Fernando Torres has slammed critics constantly rip apart his patchy form for Chelsea by insisting that a European and World Cup winner deserves more respect.

Torres, who moved to the Blues at the beginning of the calendar year, has since scored only three times in 25 appearances a statistic that has been received particularly well at former club Liverpool.

Adding 8 more teams/cities to the NFL would amount to a total of 40 teams, from 32. The eight divisions would have 5 teams each, instead of 4. The question is, who should new franchises be awarded to?
Before discussing the cities, it's important to discuss whether 8 more teams would be reasonable for the NFL, economically speaking.

What ho Arsenal fans? After two weeks of wandering in the interlull desert, with only the horse flies that feast upon our vapid flesh for company, a light twinkles on the horizon. Norwich be thy name! I can almost feel that 9am train beer (is there a better kind of beer?) slinking seductively down my gullet and slaking the thirst.

One of the ploys David Stern has liked to use during the NBA lockout is blaming the agents. Stern knows that nobody likes agent. If the NBA commissioner blames the agents, the public won't have any problem with that. It's a smart idea.

"By some combination of mendacity and greed," explains Stern, "the agents who are looking out for themselves rather than their clients are trying to scuttle the deal.

"Greed is good." -- Gordon Gekko.Sure it was the international break, but some big news (more of a talking point) came down this week when Liverpool Managing Director Ian Ayre made comments about blowing up the structure of how the Premier League's international television revenue is shared and distributed.

The greed of Liverpool Football Club is astounding given the fact they want to sell their own overseas TV rights and in the process kill of half of the Premier League.

They, well their managing director Ian Ayre, wants to adopt the Spanish model, where individual clubs have the freedom to negotiate their own packages based upon their global popularity.

The question of how to divide international television rights and just what's fair is, at the end of the day, hugely complex. It touches on dozens of other issues that effect league parity and directly mirrors a much older debate about the sharing of gate revenue. There's greed and self-preservation behind every corner, and it's all set against the backdrop of a thoroughly broken system that nobody seems especially interested in fixing in any meaningful way.

Manchester City's Carlos Tevez is persona non grata in the Premier League at the moment after he allegedly refused to come on as a substitute during a recent Champions League match. Hypothetically, if Tevez was made available to Liverpool, would you take him? In a game characterised by greed, corruption and naked self-interest, it's amusing to see players and managers hypocritically foaming at

Why I'm not rejoicing over Premier League TV ruling

I am not a fan of some of the things the Premier League stands for and I understand the accusations of greed that are often levelled against it but I cannot quite bring myself to join in the rejoicing over its defeat by a Portsmouth pub landlady yesterday.

Nearly three months since the Bulls beat down Toronto at the Cathedral, but it seems like three years ago. Despite winning two from their last three league matches, few supporters can be accused of hubris as we begin the month that will determine whether or not the year's a success or a humiliating failure.

Sunderland manager Steve Bruce believes spiralling levels of "money and greed" in football means clubs can no longer hold onto their key players.

Glory, Goals & Greed: Twenty Years of the Premier LeagueBy Joe Lovejoy Published by Mainstream, August 2011£11.99 (Paperback)ISBN: 978-1845-96768-0 Our latest book review comes by way of Phil Ascough, a regular contributor to TTU and author of Kissing the Badge, reviewed in these pages last month.

Kenny Dalglish is undoubtedly transforming the fortunes of the team on the pitch at the moment, but he wouldn't be able to do that without an effective management structure behind the scenes. FSG's priorities are perfectly aligned with the way things should be done at Liverpool, which is why the future is most definitely bright.

"I really believe if you are a player who thinks only about money then you could end up at Manchester City," said Clichy. "You have to think if you want to play for a big club and have your image or if you want to play for a good club and earn big money. When you ask someone to move for something like £300,000 a week it is just crazy.

Tough to be in his shoes

If you make it until the end of this piece and you think that "well, this may be the case but some of it is brought on by the way we handle ourselves", I wouldn't say you're wrong completely. Yet, it feels like everyone is against us. Of course many of those stems from the weekend defeat.

I hate football. Whether it's the self-serving avarice of pampered primadonna players; the shameless, corrupt greed of the porcine pilferers at FIFA, or the ignorant, enabling,'groupthink' mentality of the 'fans', football is moral and ethical sewer, and has been for years. Every once in while though, something happens that gives me a tiny sliver of hope that the game can still be saved, and today, that hope comes in the form Sporting Gijon's Javi Poves.

Rumors had been flying since Friday evening's Stars win against Montreal that Minnesota were looking to bolster their roster with another player. Speculation was that it would most likely be someone who could help in the midfield and would probably be a loan player from a Major League Soccer team.

Rumors had been flying since Friday evening's Stars win against Montreal that Minnesota were looking to bolster their roster with another player. Speculation was that it would most likely be someone who could help in the midfield and would probably be a loan player from a Major League Soccer team.

By Eric Beard

The road has been a long one, but with an absolutely fantastic Women's World Cup coming to a close there has never been more at stake for the United States and Japan. But perhaps more importantly, there has never been such potential for the growth (or revival or whatever you want to call it) of women's football.

This is the twelfth and final post in a weekly series highlighting Italy's 4 World Cup wins from qualifications to the finals.

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of Italy's fourth World Cup win. And even if the events off the pitch seem to still have a stranglehold on Italian football, I will always remember that day when talent triumphed over greed, football over corruption.

There is a good report in the local Newcastle Journal this morning. N'Zogbia - greed and attitude turning off Pardew And the news doesn't seem good for those of the newcatsle fans who want to see Charles back on Tyneside. It seems it is becoming very hard to read exactly what the intentions of the [.

There is loads of speculation surrounding Samir Nasri at the moment.
Will he, or won't he, sign a new contract at Arsenal? I don't know to be honest because I'm not a psychic, his mind, or his agent.
What I do know is Nasri needs to be careful. He needs to be careful because things can change rather quickly.

FIFA's carefully constructed house of cards continued to crumble over the weekend, much to the joy of football fans the world over. It's not like the vapid corruption in football's world governing body is some kind of secret, it's just been too powerful and to organized to collapse under the weight of it's own idiocracy.

Given the uproar around the recent happenings at FIFA, you'd think that something new and horrific had happened, but corruption has been at the core of our governing body for years. It's just that now we're reaping the fruit of our ignorance and, as a footballing family, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

The Champions League.
The tournament that best sums up all that is wrong about European club football. A grotesquely bloated monument to football's greed, its fiscal deities.
Yet still oddly compelling.
And tonight it reaches its climax. Wembley plays hosts to an unfettered orgy celebrating UEFA's money making fetish.

Carlos Tévez proved his value to Manchester City last night with two superb goals that saw them leapfrog Arsenal into third in the Premier League. The free-kick, which left Tony Pulis grappling for superlatives, probably could have orbited the earth if it hadn't been stopped by crashing into the Stoke net.

Hey F.C. Porto, look at your Classico rivals Benfica. That could be you a year from now.
Remember Benfica's wondrous championship season last year? Remember how they used to score goals by the bushel, 4, 5, 6 at a time? Remember how they'd run teams into the ground, literally and figuratively?

Can you take the pressure?

Many observers point to the introduction of the Premier League as the day that football forever lost its soul to avarice. However, I believe the excessive greed and focus on monetary gain can be found in our game a couple of previous in 1990, a year that saw the release of the board game "Terry Venables Invites you to be THE MANAGER".