Jim Brogan for Celtic in the Old Firm circa the John Travolta years...

Bv GeorgeCross

Glasgow Rangers are in the news again due to their financial situation; they were rumored to go into administration or even liquidation. Because of this, the old question about Celtic playing in the Premier League has resurfaced.

David Moyes: "It was a better situation 10 years ago. Back then, I looked abroad at the way agents had control of the players, and in some cases the clubs, and you thought that couldn't happen in Britain. You thought the chairmen of clubs wouldn't be daft enough for agents to be doing the deals, or telling them what deals they should be doing.

Premier League chairmen usually undermine their managers by entering the dressing rooms. QPR owner Tony Fernandes is opting for the pub instead. The Air Asia chief is hitting west London's finest boozers ahead of the Hoops' next home match against Everton. Fernandes will be acting as a sort of anti-Mark Hughes agony aunt for disgruntled [.

One of the West Ham co-Chairmen David Sullivan, is revealing the real deal on Demba Ba. Demba Ba agent got £2M from Newcastle The former Birmingham City co-owner is being interviewed at West Ham, and he is revealing how they got Demba Ba and then how they lost him in the summer to Newcastle United.

Bolton Wanderers have entered the market for Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha. Wilfried Zaha Newcastle back in for youngster Newcastle had held talks with the Crystal Palace Chairmen Martin Long and Steve Parish earlier in the week, after Palace were eliminated from the Carling Cup by Cardiff City.

Rumours aplenty this Premiership weekend. One of them is that Mick McCarthy, the current Wolves manager, is set to be sacked if Wolves lose against Aston Villa on the weekend. This is despite utterances to the opposite from the Wolves chairman. Who ought to be believed? The rumour mongerers or the chairman of the club who will make such a decision?

By David Walker

The January transfer window is often a frenzied time with chairmen, managers and agents battling against the clock to secure new players. As a result, many players who move during this period often do so at over-inflated transfer fees and are hit-or-miss in terms of success.

In May of 2011, a sort of palace coup was engineered at the Emirates with the two remaining substantial shareholdings of Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith going to Stan Kroenke and in effect Kroenke was anointed the new "emperor" of Arsenal Football Club. Except the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov refused to play ball and increased his holding in the club too!

2011 has been quite a year for Nottingham Forest. During the past twelve months the club has had three managers, two chairmen, been on a push for promotion to the Premier League and fought an ongoing battle to avoid the drop into League One [...] Read the original post on eighteensixtyfive

• Kop That: Football pundits Who do you most like listening to? http://t.co/1LvZObYw 23:53:13, 2011-12-30
• Kop That: Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish heaps praise on captain Steven Gerrard after victory over Newcastle http://t.co/kTCjZDvh 23:38:07, 2011-12-30
• Kop That: Our guide to what's in store when the January transfer window opens http://t.

Wally meets...Mike Walters chats to one of football's most infamous chairmen Peter Ridsdale

Happy New Year to all troubleshooters, Red Adairs, flying doctors – and Peter Ridsdale. Come on, give the man a break. Preston's new chairman has acquired a reputation for leaving behind another fine mess at every club he has run.

FA Cup magic alive and well on the Fylde coast

Don't tell the people of the Fylde coast that the FA Cup has lost its magic. It will be Fleetwood ­versus Blackpool in the third round and in the few days since our local rivals beat Yeovil in their replay the place has gone ­absolutely mad.

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- Throughout the day, the QPR Report Messageboard has news updates, comments and perspectives - even links to other board comments of interest re QPR matters (on and off the field) along with football (and ONLY football) topics in general.

What are the odds Rafael Benitez is the next Sunderland manager? Derek McGovern's Bets of the Day

Usually by this time of the year, you can bet that all the leaves have fallen along with at least one Premier League manager. But we are fast approaching December with the 20 managers who were at the helm on day one in August still in control.

By Greg Evans

You could've had staked your life savings on Brian Clough being absolutely fuming with the Notts County defence come 5 o'clock last Saturday evening, were Old Big 'Ead still with us of course.

The Magpies travelled up to Yorkshire that morning knowing they had the opportunity to well and truly piss on Huddersfield's bonfire a club on the brink of breaking a very prestigious English Football League record.

Why canny Newcastle are changing the way Prem clubs do business by proving you can have success on the cheap

I never once imagined that Newcastle United would get to mid-November unbeaten, and heading for their biggest test yet at Manchester City. And I never once thought I'd say this, but chairmen around the country must be looking at Mike Ashley's Newcastle and thinking, ‘That is the way to do it'.

In the wake of malignant comments vomited out yesterday by herculean halfwit Sepp Blatter, the Premier League has (predictably) responded with a gutless, cowardly statement that disgracefully fails to directly reference or condemn Blatter's damaging, outdated views on racism in football.

Premier League set new record as no managers are axed in the autumn

Premier League chairmen are not normally noted for their patience. But they stand to set an unlikely record by NOT sacking anyone until December at the earliest.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-11-12 22:37:24 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Praise continues to come in for Sir Alex Ferguson, and Mark Lawrenson writes of why we will never get a manager of his kind again.
Sir Alex Ferguson is a one-off and we will never get a manager of his kind again.
Ferguson has built six different and successful Manchester United teams.

Lawro on Fergie: Why we will never get a manager of his kind again

Sir Alex Ferguson is a one-off and we will never get a manager of his kind again. Ferguson has built six different and successful Manchester United teams. He has dealt with Chelsea and their finances, Arsenal's threat and now Manchester City.

It's not going to happen, so STOP TALKING ABOUT IT! LMA chief Richard Bevan is a bellend for even mentioning the subject. The fact of the matter is the FA can veto any motion that 14 Premier League chairmen clump together and try to ratify. So if foreign ownership in the Premier League does rise [...

Serie A expert Eric Giardini is just that. Here, on Roma

This past week marked the 2011 version of the Leaders in Football conference which, according to its website, was created to provide a "networking environment in order to bring together football's most important leaders to share knowledge, best practice and ideas.

Bolton manager Owen Coyle has dismissed suggestions that there will be any tension for him at the Emirates Stadium this weekend when Bolton visit fellow strugglers Arsenal.

Both clubs have performed below their capabilities thus far in the season and while Arsenal could have done much better with the services of a proven English center-back such as the Trotters' Gary Cahill, a war of words between the two managers brought an end to the negotiations last month.

Cheeky chairmen This week's Stoppage Time comes from more familiar surroundings, while Alex's bedroom is being redecorated with floor-to-ceiling posters of Chelsea new boy Romelu Lukaku. Top carpet boffins are even experimenting with ways to weave the 18 year old Belgian's face into the deep shag pile that Alex demands under his feet.

Cheeky chairmen This week's Stoppage Time comes from more familiar surroundings, while Alex's bedroom is being redecorated with floor-to-ceiling posters of Chelsea new boy Romelu Lukaku. Top carpet boffins are even experimenting with ways to weave the 18 year old Belgian's face into the deep shag pile that Alex demands under his feet.

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- Throughout the day, the QPR Report Messageboard has news updates, comments and perspectives - even links to other board comments of interest re QPR matters (on and off the field) along with football (and ONLY football) topics in general.

Let us go then, the reserves and I,
When the afternoon is spread out against the sky
Like Newcastle etherised upon the league table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted stands,
The muttering fans
Of Amsterdam,
To restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And headlines about who our owner sells:
Tweets from followers like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question.

It gets played time and time again by the fans, Manager's and Chairmen, but isn't it time we gave up on the idea of the loyalty card. Carlos Tevez and Craig Bellamy are currently both on the books of the same club, but both are for lack of a better word, 'shining' examples that player loyalty has no place in football.

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- QPR/St Jude Placque Commemoration
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- Throughout the day, the QPR Report Messageboard has news updates, comments and perspectives - even links to other board comments of interest re QPR matters (on and off the field) along with football (and ONLY football) topics in general.

Up this corridor. Round this corner. Down the next corridor. The next corner. Kevin Keen at my heels. To the office. The empty desk. The empty chair. Avram's office. Avram's desk. Avram's chair. Four walls with no windows and one door, these four walls between which he etched his schemes and his dreams, his hopes and fears.

Have Liverpool lost the plot? - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

There was widespread optimism around Anfield at the end of the season. "King" Kenny Dalglish had returned as manager, masterminding a resurgence that saw Liverpool narrowly miss out on European football. New owners FSG seem to be owners with Liverpool's interests at heart after the shambles of an affair that was the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Have Liverpool lost the plot? - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

There was widespread optimism around Anfield at the end of the season. "King" Kenny Dalglish had returned as manager, masterminding a resurgence that saw Liverpool narrowly miss out on European football. New owners FSG seem to be owners with Liverpool's interests at heart after the shambles of an affair that was the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

As part of 200%'s series about Britain's lost football grounds we look at Gloucester City, a club without a home ground since 2007.

Unlike many other club's in their league Gloucester City own their own ground, its just they can't use it at the moment. They haven't been able to play at Meadow Park for almost four years.

The end of the domestic football season can be a tough time for anybody that works in the game. As contracts expire, many players are left with their livelihoods hanging by a thread and, for the adulation afforded to Paul Scholes upon his recent retirement, there will be dozens upon dozens that slide from view, seldom thought of by anyone apart from their nearest and dearest.

The first in a series of pieces covering the 2010-11 season. To follow the players, the manager, the future.

All Spurs fans are united in the pursuit of success but scratch the surface and the definitions of what that actually means are less certain. It used to be easy you won something bright and shiny.

When managers ask their respective chairmen for the money to recruit, it is sometimes in more hope than expectation. On other occasions, however, it can be a triumph of judgment and planning.
These, then, are the signings of the times...

It's turned out to be something of a landmark week in the history of our great club. So much so that our first win since we were all small microbes in the sea appears to be a distant memory. The ownership of the club has altered this week and we now know that that process was precipitated somewhat by the sad death of Danny Fiszman.

It feels a bit blasphemous reporting on a match in which a club associated with Ken Bates performed well, but since he's one of football's greatest chairmen, a good scrub in the shower should eliminate some of the guilt. Certainly, the Championship fixture between Leeds United and Nottingham Forest weighed heavily upon those at Elland Road on Saturday both in terms of history and contemporary significance.

Scunthorpe United: Oasis of patience in a world of short-termism is a post from: Just Football

If the January transfer window has proved nothing else, it is that money continues to rule the roost in football. With chairmen across the land quick to hire expensive talent and fire under-performing managers, James McMath examines why Scunthorpe United's policy of patience is not only admirable, but has helped guarantee the club a future.

Despite a surge in managerial turmoil in the past two weeks - when Catania replaced Marco Giampaolo with Diego Simeone and Brescia recalled Beppe Iachini after an unsuccessful seven-match spell under Mario Beretta - Serie A chairmen, that notorious publicity-craving, trigger-happy bunch, have been more restrained than in the past.