Something to read while you watch the madness at the Maracana... Israel halts construction of Palestinian stadium (BBC.co.uk) This FIFA conspiracy goes deeper than we though (Studs Up) Five football injustices (Shortlist) What happens when you fart in a referee's face? (Sports Rubbish) A lot of Top 10s for 2010 (Pies) Goal-line referees for World Cup 2010? Click to continue reading...

Winger offends his own boot suppliers as he clutches at straws Damien Duff has claimed that the Republic of Ireland's controversial World Cup qualification play-off defeat to France was the result of a conspiracy between FIFA and Adidas. The Fulham man, who picks up £100,000 a year for wearing Adidas boots (for now at least), reckons [. Click to continue reading...

Ah, to be a fly on the wall.

Diego Armando Maradona, coach of the Argentine National team, and all around deity, graced FIFA's Zurich based home to answer questions on his media outburst nearly one month ago. In typical Maradona fashion, he arrived 50 minutes late to his scheduled hearing, with an envoy of limousines following him, wearing a track suit and sunglasses.

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The Evening News defends Fergie's latest referee complaint.

Mark Ogden compares Owen to Tevez in The Telegraph.

Red Rants looks at the ref conspiracy after the penalty Liverpool won for a dive last night.

The Guardian looks at Ngog's "embarrassing case of cheating"

F365 reports on Fletcher's comments about Wenger

"RoM Reads" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia. Click to continue reading...

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Photo by ISIphotos.com
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We all know about Jozy Altidore's well-publicized suspension and fine for being late for a recent Hull City match, and his punishment for mentioning it on Twitter, but now we get our first evidence of what may be a conspiracy to make Altidore late again. Click to continue reading...

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Photo by ISIphotos.com
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We all know about Jozy Altidore's well-publicized suspension and fine for being late for a recent Hull City match, and his punishment for mentioning it on Twitter, but now we get our first evidence of what may be a conspiracy to make Altidore late again. Click to continue reading...

5ive's return to the london club scene was perhaps too much of an incentive for pete.

A couple of headlines have arisen since my last post; both of which would seem to proliferate the idea that our squad (and the wider representation of our club in the mainstream) would be top of the league for competitive drinking.

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The claim by Croatia that we threw the game against Ukraine because we would prefer them to qualify just doesn't stack up. It might explain why Ferdinand appeared to be asleep at the crucial moment, and why the referee initially went to send him off , but Capello keeping Heskey on and Green completing the move by bringing down Milevski is a conspiracy theory too far. Click to continue reading...

Not only did the Juventus defender Fabio Cannavaro fail a drug test, but he's got a huge ol' alibi to go along with it.

It is believed that he tested positive after taking an anti-allergen in order to prevent an anaphylatic shock from a wasp sting - a potentially fatal reaction if left untreated.

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Not one, but two.
What's that make it? A trend? A pattern?
Aston Villa midfielder Isaiah Osbourne, 21, was arrested during training under suspicion of conspiracy to rob. He has since been bailed and club isn't saying anything.
Also Everton's 17-year-old forward Jose Baxter was busted for possession of marijuana and fake money. Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa youngster Isaiah Osbourne has been arrested during training on suspicion of conspiracy to rob, it emerged on Tuesday afternoon.
Everton striker Jose Baxter has been released on bail following his arrest on a drugs charge, it was confirmed on Tuesday morning. Baxter, 17, was one of three men arrested in Kirkby on Monday on suspicion of possession of cannabis with intent to supply and on suspicion of possessing counterfeit money. Click to continue reading...

Huge props to the Seattle Soccer Examiner guru David Falk for this incredible story find.
Apparently the official Columbus Crew blog has discovered the conspiracy behind Guillermo Barros Schelotto's penalty miss against Seattle last Saturday.

After referee Ricardo Salazar whistled Jhon Kennedy Hurtado for bodyblocking Eddie Gaven in the box, Hurtado and James Riley undertook a lengthy appeal.

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At the weekend we discussed accusations of Serie A referees favoring bigger clubs and now we have similar accusations of French referees favoring French clubs in the Champions League. Well, not actual French clubs, because their success in the Champions League would be far too suspicious. No, they're accused of favoring the one good club that's more French than Gerard Depardieu in a beret Arsenal.

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As the Calciopoli scandal fades from memory, Livorno are bluntly calling into question the advantage larger clubs seem to have in the wake of their 1-0 loss to Fiorentina on Saturday.

Said club president Aldo Spinelli:

"It is not possible that we have to be the sacrificial lamb in football.

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A quick roundup of the news in bullet form. I'll be doing this a bit, school is killing me at the moment.
1. We beat Santo Andre 1x0 with the goal from Germano in fairly drab game. It seems that against weaker teams the guys take it easy. Missing Ganso is a going to be a huge problem. I'm still wondering how he got called up but Dentinho is still with Corinthians. Click to continue reading...

An interesting piece from Henry Winter in todays Telegraph:

The temporary absence of all his expensive attacking superstars for Sunday's derby may appear a cruel conspiracy to City, but it also provides an opportunity for Hughes to show how he can juggle depleted resources, how he can devise a game-plan to frustrate the champions.

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117th bogus story about Cesc this month!

Cesc 'unsure' of Arsenal future

He said: "I do not know if I will leave the Premier League next year. I am happy an it is an important year for the club.

"I have not spoken to anyone at the moment, although if something has to happen, it will happen — but currently there is nothing.

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Big Story

There is, of course, a lot of reaction to digest on the FIFA action against Chelsea announced yesterday for inducing Gaël Kakuta to break his contract with Lens and sign with the London club.

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Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho claims that Chelsea are guilty of hiking up the prices of his targets Deco and Ricardo Carvalho. Both players were part of Mourinho's triumphant Porto team that won the Champions League title back in 2004. "Every time I'm interested in one of their players, it looks quite different. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday's 5-0 drubbing suffered by the U.S. Men's National Team at the hands of archrivals Mexico in the Gold Cup final is, on paper, one of the worst results in U.S. soccer history. You need to go back to the 1950s to find a comparable scoreline in games played on U.S. soil: specifically, April 28, 1957 and a 7-2 loss to Mexico in Long Beach, Calif. Click to continue reading...

MLS decided to fine David Beckham $1,000 for confronting fans earlier this week, which resulted in one fan getting thrown out of the stadium and eventually arrested. How meaningless is that fine? A grand is like spare change to him. If you want to get him where it hurts the most, just tell him he [.. Click to continue reading...

Have you ever woken up from a dream that envision the future and it seems possible? Like a winning flutter on tomorrow's horse race, or next Saturday's lottery numbers. Or, Liverpool doing one better over Manchester United in the transfer market signing Old Trafford favourite Carlos Tevez. Possible? Click to continue reading...

This has nothing to do with anything but I just had a sandwich in the presence of Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave/Street Sweeper Social Club guitarist Tom Morello (who incidentally is rocking a Fall River Marksman t-shirt is SSSC's upcoming video) and the freaky thing is dude talks EXACTLY like Obama. Click to continue reading...

Sometimes, you have to wonder. Levels of fitness and skill have no doubt improved in football over the last couple of decades, but perhaps today was the day during which we started to lose grip with reality. Every British newspaper had a pull-out section, many choosing to lavish extravagant praise on a match that hadn't even been played yet.

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Newcastle was relegated. They actually got relegated.
It had been a fear for a while, but I never thought it would actually happen. Via renaissance or conspiracy, I figured there was no chance the Premiership would allow Newcastle to drop.
Hull City stays up, just barely. And it looks like a new club, Burnley, has earned promotion to the EPL. Click to continue reading...

What?
You were expecting something different?
How about some links:

• Goalie goes all Incredible Hulk. [Off the Post]
  
• Sounders FC fans dominating all-star voting. [MLSnet]
  
• Top 10 EPL signings. [The Spoiler]
  
• MLS from Portland to Montreal in shady switch?

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Jens hasn't made a blog appearance in a while.
But he's in vintage form with this story. Apparently Bundesliga refs have kept his team, Stuttgart, from being crowned league champions already.

"Bayern get some decisions in their favour which would go against us but, as a player, you cannot do anything about such decisions," he added.

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Eh... this match was a dead rubber before a ball had even been kicked and the only thing at stake was pride really... and we all know what Arsenal's was like after a week in hell, starting with this.
Chelsea on the other hand had something a little more personal to "prove", eg. Click to continue reading...

Area 51, the moon landing, 9/11... a UEFA Conspiracy against another all-English final!?
I guess if you're a Chelsea fan at the moment, these things go pretty much hand in hand and I bet, you'd probably bet your children on the premise that this match was fixed... but hold onto offspring there partner, I don't want to watch another boring top of the table Premier League match in the guise of a European showdown, do you! Click to continue reading...

Chelsea are not popular in Europe there is little respect of a team that the snobbish upper echelons of football in both England and Europe do not believe deserves to be rubbing shoulders with them.

The evolution from 1994 - 2003 in which Chelsea came from mid-table mediocrity to Champions League contenders playing attractive but inconsistent football respected by all has been forgotten and replaced by the Abramovich era of disdain.

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Our campaign against the corrupt consortium that have been match-fixing up to four Premier League matches per window has been successful.
We reached an agreement in April with a middle-person over our Consultancy Document focusing on this criminal ring and immediate action has been taken against the consortium, undermining their corrupt trading and match-fixing activities. Click to continue reading...

With their typical class, Chelsea players and staff asserted their belief, following their 1-1 agg defeat to Barcelona, that UEFA conspired against them to prevent an all-English final in the Champions League.

Players, such as Didier Drogba, displayed their sentiment by all but physically assaulting the referee as he left the pitch.

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Olympique Lyon midfielder Fabio Santos did.
Now he's been suspended for 10 days by the club. Dang... that's kinda harsh.
Listen to coach Claude Puel:

"Fabio Santos will not be at our training camp (in Evian) this week," Puel told a news conference ahead of Lyon's home game against Nantes next Tuesday.

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The aftermath of the Chelsea v Barca Champions League semi-final game yesterday has been... well, nasty. I can understand why Chelsea supporter's feel crushed and I won't dig the shank in deeper. But I have to say that Drogba's and Ballack's performances after the game and the supposed "handball" incident with Eto'o respectively, as well as manager Hiddink's comments about some kind of UEFA conspiracy that prevented Chelsea from winning, were ridiculous. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea's sour grapes do them no favours "The word conspiracy is maybe the wrong one. It's difficult when players are so high on emotion after a game. However, people are saying we shouldn't have reacted the way we did. But...

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