys had lunch. There was a core group: the restaurateur; the haberdasher; the ob/gyn; the concert promoter; a couple of salesman; the accountant; a bookie; an insurance guy (also a bookie); and some friends whose jobs I never knew, but they always drove nice cars.

By Chris Wright

Down the hatch

Two goals from the excellent Edinson Cavani were enough for Napoli to see off Man City in the Stadio San Paolo, thus leaving the Premier League leaders teetering on the brink of first-round elimination.

It now looks for all the world like City will be dropping out and playing Thursday night football in the Europa League as of next year, that is unless they manage a win over Bayern Munich and Villarreal take a point or three off Napoli in the last round of group games.

7:1 win vs Adelaide last night. Oh yes oh yes oh yes. Ra ra ra. We actually are the best in the World and everyone else is, slowly but surely, learning to live with it.
The question being repeated everywhere is, how come only eleven and a half thousand people saw one of the greatest football spectacles we might expect to see in club football?

With their last minute winner against Marseille in the Champions League, the Arsenal manager said that his team had "taken a little step forward". Wenger also commented that "we're a team that has to continue to grow and have lost only once in six matches. We are slowly getting there." Come on Wenger; enough of the excuses.

So near, yet so far. The future of Plymouth Argyle seems likely to be thrown into fresh turmoil if rumours that started circulating late yesterday afternoon regarding an attempt on the part of three former directors of the club to buy the mortgage held over its Home Park ground by Lombard North Central PLC.

As all football fans(except those of a pale blue Mancunian inclination) have looked in incredulity at the sustained, profligate transfer policy of the Abu Dhabi Royal families current toy(namely Manchester City) more and more of us are speculating on the impact, if any, of UEFA's Financial Fair Play(FFP) rules on the modus operandi of Manchester City.

It has come to pass, then, that German football sees its first Arab investor with last week's announcement that Hasan Ismaik bought a 49% ownership stake in 1860 Munich. The thirty-four year old Jordanian reportedly signed away €18 million in order for the Bavarian club to avoid a calamitous descent from the 2.

I like custard. When I know I'm going to be having custard I am happy. I look forward to my custard experience.
And then the custard arrives. And it's lumpy. This disappoints me.
Too often in the past Old Firm games have been like lumpy custard. You look forward to the big event and then you are treated to a dish about as appetising as cat vomit.

CHAMONIX/LONDON Real Madrid won nothing last year yet they continue to top the table of the world's richest clubs in the annual revenue assessment undertaken by accountant Deloitte. This is the sixth successive year the record nine-times former champions of Europe have led the list. Spanish champions Barcelona are second followed by Manchester United [.