Two months after branding Tottenham and AEG's joint venture to move the club into the Olympic Park Stadium after the culmination of the 2012 games as being 'completely unacceptable', UK Athletics chief Ed Warner has decreed that the aforementioned partners' final, revised proposal is 'insulting' to his direct superiors on the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

On July 15th the summer transfer window for MLS officially opens. Like many of you I've been watching rumors of possible and not-so-possible designated players (DPs) like Djibril Cisse and Diego Forlán. It's also made me think about DPs around the league and which strategies for using DPs have been successful (and which haven't).

Look who we 'found' prancing down the Emmy Award red carpet Sunday night. And goodness gracious, Claudine's sparkler of a wedding ring fits right in with the other Hollywood ladies' bling. This impromptu photo obviously begs the question, what in the world were these two doing there?! Image via AEG's twitter.

Been a while since we've last taken a look at soccer stadium construction around Major League Soccer. It makes sense to start in Houston where the league announced that the new 22,000 seat stadium will host its first Dynamo match on May 12, 2012. The project is quickly progressing in downtown Houston and is being touted as the first MLS stadium to open in a city's downtown district.

I Hope West Ham Win! Not something you'll hear a Spurs fan say everyday, and I know there are plenty of you out there that are all for the move to the Olympic Stadium but there are a lot of us that don't want to. While you may think this is just another anti Stratford blog update it's more than that and I hope even if you're very pro moving, you'll appreciate the possibilities of what I'm about to say.

I Hope West Ham Win! Not something you'll hear a Spurs fan say everyday, and I know there are plenty of you out there that are all for the move to the Olympic Stadium but there are a lot of us that don't want to. While you may think this is just another anti Stratford blog update it's more than that and I hope even if you're very pro moving, you'll appreciate the possibilities of what I'm about to say.

HOUSTON Houston Dynamo minority owner Oscar De La Hoya joined city and county officials Saturday at the groundbreaking for the team's $95 million, soccer-specific stadium. The 22,000-seat venue is situated near downtown within walking distance of Minute Maid Park, the Toyota Center and the city's massive convention center.

The LA Galaxy have given David Beckham permission to stay and train with Tottenham Hotspur for another two weeks. At first glance, this is a strange decision by the Galaxy who are back in training themselves, as they get ready for another MLS season.

So why let Becks stay in London instead of join his LA teammates?

LONDON, England Premier League Tottenham Hotspur and David Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy are planning closer ties that could lead to players crossing the Atlantic in both directions. Tim Leiweke, president of the American sports and entertainment giant AEG that owns the Galaxy and is bidding in partnership with Spurs to take over the London [.

LONDON, England Premier League Tottenham Hotspur and David Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy are planning closer ties that could lead to players crossing the Atlantic in both directions. Tim Leiweke, president of the American sports and entertainment giant AEG that owns the Galaxy and is bidding in partnership with Spurs to take over the London [.

Okay so I was impressed by the amount of discussion that proceeded from the first post in this series. Now, we make the challenge a lot harder, but yet still a lot of fun. After all, speculation is what we fans do when we realize hope is pretty much lost for this season, right? So let's have a lot of it.

- Jason Davis Well hello, Robbie Keane. Come on in. Apparently someone is willing to stuff your pockets full of cash on the chance you'll score a bunch of goals and they'll finally have a championship in LA to go with all that spending. I'd call LA desperate, but since there's no chance AEG is running out of money anytime soon, I'm not sure the label applies.

- Jason Davis Well hello, Robbie Keane. Come on in. Apparently someone is willing to stuff your pockets full of cash on the chance you'll score a bunch of goals and they'll finally have a championship in LA to go with all that spending. I'd call LA desperate, but since there's no chance AEG is running out of money anytime soon, I'm not sure the label applies.

By Jason Davis - WASHINGTON, DC (Aug 18, 2011) US Soccer Players -- The latest shot fired on the MLS Designated Players front is a doozy of signing by the LA Galaxy. Irish international, ex-Tottenham captain, and slightly aging striker Robbie Keane is now part of AEG's somewhat desperate push for a title.

Landon Donovan may have a big decision to make today.

As you probably know, Donovan is on Jurgen Klinsmann's list for a pair of friendlies across the Atlantic, starting with the bigger one on Friday, against the 1998 World Cup champs just outside Paris at Stade de France.

Donovan also has his next chance at MLS hardware just around the bend, as his Galaxy has advanced to the 16th MLS Cup final.

LA and Houston battle in the 2011 MLS Cup this weekend. (Getty Images)

Well, here we are, the final game of the 2011 season. MLS Cup 2011 or 2011 MLS Cup...whatever way you look at it we are at the final game of the year.

I've been sitting quiet all week on this game, mostly due to the work load I've had at my day job but also because there were other items to get through here.

AEG Will Sell its Share of the Dynamo

Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns 50 percent of the Houston Dynamo franchise, will begin actively looking for a local buyer for its share of the team after the Dynamo's new downtown stadium opens in May.

Excuse me while I clear out the cobwebs.
It's a new year, or It's A New Year! depending on how you rate the importance of such things, and that typically means blogs spitting out variations on a theme best described as "Things That Might Happen Over the Next Twelve Months, But That You (the reader) Will Have Forgotten Were Predicted When Some (or none) of Them Happen.

LOS ANGELES, Cal. German second-division club Ingolstadt has signed United States forward Edson Buddle. Buddle's contract with Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy had expired. He was MLS's leading scorer for most of last season despite missing more than a month for the World Cup. Buddle ended the regular season as the second-highest scorer [.

Three days after Galaxy icon Cobi Jones announced he was leaving the club where he had spent virtually his entire career, the new employee of the New York Cosmos spoke with journalists today about his role with the club.

For now he plans to remain in Los Angeles, albeit doing plenty of traveling between the youth academies the Cosmos, who have ambitions of entering MLS as early as 2013, have established on each coast.

The final submissions, then, are complete and now comes the waiting game. The tug of war over the Olympic Stadium has become one of the more unseemly events of the football season so far, a desperate battle for a piece of land that very few people involved in football had a great deal of interest until it became clear that there was a chance of building a vast, new stadium there on the (relatively) cheap.

With the transfer window out of the way, the stadium issue is firmly back in the news with Daniel Levy urging Spurs fans to get behind the bid.

Speaking in the Evening Standard, Levy said: "I understand [fans' concerns] because I have been a Spurs fan all my life. But our fans travel on average 40 miles to each game from all around London and the south east.

Without wanting to mention the stadium too many times, it's a newsworthy fact indeed when somebody comes out and openly backs Spurs' bid.

Mike Lee who, alongside Lord Coe was an instrumental figure in bringing the games to London, has spoken in the Guardian about the merits of Tottenham's plan.

The Olympic Stadium decision will be announced this week, and the biggest question the legacy committee will be asking themselves is what bad things will Karren Brady have to say about them if they rule in favour of Tottenham?

She's conducted herself in a manner any unscrupulous politician in the world would be proud of latched on to one key piece of rhetoric (promises, legacy, equating Tottenham with 'shaming Britain') and subsequently ignored everything tangible about the Tottenham position.

David Beckham's training stint with Tottenham is part of a "strategic alliance" that will see further exchanges of players between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Premier League club. Tim Leiweke, president of the AEG group which owns the Galaxy, said the trans-Atlantic partnership will grow even stronger if AEG and Tottenham win their joint bid to take over London's Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games.

Union

The Offsides has more on the rumors linking 32-year-old Colombian forward Tressor Moreno to the Union. But this report says Moreno has signed with Brazilian club Bahia following the failure of negotiations with the Union. (You can read a crappy translation here.)

The Brotherly Game looks at five FC Delco products who are headed to Division 1 schools.

The Los Angeles Galaxy head into the 2011 season as one of the favorites to win MLS Cup, and now it appears the club could have a chance to win a third championship in its home stadium.

Tim Leiweke, head honcho of Galaxy owners AEG, dropped some serious hints on Friday that the 2011 MLS Cup Final could be played at Home Depot Center, which has hosted the MLS Cup Final on three previous occasions (2003,2004 and 2008).

Major League Soccer's not-so-secret announcement of this year's MLS Cup venue has officially been made public.

The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., will be the site of the 2011 MLS Cup final, marking the fourth time the event will have been played there. The match is slated for Sunday, Nov.

Some quick business hitters from around the league. We'll start with the announcement that the 2011 MLS Cup will be held at the Home Depot Center for the first time since 2008. Los Angeles is a favored location for the championship game because of the allure of the City, the importance of the AEG owned venue and the typically sizable crowds that turn out.

It's been a while since our last look at stadium construction around MLS. We'll start in Houston, where the Dynamo's efforts to build in downtown Houston has progressed far enough to warrant a webcam. The Dynamo are expected to contribute $60 million to the project. The proposed stadium will be shared with Texas Southern Football and other local events.

Every so often we take a global look at the development of soccer specific stadiums in MLS. Today, we will focus the entire post on the structure rising in downtown Houston. According to an official press release from the Dynamo, the team has sold out 20 sections for 2012 through season ticket sales.

Here we are with one game left to go on the MLS calendar and it's an all-AEG affair with the Galaxy pretty much hosting the Dynamo. So we can all rest assured that Tim Leiweke will be standing on a podium with a trophy, named after Uncle Phil Anschutz himself, at the end of 90 minutes come hell or high-water and I ain't mad at that.

Here we are with one game left to go on the MLS calendar and it's an all-AEG affair with the Galaxy pretty much hosting the Dynamo. So we can all rest assured that Tim Leiweke will be standing on a podium with a trophy, named after Uncle Phil Anschutz himself, at the end of 90 minutes come hell or high-water and I ain't mad at that.

Their Words It takes time to shake the tree until all bad apples have fallen to the ground. Even if some of them refuse to fall at first. FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Other Sources LA, Houston coaches earn their corn - from FoxSoccer.com's Ives Galarcep: The second half was a completely different story.

On Sunday evening in a rainy Carson, California it seemed that all the stars had aligned for MLS, for AEG, for Don Garber, and for the Designated Player concept as David Beckham, Robbie Keane, and Landon Donovan teamed up to give the Los Angeles Galaxy the 2011 MLS Cup winning goal in the 72nd minute at the Home Depot Center.

Connor Walsh In the immediate aftermath of Los Angeles' decisive MLS Cup victory over Houston Dynamo, much was made of what was next for David Beckham? Was this truly the end of the Beckham experiment? With PSG lurking and Beckham hoping to play in the 2012 Olympics opinions varied- but general sentiment was (and is) [.

Recently retired LA Galaxy defender Gregg Berhalter has moved directly into coaching. But to the surprise of many, it won't be in America. He was confirmed as the new manager of Hammarby IF in the Swedish second division today -- article from the AP is here, press release from Hammarby's website is here (in Swedish).

As we discussed through Twitter on Tuesday and was officially announced on Wednesday, the Dynamo's new home will officially become BBVA Compass Stadium. The new sponsor is a strong banking presence in Houston, with 80 branches in the city area and its corporate headquarters also nearby. BBVA is also the official naming sponsor of Spain's La Liga and has a long history of involvement with soccer on a global scale.

This actually happened before Christmas but I haven't gotten a chance to mention it. Baggio Husidic, who's rights the Rapids acquired in the Re-Entry Draft, has decided to decline Colorado's contract offer and instead sign with Hammarby IF in Sweden. Former U.S. Nats player Gregg Berhalter was recently named manager of the AEG-owned club and this will probably be the first of multiple signings from MLS for the team.