The Tampa Bay Rowdies and Crystal Palace Baltimore have now joined the Team Owners Association (TOA). This has brought the number of teams to 9 for the TOA, who will release a name for the league next week.

This is throwing the USL into chaos at this point. I wonder with this loss of teams if USL will decide to rework the league rules and spending to allow a merge of USL-1 and USL-2 and make it just United Soccer League.

With a majority of the first-team squad either in the treatment room or away on international duty this week I thought I'd blog again on ownership. I know many Gooners don't give a stuff who owns the club as long as we're successful. I for one beg to differ. Leadership and thus success comes from the top.

A quick look at the Championship table shows that Watford are having a good season. Until recently, they were in a play-off place for a position in the Premier League. This, however, is an almost complete illusion. Watford are having a very bad season, a season during which boardroom wrangling seems to have long since passed the point of no return and which is now endangering the very existence of the club itself.

The most glaring difference between this and the last AGM is not the shareholders' attitude. It is Arsene. His demeanor was completely different this time around, and with good reason. Though that reason may not be down to results entirely.

Of course, we still get Arsene's standard lines about "belief," the "real spirit in the team," etc.

by CARL EDLRIDGE Stan Kroenke has snapped up another 427 shares in Arsenal's parent holding company, at a cost of £3.6million, as the Yank moves closer towards the takeover threshold, reports the Daily Mail.

Kroenke is now the largest individual shareholder in Arsenal, with a stake of 29.

SEE YOU IN SEATTLE
MLS Cup Weekend - Party with your friends on Friday night!
The Designated Players - du Nord, Soccer by Ives, The Original Winger, This Is American Soccer and The Offside Rules - will be hosting a get together on Friday night in Seattle at Kells Pub.

When Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston extolled the virtues of shareholder democracy over supporter-led democratic ownership at his club's recent annual general meeting, he could never have imagined how utterly his arguments would be undermined by other events during the meeting. Not even the latest shenanigans (for that is what they are) at Watford could provide such a compelling manifestation of the flaws of such a system, although even as I type they are trying very hard.