After almost three injury-ravaged years, Dean Ashton, as the back pages suggest, will finally hang up his boots and retire. The player who was once seen as a unique cross between the playing styles of Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham, will never fully fulfill his potential as a top-class footballer. Click to continue reading...

The English FA might have an expensive invoice sent to its mailbox soon.
Soccer star Frank Lampard injured his leg the other day while on international duty and the team signing his paycheck, Chelsea, wants compensation. The thigh strain he suffered in practice is possibly due in part to the lack of leg room on the English national team's cheap flight over to Qatar. Click to continue reading...

Rafa Benitez has urged the Spanish and English Football Associations to exercise commonsense when naming their squads for their international friendlies next week.
Spain will play Argentina at Atletico Madrid's Vicente Calderon stadium next Saturday, while on the same evening England face Brazil in a glamour friendly in Qatar. Click to continue reading...

All the stuff being covered outside the unfriendly confines of the award winning Dirty Tackle...

Outrage over Wayne Rooney's use of wussy hand covers in the Champions League. [Channelbee]

Chelsea consider selling the naming rights to Stamford Bridge. And I consider crying.

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Big Story
Jack Warner has returned a handbag given to him by the England World Cup bid because of "embarrassment", launching even by his absurd standards a bizarre rhetorical attack on the Football Association.

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England last night completed their World Cup qualifying campaign with a fairly routine 3 - 0 win over Belarus at Wembley, thanks to a brace from giant England striker Peter Crouch and a goal from diminutive winger Shaun Wright-Phillips. An Excellent campaign - in which England have won nine of their 10 qualifying games - has seen the squad reach the World Cup finals in some style. Click to continue reading...

Rio Ferdinand is perhaps one of the more unlikely of digital ambassadors. Before yesterday's online-only broadcast of Ukraine v England, the defender offered his opinion on the unique way the game would be broadcast to the nation.

"I'm sure it'll be the way forward and in the future it'll probably be the reality.

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Both Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles spent time with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. Villa featured prominently in the 1983 NASL side alongside among others, Brian Kidd, Nene Cubillias and Ray Hudson. Villa was such a hero among Argentine fans, I can still hear the cries of "Villa!" from the stands at Lockhart Stadium over a quarter century later.

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Jeff Cunningham led the charge in FC Dallas' 6-3 drubbing of the Los Angeles Galaxy, and was honored with his 12th career MLS Player of the Week award for his efforts.

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23rd February 2008 nearly happened again on Saturday. Eduardo was injured that day horribly. Fabregas and Van Persie nearly suffered long term injury as a result of two stupid challenges from the Togo striker. I am so sickened by his antics that I won't even mention his name.
On Wednesday we will be playing Standard Liege in the Champions League. Click to continue reading...

Tom Hicks, the co-owner of Liverpool FC, has praised Christian Purslow, the club's new managing director, has praised Christian Purslow, the club's new managing director, and hinted that the club has a number of new commercial deals ready to be announced.
Whether a new shirt sponsorship is one of those commercial deals remains to be seen. Click to continue reading...

TOR CHITTINAND
England will play a friendly with the Thai national team in Bangkok next year, Football Association of Thailand (FAT) president Worawi Makudi said yesterday.
Worawi, who is in England as guest of the English FA, said he had talked to English Premier League chairman Sir David Richards who confirmed that England will come to Thailand. Click to continue reading...

England fought their way back - are slugging their way through the tournament. Knowing a little about how shabbily they are treated by the English FA, I'm pulling for them. Kelly Smith has a crazy-good goal here. Enjoy. Commentary is in Russian. Their next game is against Sweden on Monday. Not sure what time yet - looks like 7:00pm in Finland? Click to continue reading...

With the ugly scenes outside and within Upton Park now etched in the minds of football fans globally, does this give the US an expected World Cup 2018 boost? Was Tuesday also the fatal day the English FA will look back upon and say that the World Cup was lost?

The harsh reality of England's bid was that despite the outstanding efforts of the FA and Law Enforcement to root out the most vicious and dangerous firms over the past twenty years, hooligans are still perceived as a problem in the country.

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TOR CHITTINAND
The Peter Reid saga took another twist yesterday when the Englishman was quoted as saying that he will be happy to become assistant to Stoke City manager Tony Pulis.
Football Association of Thailand (FAT) president Worawi Makudi said on Monday that he had talked to national team coach Reid. Click to continue reading...

The English FA have announced they will review the footage of Saturday's Manchester United match against Wigan and pass a judgment which could see Nemanja Vidic out for 3 matches. Click to continue reading...

Thailand national team coach Peter Reid is being linked with a move back to the English Premier League. Stoke City are said to be keen to appoint him as number two to manager Tony Pulis.
Pulis is quoted as saying "There is a minor issue about securing his release from his job with the Thailand FA but we don't believe that will present a problem for us. Click to continue reading...

Today MLS Rumors put it up its much hyped "investigation" into to US Soccer. To call it laughable is an insult to humor. To call it stupid is an insult to stupid people. To even give this much attention is probably a mistake on my part, but I simply cannot let it go by. This is one of the single-most offensive, stupid pieces I've ever seen written on American soccer and additionally it includes outright racist sentiments. Click to continue reading...

Watch the first video - Nike ad - then watch the English FA's parody of it.
I'd love a promotional video like this for the women's game. It's funny how you can use the misery of the lowest levels of Sunday leagues to romanticize the sport when it comes to men, but the women's game is cast as squeaky clean and relentlessly upbeat (when it is represented at all). Click to continue reading...

Why is this a big deal?

Because for the last few years the annual finale to the English football season has been aired here live exclusively on pay per view.

So that has meant crawling out of bed at 6:30 a.m. or so for the dubious honor of paying $24.95 to watch the game at home. Or heading to a British pub, paying a $10-$20 cover charge, and then having some inebriated Brit screaming in your ear by half time "Come on you (pick the team).

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How would the Premier League table look if refs got all the key decisions right? A quick glance at the Right Result league tables for the last 3 seasons will tell you how crucial refereeing decisions can be for certain clubs.

In the 06/07 season, refereeing mistakes allowed Tottenham to claim a European spot while pushing Aston Villa all the way down to 11th.

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We know the game is still 5 days away, but since it's such an important game for Newcastle United, one the most important in our history, we'll discuss the potential team today. � � Peter Lovenkrands - we'd like to see this player start on Sunday Unfortunately we heard that Bassong is out earlier today, because the English FA [. Click to continue reading...

London's Metropolian Police ushered Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo from his hotel to Heathrow Airport last night, fearing for his safety after he turned down four penalty appeals for Chelsea against Barcelona.The English FA staff who have been pushing their 'Respect' for referees campaign all season must have buried their heads in their hands. Click to continue reading...

I think a lot of FAs and other governing organizations believe that if you just investigate things long enough, and if you keep telling everybody that there's an investigation in progress, people will eventually lose interest in the result. This seems to be the case with the English FA's investigation of chants directed [. Click to continue reading...

Imagine life without one of the following: Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea. The English FA says it could happen. The FA is guessing that current debt for all of English football is £3bn, with the top four clubs accounting for a third of that. But there's no [...] Click to continue reading...

Much has been made of the recent decision by the English FA to reverse the red card of Chelsea's heroic defender John Terry, who has clearly never done anything wrong ever and had never shown anything but respect to his fellow players and referees alike. Yet, many of you may not know the background of this legendary figure of English football.

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Culture secretary Andy Burnham, has called for the English FA to follow in the footsteps of Spain and Germany, and put the ownership of football clubs in the hands of their fans. Andy Burnham - Secretary of Culture Given the terrible situation at Newcastle United right now, we think this story is worth more than a cursory [. Click to continue reading...

I'm really getting sick of how often these stories come up.
I mean freakin' monkey chants again?
Not only is it ignorant racism, but it's unoriginal, as if it weren't bad enough already.
The English FA is gonna get FIFA to look at it. Word is the Croatian players were pretty upset in their fans actions, which makes sense. Click to continue reading...

This one's for you, Ashley Cole. And Poland. Refs who aren't on the payroll of Italian teams have a rough job, as it's not one most people brimming with sanity would take. When they're perfect, it's nothing more than the basic expectation. When they're wrong, it's armageddon. So damnit, the English FA wants them the [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United are concerned the English FA could ban Joey Barton for as long as a full season, and are looking at ways to combat that threat. Joey Barton - facing ban from the FA Click to continue reading...

Good news for one man violence machine Joey Barton: he was released from prison recently. Bad news for one man violence machine Joey Barton: the English FA have charged him with violent conduct for what he did to Ousmane Dabo's face. Not sure if the FA had to wait until the Bart man was out of clink [. Click to continue reading...

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Ex-QPR midfielder, Peter Reid, is the new National Coach of Thailand. -
Bangkok Post/Tor Chittinand - Reid named as the next Thailand boss
Osieck ruled himself out of position
Former England international Peter Reid will be Thailand's new national coach, the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) announced yesterday. Click to continue reading...

While I am glad to see the back of Steve McLaren and believe that if anyone can drag England back into contention it's Fabio Capello, I must admit watching Guus Hiddink wave his magic wand again has me thinking what the great man could have done for the Three Lions.
Everyone thinks the biggest mistake the English Football Association (FA) made after Sven-Goran Eriksson quit was to appoint the perma-tanned clown McLaren as head coach. Click to continue reading...

Portugal have been in the papers a lot lately, and not necessarily for what they're doing on the field.

There's the constant - and I mean constant - speculation around Cristiano Ronaldo's future. Latest rumours have Real Madrid offering to stuff £300,000 a week in his pockets. There's also Deco knowing that every good performance at Euro 2008 increases his price tag and makes a move away from Barcelona that little bit harder.

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Ian Wright Challenges John Doyle/English FA archives

Fifteen years ago today in Foxboro, MA the US National Team recorded one of its most important pre World Cup 1994 victories with a 2-0 win over England. For me personally as a US Soccer supporter, this was the match that proved to both myself and other die in wool US supporters that we could compete at a high level internationally.

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