By Chris Wright

In which Russian veteran Vadim Evseev is subbed off after an hour of his final game before retirement (a testimonial that saw his Russian XI play a 'World XI' featuring the likes of Roberto Carlos, Valery Karpin and Sergei Rebrov) to be replaced by the eight-year old son of a local businessman who duly tears up the World XI defence, racing through on goal, evading challenge after despairing challenge before rolling the ball home to pull one back for Evseev's side.

By Chris Wright

With an annual budget of just £27 million, little Montpellier beat Auxerre to win their first ever Ligue 1 title on the final day of the French season at the weekend, knocking nouvelle riche fatcats Paris Saint-Germain back into second spot in the process which meant that, courtesy of a bold wager made back in April, Montpellier's owner, 68-year old businessman Louis Nicollin, had to do this to his hair (orange and blue being MHSC's club colours).

You have to admire the stoicism of football fans. No matter how much the parameters of the game are manipulated to the advantage of those with little emotional investment in our clubs we continue to process through the turnstiles. We tolerate being frisked for lethal bottle tops and are directed to seats where we are ordered to sit down and play nice.

An American won't be purchasing Rangers after all.

Bill Miller, a Tennessee-based businessman who appeared poised to take over as new head of Rangers after his bid was accepted by Rangers administrators last week, withdrew that bid on Tuesday, putting the club back in a tenuous and precarious situation when it appeared that it was finally ready to take significant steps forward.

All signs point to another American joining the fold at Rangers, only this one won't be playing on the field. He'll be sitting in the owner's box.

After a drawn out process that has seen the legendary Scottish club go into administration and reach the brink of liquidation, the club's administrators have approved the sale of the team to American Bill Miller, a Tennessee-based businessman.

It is now almost forty years since Bristol Rovers ran up one of the most remarkable unbeaten runs in the entire history of the Football League, and their attack at the time was one of the most feared around. Here's Paul Caulfield on a team that is fondly remembered by its supporters, and the strikers that took them to promotion from the Third Division.

Well that couldn't look any more damning could it. Disgusting is the word for it. The Conservative party treasurer (not some rogue underling or eager young loose cannon fundraiser) telling foreign businessmen, who aren't legally allowed to donate to uk political parties remember, to pay 250k for shady private dinners with David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.

Lionel Messi scored his first international hat trick in Argentina's 3-1 win against Switzerland on Wednesday and he is crediting the breakthrough to the intense hatred football fans have for FIFA's Swiss president, Sepp Blatter.

Though Messi has scored six hat tricks for Barcelona this season and a total of 13 over the last three years for the Catalan club, he had never been able to score three goals in one match for his country.

Bio Pic: You can use either...In their latest effort to win back some of the fans lost to years of mediocrity, Toronto FC is running a competition to win the "Toronto FC Dream Job". Fans are being welcomed to enter a bio online and garner votes in a bid to land a coveted role with the club.

By Chris Wright

Some people, eh? Businessman and jilted Manchester United fan Shaun O'Brien is hoping to stymie Manchester City's stadium expansion plans by selling off thousands of parcels of land in the mostly-derelict 80-acre site outside the Etihad that City have earmarked for a swanky new £100 million training complex (you can have a butcher's at the plans here).

United fan blocks City expansion by selling his land online - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Manchester United fan? Hate Manchester City? Go ahead and buy the same land that City are looking to purchase and redevelop into a training complex / business center.

The Manchester rivalry has taken an amusing turn with Manchester United fan and businessman Shaun O'Brien to divide the land at his vehicle recovery company, OB Trucks, near City's Etihad Stadium, into 18,500 square-foot plots for sale in a bid to disrupt a proposed council order to make him sell it.

It doesn't matter how honourable intentions may be at the Football Association of Singapore they always seem to put their foot in their mouth big time. The latest faux pas comes with the news that their newly appointed SLeague deputy CEO, and former Etoile chairman, is a declared bankrupt back in his home country of France and banned from running a business there for five years.

Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni has signed a new contract to stay in the role, meaning that he will coach the team throughout the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign. Those over at casinos online .com note how Ireland secured their place in Euro 2012 with an excellent play-off victory over Estonia earlier this month of course and the Italian signing a new deal is a testament to the job he has done.

John Henry and Tom Werner dominated the spotlight a year ago but there was another member of Fenway Sports Group who was key to their takeover of Liverpool FC.
Joe Januszewski, the senior vice president of Corporate Sales and Fenway Enterprises, is also one of Boston's most passionate Reds fans.

Stockport County entertain Grimsby Town at Edgeley Park in the Blue Square Premier this evening, in a match which hints at the extent to which the fortunes of clubs can wax and wane over a period of time. Ten years ago, both clubs were in what we now know as the Championship. They start this evening as non-league clubs, and not exceptionally successful ones on the basis of their starts to the season.

Torino FC The stuttering rebirth of Torino Calcio is a post from: Just Football

by Marco Maioli

On the final day of last season, Torino needed three points to qualify for the play-offs and maintain some hope of promotion. The 24,244 fans who turned up to Stadio Olimpico (a record for 2010-11 Serie B) and watched their team lose 2-0 were certainly disappointed, but even they would recognize that, if there was ever a side that deserved a chance to advance to the top flight, that was not Torino.

By Alan Duffy

The latest nouveau riche football club to start flashing its jewellery at the game's old money are Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala, who are bankrolled by businessman Suleyman Kerimov, a man reported to be worth around $20 billion.

After enticing the legendary Samuel Eto'o to Russian football with a massive money offer which sees the former Internazionale man earn £5675838,34353853885,1239232.

Well over the past month Newcastle United have had reason to complain with Mike Ashley and the board, firstly renaming the stadium, secondly failing to bring a number 9 in, but his latest stunt must be the last straw.

Ashley has shown time and time again he is not a football chairman but rather a businessman, though I am not saying this matters as these days it doesn't seem like it matters as the two have become mutually exclusive.

As ever, it was down to the supporters of the club to get to what looks like somewhere near the bottom of what has been going on. It was probably too much to hope that, after a unanimous vote at their SGM last week, the Wrexham Supporters Trust would merely be allowed to get on with the job of completing their due diligence and purchasing Wrexham Football Club, but the way in which the story has continued to expand out over the last six days is enough to start to cast doubt over whether several of the key players in this ridiculously distended story and not, as we will make clear, players from the side of the trust organisation itself have an agenda which is intent on torpedoing the bid for their own ends.

The Eto'o mega deal has put Anzhi Makhachkala on the map, but what sort of reception will he get?

For the new season, MirrorFootball is teaming up with some of the blogosphere's best new writers to bring you even more great football reads every single day. Here's Russian football expert Eliot Rothwell on the mega money deal that's shocked world football.

Well, no-one can say that he's not ambitious. Steve Bruce's summer in the transfer market has been one of the most interesting of all Premier League clubs, with a clutch of signings which hint at a manager that is no longer satisfied with perpetual Premier League survival and mid-table security, and would like to push on towards something a little more substantial.

By Saheli RC, writing from Singapore

French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville once said, "In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end." While the end is nowhere in sight, the road leading out of Málaga, one of the oldest cities in the world that has been around for a whopping 2,700 years, is buzzing with optimism and excitement.

That, friends, is the face of insanity.

Neuchatel Xamax, a smallish Swiss club in a town of under 33,000, has quickly taken the headline storm which makes Maurizio Zamparini's Palermo look the picture of tenure and sanity.

On the opening day, they gave up three goals. The keeper was canned immediately.

BBC David Bond: Qatar 'spent big' to win 2022 World Cup.

I can't help wondering as I listen to David Bond's interview with Hassan al Thawadi, the executive in charge of Qatar's successful bid to host the World Cup in 2022, that we all got suckered in by first of all, a very smart intelligent businessman who knew exactly what he was doing, and by FIFA's decrepit bid evaluation rules that allowed all kinds of shenanigans to take place, "within FIFA rules", as he so eloquently points out.

Stockport County director Lord Peter Snape declared in March 2009, one month before the club entered administration, that he wanted "Stockport County Trust to vote to relinquish ownership of the club," because if it "had been run properly we wouldn't be in this mess." Snape now knows it wasn't as easy as it looked; and the consequences of 'his' consortium's "mess" are currently unclear.

Everyone should have a dream, an achievable one, as when we are kids we are often told to shoot for the stars.

We are also told to know our limits and that you can't do everything you want in life.

Then there is Daniel Levy, Chairman of an outstanding football team in the white and blue half of North London, a canny businessman yet it seems he doesn't know when to throw in the towel and give up on certain things.

I don't think I could be a football agent.

Firstly, I'm just not that kind of hard-nosed businessman driven solely by money. Secondly, I'm not a particularly great liar. Mrs Blogs always knows when I'm spoofing because of the look on my face. I tend to make a face which suggests that I'm making a face so as not to look like I'm fibbing but the face says "I'm fibbing".

Another crucial few days in Indonesian football with the FA having a meeting later this week, with AFC and FIFA sending representatives, in Jakarta to elect a new leadership. The last meeting, in Palembang, ended up a disaster and saw Nurdin Halid removed from his position as chairman.
The normalisation committee, charged by FIFA to try and organise new elections, have appealed FIFA's decision to bar businessman Arifin Panigoro and military man George Toisutta and if successfull they could stand.

Jorge Vergara, the Mexican businessman who owns Mexican giants Chivas de Guadalajara, sold his majority interest in Costa Rica's Saprissa to a group of local businessmen. The sale was completed yesterday and confirmed today at the club's official website. Vergara owned 67% of the club, which he turned over to the consortium called Purple Horizon (Horizonte Morado) that is led by Juan Carlos Rojas, Édgar Zurcher, Alberto Raven, and René Picado.

By Andrew Villegas If MLS is to become a global brand, then this week's announcement that Stan Kroenke will take a controlling stake in Arsenal must have many mouths at MLS headquarters agape in anticipation. Kroenke – that Missouri businessman and part heir to the Wal-Mart family fortune – has a reputation, one that almost [.

The American invasion of the Premier League is set to expand to include Arsenal as the latest team owned by a businessman from the United States. Currently, Liverpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Sunderland are owned by Americans. Arsenal...
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The election is only two weeks away and subject to appeal there are just two candidates to lead the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI). The incumbent, Nurdin Halid, is seeking a third term in office while running against him is Nirwan Bakrie, a powerfully connected businessman who has long been involved at the PSSI and owns Pelita Jaya.

By Chris Wright

Liverpool have released a statement on behalf of their current owners Fenway Sports Group (formerly NESV), former creditors the Royal Bank of Scotland and former chairman Sir Martin Broughton in to express their collective delight at hearing that 'swindled' former owner (his words, not mine) Tom Hicks has been thwarted once again in his bid to sue the club for over £140 million's worth of damages i.

SANTIAGO, Chile -Marcelo Bielsa resigned as Chile's national team coach on Friday, ending a three-month saga over his future. Bielsa stepped down at a news conference despite his overwhelming popularity in Chile and attempts by new Chilean football association president Sergio Jadue to persuade him to stay.

La Liga Lowdown, Jornada 20: Málaga – new manager, new players, same old problems is a post from: Just Football

Until recently, no one really paid too much attention to south coast side Málaga. They're your typical ‘yo-yo' club, bouncing between the top two tiers of Spanish football, the Primera and Segunda División.

I find Tottenham's desire to occupy the Olympic Stadium in East London quite fascinating.

The traditionalist in me says that Spurs should stay at White Hart Lane. The ground has the best atmosphere in the Premier League and over the course of the season it certainly wins them points and helps spur them on to important victories in the Champions League.

Newcastle United are reported to have appointed Iranian born and English educated businessman Kia Joorabchian, as a football adviser to the famous Tyneside club. Kia Joorabchian advising Newcastle on available players We have no idea of this story is true or made-up nonsense. But the fact that Alan Pardew has recently joined the club, [.

Pele vs. Diego Maradona

Brazil's #10 vs. Argentina's #10. The man who won three World Cups versus the man who won the World Cup almost single-handedly (pun intended). The man who became a football ambassador and businessman versus the man who became a drug-taking, journalist-shooting controversy. It's the classic player vs.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)—Chile coach Marcelo Bielsa has called up a team of young players and substitutes for an international football friendly on Jan. 22 against the United States in Los Angeles.

Bielsa's future with the Chile team is unclear. He stepped down in November after Jorge Segovia was elected president of the national federation, saying he could not work for the Spanish businessman.