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By Anne

The Football Media and Transfers: Is it time to ask "Cui Bono?"

"Cui bono?" is an Italian phrase that literally means "as a benefit to whom?

A bloggers role, in football, is perhaps simply to call and comment on things as they see them.
Free of entrepreneur "vision" or the paymasters check I can call it as I see it. Simple as that.
For too long Australian football media has produced unscintillating football reportage.

By: Anne

You know, it's amazing how quiet the football media can be when they want to...

Leading into our upcoming series on the transfer market, transfer rumours, and (here's the big one) possible money laundering in the EPL, I thought I would give our readers a few things to think about in [.

Pros
So, the first pro is fairly obvious - hilarity. It's always funny to watch United lose, especially in Europe where Fergie's ability to influence referees is less pronounced. The fact that they were served up one of the easiest CL groups I can remember makes it even funnier.

When I began this blog over five years ago I honestly thought there were no active A-League blogs. I soon discovered I was wrong and wrote a reasonably comprehensive review of the amateur blogs which focused on the A-League at that time.
One of the things I was hungry for from the beginning was high quality, football-knowledgeable analysis of the games.

The Global Game: Watching The Premier League In Pakistan - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Earlier this week I came across the 'Global Game' initiative launched by Nick Harris (Mail on Sunday, Sporting Intelligence). It's a great idea, hopefully it catches on and more and more people from different parts of the world who follow football (and especially the English Premier League) can contribute to it.

well certain parts of the Aussie football media has slated Harry over the years. Most recently Roy Master (who knows sod all about the game), and Mike Cockerill and Robbie Slater have also given it to him.
Completely unfairly in my view.
Be interesting to see how those guys cover there arses as the season goes on.

Despite being written off across the global football media, Arsenal players continue to believe that this might just be the season they end their six-year trophy drought as long as they make it a point to defend together.

The Gunners started their Premier League campaign with a disappointing goalless draw away to Newcastle but manager Arsene Wenger immediately highlighted that a clean sheet away from home has to be lauded.

The question comes up time and again: "Is there still such a thing as mainstream football media?"
I'll leave the question aside in a North American context, but there clearly is in some parts of the world, namely England, where the football league's tussle with the mainstream press over the latter's reluctance to be monetarily extorted has resulted in some interesting apologetics, most notably from the Telegraph's Henry Winter.

The mainstream football media are convinced that there is a ‘new Mourinho' at Chelsea. Although I'm inclined to agree, I'm not entirely sure who this ‘new Mourinho' actually is.

Of course, to even ask who this ‘new Mourinho' is implies a form, a Mourinho, from whom to begin. José Mourinho was a Chelsea manager, young, Portuguese, poached from Porto after a blistering season domestically and in Europe, who was expected to grasp a small but ambitious club by the horns and haul it that final step which it couldn't take under its previous (Italian) coach.

We'd like to thank Rob Kirby, one of our many Arsenal-supporting field agents, for the following take on Arsenal's "imminent" demise.

Don't look back.

The football media establishment says that Arsenal is out of the title race even before anything's begun. With the imminent exits of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri (on the heels of the £7M Manchester City signing of left back Gael Clichy), pundits have already decided the Arsenal season is done, dead and buried.

Some Spanish Football media observers claim one of the reasons that Chilean Alexis Sanchez is not yet a Barça player is because young JEFFREN refused to be part of the signing package operation that would have taken him to Italian Club Udinense. The U-21 Spanish International player does have alternative offers & especially from England.

Some Spanish Football media observers claim one of the reasons that Chilean Alexis Sanchez is not yet a Barça player is because young JEFFREN refused to be part of the signing package operation that would have taken him to Italian Club Udinense. The U-21 Spanish International player does have alternative offers & especially from England.

I know. I missed a few things.
Mostly the launch of the Blizzard, what that meant for football blogging and whether it heralded a new page in football journalism, which I hope to talk about in the coming days.
As I hope you've been aware, I've been writing daily posts for The Score's Footy Blog, which has been an incredibly useful discipline.

Reports have surfaced out of Mexico that Gaston Puerari has been transferred to Atlas. According to two spanish football media outlets, Atlas manager Ruben Omar Romano identified Puerari as a new reinforcement for this upcoming FMF season and the forward will report to the club this coming Sunday.

When I were a lad summer was a very different beast.
Inspired by Seve we'd take to the fairways, dedicated to mastering the Royal and Ancient game well enough to give Nick Faldo the beating he so richly deserved.
We'd take to the tennis court to out boom-boom Boris Becker.
Football would take a back seat, save for the odd snippet of transfer gossip and the release of the official squad photograph, never fully complete without a sprinkling of mullets and a selection of ill advised moustaches.

I love to go to the beach and build a castle, a sand castle. But despite all the oohs and aahs from passers by I know that in the arvo someone will have come by and stamped on my creation.
Nothing permanent.
And such is football in Australia - it seems to me.
How many times have we heard Manchester United are coming, or in recent times Celtic, Juventus or Beckham.

Well it's not yet confirmed but I am 90% certain that it will be after his latest comments this week. I posted earlier in the week about him stating that he could combine both roles as a club manager and a national coach once more as he did when he took over at Stamford Bridge while he was manager of Russia.

SPANISH SPORT & FOOTBALL has an important date tomorrow in London. The emotional levels are rising & will be souring tomorrow in Spain, especially in the autonomous region of Catalonia & the city of Barcelona, along with fellow Football fans in the city of Manchester & in England. Courtesy from "Don Balon" Spanish Sport online Football media MANCHESTER UNITED plays FC BARCELONA in the 2011

As we approach another iteration of the North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, rival supporters could perhaps be forgiven for spewing forth a bit extra vitriol to relieve the increased feelings of tension. Each club has seen its own recent failures laid bare for international football media to critique, new ownership issues making Arsenal fans nervous as to what the future holds, and Spurs fans wondering where current ownership is headed with legal wranglings over the Olympic Stadium at Stratford.

As the temperature drops on the drunks out in Clapham
I turn on my bx and it's like punk never happened
The community's charged up and the West End's alight
And it's Jimmy Bloody Tarbuck on a Saturday night

And I'm sick to the back teeth, frony teeth and tonsils
Of hit making factories and kids niffing Ronseal
The run down, the hard up and the national health
And it's Jimmy Bloody Tarbuck on a Sunday as well

Friends, Romans, country fans
If you're happpy and you know it
You can clap your hands and say yeah!

Greetings from sunny Las Vegas...

I may not be in the best mental or physical shape, so please don't complain about typos or errors in this one this is altered state, gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson-style (albeit very low-rent gonzo journalism). Having said that...

The big piece of news, for me, is that Barca President Sandro Rosell has come out and said that Barca will not increase their bid for Cesc Fabregas this summer.

Hamish fan of Brisbane Roar wrote a comment to my earlier post re:anti football media conspiring to talk football down again and again and again.
It deserved it's own post so twitter and facebook fans would get to see it!
From Hamish:
More good thought Eamonn. I can feel your frustration.

Ross Aloisi received the PFA Craig Foster Football Media Scholarship, in recognition of his work as a football analyst for Fox Sports and a regular columnist for Soccer International. Aloisi played in the old NSL and was a part of Adelaide City's championship in 1992. A Socceroo who spent 6 years in Europe, he was a key player in the establishment of both Adelaide United and Wellington Phoenix in the A-League.

So, Wayne Rooney scores a wonder goal and the whole world goes absolutely bat-sh*t crazy. Every back page is talking about it, every sport columnist wanted to write about it and every news station top loaded their sports section with video replays from every angle.

It was a great goal, that's for sure.

Spanish Football media has picked up a news "flash" from English radio programe "Talk Sport" which although maybe just healthy speculation has made ripples down towards the Iberian peninsula. The talk is that English Premier League Club ARSENAL FC has once again put its sights on SEVILLA FC winger & Spanish International JESUS NAVAS.

With two hours to go until the transfer window closes again, the world's football media are focusing their attention on Liverpool. It is looking likely that the Anfield side will have former Newcastle striker Andy Carroll in their ranks to team up with Luis Suarez in their frontline at the end of today.

Special K
If ever there was a time to be putting a bit of fun back into the world of football broadcasting it's now. Step forward Kay Murray, described in various quarters as an intelligent, articulate, witty, talented and experienced TV presenter.
Known to her legion of fans on her blog and Twitter feed as Football Barbie - a parody of her real self, such a moniker could not be further from the truth - Murray works for Real Madrid TV and appears on numerous football podcasts and radio shows.

This has been a big week in football media, obviously. Richard Keys and Andy Gray were fired from/pressured to resign from Sky Sports for sexist comments about female linespersons caught on tape. I don't want to speak much more to the hypocrisy of traditional football media's open-mouthed shock reaction to sexism within its own ranks, an institution that has largely been completely dismissive of women's soccer (to the detriment of the development of the sport in England, as well as an echo of the sad legacy of the FA's relationship with women's football—see Dick, Kerr's Ladies).

A manifesto on the importance of paying attention to football media. As the first commenter astutely noted, it doesn't "say a whole lot," but it lays the groundwork for what's to come: a regular CSN media column.