Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has vowed to abandon his policy of blooding members of his ever-burgeoning creche during the early rounds of the Carling Cup, in lieu of making a concerted effort to actually win something this time out thus ending the club's five-year spell of ultimately pointless dry-humping.

BY MARVIN DUMON:
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) convened at the Home of FIFA in Zurich today, Saturday, 6 March, for the 124th Annual General Meeting.
A presentation was provided on the experiment with additional assistant referees in the 2009/2010 UEFA Europa League, following the 144 matches played so far.

It would finally appear that FIFA, an organisation which prides itself on it's self-preserving atavism and sub-glacial rates of progression, have finally accepted that in these heady days of horseless carts and silver flying machines it is now time to embrace the notion of goal-line technology.

Remember last year's second division sanctioning saga, the creation of the new NASL from teams that split from USL-1 and the resulting bickering that lasted for months before US Soccer stepped into to force the parties together for one more season? That was fun.
This year's version of the drama looks to be much more streamlined, straight forward, and peacful; with USL's end run around D2 sanctioning through the creation of USL-PRO, the NASL is the only organization applying for Division 2 status.

The North American Soccer League (NASL) held its inaugural annual general meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, last Thursday through Saturday. Representatives of the 11 member teams attended the meeting and made several key decisions following the announcement by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) last Thursday that teams from the NASL would play in a league administered by the USSF in for 2010 season.

The North American Soccer League will hold it's Annual General Meeting tomorrow in Miami's Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Biscayne Bay. The event takes place on November 7 and 8 and will bring together representatives from all existing NASL teams starting with the current Champions Puerto Rico Islanders, Carolina RailHawks, Montreal Impact, Miami FC Blues, FC Tampa Bay, Crystal Palace Baltimore and new expansion team FC Edmonton.

It's Monday and that means it's time for an extra black cloudy edition of Red Headed Step Thoughts...
So the Merseyside Derby was on Saturday...piss off, no comment.
English footballers should not got to nightclubs...sorry but it's the truth. The latest player to get himself in to hot water after spending some time in a disco is Ricardo Fuller of Stoke.

IMS has learned that the North American Soccer League (NASL) have submitted a bid with the required eight teams mandated by USSF requirements.

Sources have revealed that the organization will be releasing a press statement later today announcing the teams listed on the bid.

This week, two big events will take place in Fort Lauderdale. The first is the Annual General Meeting of the newly formed North American Soccer League, which begins on January 7tth. With the controversial decision by the United States Soccer Federation last week to not sanction the startup league (which is largely formed by existing teams), the meetings are almost certain to yield some headline news.

US Soccer has sent out an advisory this morning that there will be a press conference today at 2:00 CT in regard to Division II professional soccer league for the 2010 season.

Those in attendance will be U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati, U.S. Soccer CEO/Secretary General Dan Flynn, USL CEO Alec Papadakis and NASL Acting Commissioner Jeff Cooper.

As part of the new North American Soccer Leagues annual general meeting agenda, team representatives reviewed artwork that inches toward the final logo for the league. While this may not be the final official logo, it certainly reveals the direction the official logo will be going. The font is exactly the same as the old NASL logo designed back in the 70's.

Website to be revealed this week in conjunction with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America convention.

Jan. 11, 2010 – The North American Soccer League (NASL) held its inaugural annual general meeting in Ft. Lauderdale last Thursday through Saturday. Representatives of the 11 member teams attended the meeting and made several key decisions following the announcement by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) on Thursday that teams from the NASL would play in a league administered by the USSF in the 2010 season.

In his press conference before the Blackburn game Arsene was talking about our defensive weaknesses and how the goals we have conceded hurt our title chances.

If you assess our situation, going forwards we have been very, very efficient our goal scoring rate is very good.

Where we want to set ourselves a target next season is we have conceded nearly 40 goals that is too many to win the championship and is where we want to improve.

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- "April 1968: Ken Hancock, the Ipswich Town goalkeeper, fails to save Rodney Marsh's penalty in a match against Queen's Park Rangers FC."
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Visit the board which one "sister" messageboard owner called "Deader than a dodo!" and judge for yourself!

Another day, another meeting.
Another debate on the structure of the Scottish Premier League.
And still no conclusions. It seems now that we're not going to get any kind of vote on the issue until the end of the year. This being Scottish football we can probably add at least two months to that.

The 2010 Annual General Meeting for Lake Country Soccer is scheduled for this Thursday, November 11 at 6:00pm. The LCS/AGM will be held at the DoubleTree hotel located on North Glenstone Avenue in the Rathdangan III room. Elections for the offices of president, treasurer and two board positions of the LCS Board of Directors will take place in addition to addressing other issues for Lake Country Soccer for 2011.

The North American Soccer League released a press statement this morning stating they have submitted to the USSF their final bid for sanctioning of Division II.

The eight teams included in the league will be the, Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina RailHawks, FC Edmonton, FC Tampa Bay, Montreal Impact, Miami FC Blues, NSC Minnesota Stars and the Puerto Rico Islanders.

The USSF Second Division Pro League is no more, and the second incarnation of the North American Soccer League is aiming to assume the mantle as the second division soccer league in the United States.

The NASL tabled a bid that included six teams back on September 28, 2010 -- two fewer than the eight that the U.

NASL AGM's to Take Place this Week Will Share Fort Lauderdale Stage with MLS College Draft

We are less than 24-hours from the deadline set by US Soccer for resolution between the USL and NASL to assure there will be Division II soccer in the US and Canada for the 2010 season.

Throughout much of the year, South Florida is a football wasteland, with little in the way of meaningful professional soccer taking place locally. International breaks are different, with frequent US National Team training sessions and of course frequent friendlies featuring the likes of Honduras and Colombia.

According to Duane Rollins and Ben Roycroft of It's Called Football (ICF) and reported at The 24th Minute, Joey Saputo of the Montreal Impact, spoke on Wednesday night to Montreal's Team 990's (radio) Noel Butler. Butler reported to ICF that the USL and NASL have reached an agreement that will see both leagues operate in 2010.

Below you will find a rather long and sometimes abbreviated transcription of last Thursdays press conference with the National Sports Center (NSC) concerning the non-profit organization fielding a new soccer team for the state of Minnesota. The press and interested parites were able to ask questions to Barclay Kruse, Public Relations Director from NSC, Paul Erickson, Executive Director MN Amateur Sports Commission, and Kris Bjerkness Chief Administrative Officer NSC who was calling in from Fort Lauderdale where he was attending the North American Soccer Leagues 1st Annual General Meeting.

Sunil Gulati will have another four years in charge of the United States Soccer Federation. Gulati was elected unanimously to his second term as US Soccer Federation president on Sunday at the Annual General Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

At the 124th Annual General meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in Zurich on 6 March 2010, which, as is the case with every FIFA World Cup year, was chaired by myself on behalf of FIFA, the IFAB decided not to implement technology in football.FIFA supports this decision, based on the following points:
The universality of the game: one of the main objectives of FIFA is to protect the universality of the game of association football.

Some ill-advised comments made by the Celtic chairman John Reid at last year's club AGM may now be coming back to haunt him, as rivals Rangers seem to be coasting to a Scottish Premier League championship. Mark Murphy takes a look at how the two clubs have progressed this season and finds that Reid's bullishness couldn't have come with much worse timing.

The Premier League's Annual General Meeting this summer will provide stringent salary cap regulations for English football's top tier, to judge by the plethora of club chairmen who have offered unsolicited opinions in favour of such regulations in recent months. It is refreshing to see such a consensus around an issue of such magnitude, especially coming from a group of people of such sound judgement.

If you believed the hype which surrounded the club over the previous two close seasons, the big surprise about Japan's relatively successful World Cup squad was the lack of Plymouth Argyle players in it. If you believe the hype now, Plymouth's Home Park ground – or at least the Home Park ground on which they play their matches – will be a multi-purpose 45,000 capacity all-singing, all-dancing bringer of peace (and Sir Elton John concerts) to all nations by 2018.

The situation in England right now is that big Premier League clubs are owned by big foreign billionaires. Fans of Manchester United and Liverpool can protest and complain about their owners all they like, but they don't have a say in what those billionaires do with or to the team. As much as Red Devils fans "Love United, Hate Glazer", the red headed American owns 100% of shares and is in charge.

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Visit the board which one "sister" messageboard owner called "Deader than a dodo!" and judge for yourself! For QPR and Football Updates throughout the day, visit the ever-growing (and hopefully always-improving!) QPR Report Messageboard/quasi-blog. Either offer your own perspectives on any of the topics (QPR and football only).

The board that determines the laws of the game, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), also the name for a narcissist's mp3 player, met yesterday and in their meeting came to something of a large decision regarding goal-line technology: "show us your proposals".

A small step in the process but a large one in the grand scheme, as it eliminates the fight to simply have lawmakers accept the potential for such a change.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger revealed the Gunners are in a position to sign one or two players, if required, during the January transfer window. Speaking to shareholders at the Club's annual general meeting on Thursday, the ...

In conjunction with the Austin Aztex move to Orlando, Florida, the Rochester Rhino's announced they will join USL Pro for the 2011 season.

"The new USL PRO is a tremendous opportunity to really market to and captivate our respective fan bases in all of our respective markets," Rhinos CEO Robert Clark said.

Last winter it was all USL v. NASL. It looks like the drama of that is now turning into the drama of how the NASL can become a Division II league under the USSF soccer pyramid. The NASL released a press statement this morning stating they have submitted to the USSF their final bid for sanctioning of Division II.

Photo by Tom Mousseau

Cary, NC – Pro Soccer is a growing business in America, but it's a tough game. That's why it's great news that two more teams have joined the NASL.

The North American Soccer League was started in late 2009 with six teams including our hometown Railhawks.

On April Fool's day, 2009, the United Soccer Leagues announced FC New York and the next new USL-1 (Division II) team for 2010. That may have been a bad day to make an announcement that USL was coming back to New York at the pro level after the loss of the Long Island Rough Riders.

The North American Soccer League (NASL) announced this morning they have been provisionally approved as U.S. Soccer's sanctioned 2nd Division league.

The carefully worded statement said: "The provisional nature of the sanctioning is consistent with the USSF's bylaws which require approval by the National Council of the USSF.

TORONTO, Ont. — The North American Soccer League ("NASL") is provisionally approved as the Division II men's outdoor professional soccer league by the Board of Directors of the United States Soccer Federation ("USSF") at its meeting in Toronto, Canada. The provisional nature of the sanctioning is consistent with the USSF's bylaws which require approval by [.