Manchester City will be touring the United States this July as part of their pre-season preparation for the 2010-11 Premier League season.

"The summer tour of America is going to be tremendously exciting for Manchester City," said Manchester City chief executive Gary Cooke. "I am well aware of the support there is for us in America.

Morning all, no shortage of material despite the fact the season has ended, so let's crack on into it.

Yesterday, Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis said the club had sufficient funds to invest this summer, qualifying that with the usual:

As always we'll only do this on our timescale, on the basis of our manager's assessments and not those of the media.

A Southend firm is celebrating after securing a multi-million pound contract to supply cockpit seats for the new Boeing 787 planes.
Ipeco, based in Aviation Way (next to the airport), will make the seats over a 25 year period.
Steve Johnson, chief executive of Ipeco, told the BBC:
"We're delighted to get this work.

Premier League sources have confirmed that the play-off proposal was presented at the most recent meeting of all clubs, on 4 February, and the league's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, was authorised to return with further details in April.

It is understood that the idea was enthusiastically supported by all clubs – except the so-called big four of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Chelsea have announced on their official website that they will play against a Thailand XI on July 24th 2011 @ Rajamangala Stadium, Bangkok (pictured below). The match is part of Chelsea's Asia tour that will also see them play fixtures in Malaysia & Hong Kong during their preparations for the 2011/12 EPL season.

The gloves are well and truly off in the run up to Dec 2, when we'll find out whether its England, Russian or Spain/Portugal that hosts the 2018 World Cup. While the latter bid is mired in some controversy about vote fixing, England and Russia are the leading bids, and the Russians are playing a high risk strategy to get the bid.

On the day that Portsmouth announced they were going into administration Arsenal announced that they have reduced the clubs debt by almost 40% to £203.6 million by selling more of the apartments it built at Highbury.

The sale of some 261 units meant that Arsenal made a pretax profit of £35.

Can you name the mystery man shaking hands with United Chief Executive David Gill? Well neither could I until about 2 minutes ago! That's because he's apparently a somewhat (completely) unknown striker named Bebe, who also happens to be the newest signing of Manchester United. Here are the basic facts, as reported by a variety of news organizations:

1) Bebe's real name is "Tiago Manuel Dias Correia", and he was born on July 12, 1990.

Wazza pushed over the edge by Chris Smalling? Wayne Rooney has given a statement in which he admitted that he is intent on leaving Manchester United. He claimed his catalyst for telling the club he wanted to quit in August was the refusal of chief executive David Gill to give assurances that the club could [.

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti and chief executive Ron Gourlay have reminded the first-team squad of their responsibility for protecting the image of the club after a series of embarrassing headlines in recent weeks.
Revealed: The blonde football club secretary at the heart of Ashley Cole sex scandal

I'm probably a week late with this article, but so much has been going on that there just wasn't time to squeeze it in. This isn't directly relevant to Arsenal and thanks to Arsene I don't think we will ever be in such a situation at least during my life time. Portsmouth though, might still have a say in the title race when they host Chelsea.

Safa have just announced that an Iron on Protea badge will be available for the Bafana Bafana replica jerseys for R20.

OK the whole Bafana Bafana jersey controversy has been bubbling over since the day that Adidas revealed the new 2010 Bafana Kit. We have ended up with three different versions of the jersey, all selling for different amounts.

Converting two key penalties en route to Celtic's triumph in the Fenway Football Challenge may not be enough to convince manager Neil Lennon about the utility of Greek striker Georgios Samaras. In fact, a promising display including another penalty - in a 3-1 friendly defeat to Manchester United in Toronto may not have done the trick either.

Garry Cook, the Manchester City chief executive, has hinted at the club's escalating rivalry with Manchester United by admitting in the documentary Blue Moon Rising that Old Trafford's banner taunting City for their failure to win a trophy in almost 34 years "drives us nuts".

By Chris Wright

Reports are emanating from Chelsea this afternoon that assistant manager Ray Wilkins will not be offered a new contract and has been told to leave the club 'with immediate effect'.

This from the Chelsea website:

"Chelsea Football Club chief executive Ron Gourlay has announced today that the board has decided not to renew Ray Wilkins' contract.

CHELSEA sources have revealed Ray Wilkins may have been fired as assistant manager following a boardroom snub to owner Roman Abramovich.

Wilkins, linked with Chelsea for 37 years before the club announced last week he would be leaving with immediate effect, is understood to have sailed close to the wind in a recent management meeting with a swipe at the Russian billionaire's non-football background.

The good news for Avram Grant and Pompey fans, is that the Premier League has lifted the clubs transfer embargo. The bad news is that they can only sign players on loan or who are available on a free transfer

Portsmouth has been unable to register new players since October, when the Premier League imposed the restriction due to the club's unpaid debts on previous transfers.

Liverpool FC and Everton FC were sitting down for a top-level stadium summit with city council leaders on Monday.
Representatives from Liverpool University and the North West Development Agency (NWDA) were also expected to attend.
LFC chief executive Christian Purslow and his Everton counterpart Robert Elstone are trying to find a solution to their outdated grounds.

The Football Association chief executive resigned on 18th March 2010 after about nine months in the job. Like virtually all of his recent predecssors he has simply thrown in the towel once he realised the enormity of the problem the FA faces. No reason has been given for his departure, and at the moment I am [.

MLS Daily first told you back in February about Manchester City's plans to tour the United States this summer, and now the English Premier League side has confirmed that it will indeed be heading to America this July for a pre-season tour.
"The summer tour of America is going to be tremendously exciting for Manchester City," said club chief executive Garry Cook.

The Emirates Cup has quickly become one of the best pre-season touraments and the 2010 edition is shaping up to have some great games.

Emirates Cup 2010 will see Arsenal joined by Italian powerhouse AC Milan, Scottish giants Celtic and leading French club Lyon. The event which will be hosted by Arsenal and sponsor company Emirates Airline has been scheduled for over the weekend of Saturday 31st July and Sunday 1st August,

Arsenal Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis said:

"We're delighted and proud to once again be welcoming three of Europe's most high-profile teams to Emirates Stadium for an exciting weekend of football.

The season for Arsenal is over and this summer, even if many will be busy watching the World Cup Finals, transfer speculations will still dominate the headlines of the media. According to the clubs' Chief Executive, ...

The Irish FA confirmed today that Manchester united will play against an Airtricity League XI in Dublin in a pre season friendly.

The game, which will be part of United's pre season training, will be the first to be played in the new Aviva stadium.

United Chief Executive David Gill said: "It is a great honour to have been invited to play the opening football match in the magnificent Aviva Stadium.

Last Sunday, another disappointing season for Arsenal came to an end. Disappointing for us, the fans, and from their recent interviews also for Arsene Wenger and Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis. It is encouraging that Mr. Gazidis ...

Danny Wilson's dream move to Liverpool has stalled - because the young Rangers defender does not meet a 'homegrown' quota system being introduced by the English Premier League.
Now the cash-strapped Ibrox club could lose out on up to £3million if the 18-year-old remains in Glasgow next season before leaving when his contract expires.

Twice, he failed. As he stands on the cusp of taking over at Real Madrid, he seems determined to make it third time lucky.
Mourinho first approached Liverpool's captain after taking charge at Stamford Bridge in 2004, offering the player a £125,000-a-week contract to leave the club he had been attached to since the age of eight.

So that's it then. The decision has been made and it's a final one. Who says so? The Manchester United chief executive David Gill that's who. In an exclusive interview with The Independent newspaper...
Continue to the full story

Everton today launched their new away shirt for the 2010-11 season. And it's pink, yes pink. Don't say we didn't warn you (we posted a sneak peek of the shirt last week).

Everton's new away jersey is described as "lightning pink" with a navy blue bar across the chest. According to the club website, the shirt color "combination that has been designed to make players more visible in their teammates' peripheral vision.

There are the obvious explanations. Teams are not accustomed to the new Adidas football, teams are frightened to lose the first game, teams are set up to not concede the first goal. Could the real explanation be that football has changed?

The game is professional in a way that it has never been before.

Well, due to Martin Jol's move from Ajax to Fulham, quite the eruption has occurred and the Dutch club has reefused to discuss and sort of compensation for the loss of their manager.

Alastair Mackintosh, Fulham's chief executive, is currently in Amsterdam trying to bring Jol back to West London.

By Tony Attwood Ivan Gazidis is the chief executive of Arsenal FC. I'm, well, the editor of Untold Arsenal, and the Arsenal History site, and I write books and adverts. And we met, Mr Gazidis and I, in an office in Highbury House (which if you are not able to get to the matches I [...]

The executive chairman of Seymour Pierce, Keith Harris, believes that a bid from the Red Knights to buy Manchester United would be totally pointless, as the Glazer Family have no intention of selling.

The Red Knights are a consortium of wealthy businessmen, who were interested in buying Manchester United, but have had stalling points due to the club's uneconomical, financial situation.

By Ollie Irish

Arsene Wenger is talking "nonsense" on the issue of overphysical play, according to Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey.

"It is an absolute nonsense. Well, I hope he hears this: 'keep your mouth shut'," Moxey told the BBC.

AC Milan pair Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Oguchi Onyewu had to be separated on the training field today after they came to blows following a reckless challenge.

Swedish international Ibrahimovic took USA international Onyewu out and the big American reacted angrily, not surprising seeing the he has had and awful time with injuries this last year.

Vancouver Whitecaps are the latest club to be linked with ending Ireland and Tottenham striker Robbie Keanes nightmare second stint at White Hart Lane. And it wouldn't surprise me if he did join the MLS, His Missus has told how she would love a move Stateside already this year.

Aston Villa are still favourites for his signature in January but the Whitecaps could be able to use Chief Executive Paul Barber who spent five years at Tottenham as a director to make the deal.

Morning all, short blog today as FP prepares to renew his war against the over-50s badminton club (it's a losing battle).
Meanwhile, it's official, Eugene Dadi has left Perth Glory and will play for Wellington Phoenix for the rest of the A-League season.
All this officialness (if that's a word) came yesterday when both Perth and Wellington confirmed the deal.

After 14 years working for Setanta Sports North America, Shane O'Rourke, President of North American & Australian Operations of Setanta Sports, has left the company and is now the chief executive of Premium Sports.

In this exclusive interview, O'Rourke reveals:

• why he left Setanta Sports,
• what his biggest achievement was at Setanta,
• the impact that Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports has had on soccer in North America,
• new cable deals for Setanta Sports,
• how Premium Sports will impact sports fans in North America,
• and more.

Debt -hit Portsmouth have been forced to sell players to recover from the situation. Chief Executive of the club, Peter Storrie has confirmed that they are looking for buyers all the star players to avoid the club from going down. The club has been going through a financial crisis for sometime but matters became worse as [.

Hull boss Phil Brown wants his two players back home now. "I am appalled. This throws a question mark against next summer's World Cup.You simply cannot put the safety of players, officials and fans at the slightest risk. That is totally unacceptable. I have two players -Daniel Cousin and Seyi Olofinjana - on duty and I want them back home here with us as quickly as possible,"
Pompey chief executive Peter Storrie said: "This is a terrible, tragic incident and I am very concerned about this whole situation.

"We've supported the club both with marketing assistance and some direct funding - that's not a situation we want to continue forever," FFA chief executive Ben Buckley said last night.

"What the club has to do is create a strategic and business plan for the future which addresses their issues.