This week saw the news that Chelsea have joined Newcastle United in openly stating that they are considering selling the naming rights to one of England's  most established stadiums.

Opening myself to accusations of being overdramatic I believe that if today's announcement to tinker with the name of Stamford Bridge for commercial rights goes ahead it will be one of the biggest events in the clubs history.

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Sport companies and clubs have, in living memory certainly, always gone hand in hand with advertising. Formula 1 has given much wide- spread criticised publicity to cigarette companies on the sides to their big red engines, cricket players are sponsored by airlines and football teams are sponsored by companies by all walks of life.

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It seems that the US as a soccer community takes a bit of a beating over the exploits of American owners who dip their toes into English waters; while Randy Lerner has managed to keep Villa fans...

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People living in poverty near Soccer City stadium outside Johannesburg battle police during anti-World Cup protests. Local residents demand houses rather than world-class stadiums.
Recommended reading: Ashwin Desai's The Poors and this article.

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Football has changed immeasurably over the past ten or twenty years and, with it, Chelsea Football Club. Fans no longer exclusively hail from the Kings Road, South West London or Surrey. Since Roman Abramovich bought the club in particular, Chelsea has drawn increased interest from all over the world with blue shirts appearing on pretty much every continent.

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Football has changed immeasurably over the past ten or twenty years and, with it, Chelsea Football Club. Fans no longer exclusively hail from the Kings Road, South West London or Surrey. Since Roman Abramovich bought the club in particular, Chelsea has drawn increased interest from all over the world with blue shirts appearing on pretty much every continent.

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Many have taken the piss out of the atmosphere at the Emirates in the past. They did about Highbury too. But they can't deny that it wasn't a wall of noise on Saturday against the Spuds!
It was electric and a right smack in the face for those who have a dig about us Gooners being the silent type. Click to continue reading...

The old Empire Stadium in Vancouver.

Here's some interesting news about Vancouver's expansion bid that most may not know of yet. They will have to play in two different stadiums in their first year in Major League Soccer in 2011. The Vancouver Sun is reporting today that due to the renovations to BC Place the expansion Whitecaps (or whatever they will be called) will also play an unknown number of home games at a temporary facility on the old Empire Stadium.

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Deep Cuts took a brief hiatus yesterday, for a couple of different reasons: one, I was forced to do The Man's bidding with no real break, and two, the Internet failed to deliver anything of real...

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Jimmy Conrad and Josh Wolff lead the way in 2009 for Kansas City. (WVH Photo Correspondent Brian Stevens)

The bandwagon was getting bigger for this club going into 2009. Many folks had hoped this was the year the Kansas City Wizards would get over the hump and make a big splash in the eastern conference.

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Some fantastic images of the new stadium put out in the last few days. Also announced was the inclusion of a single tier stand to rival the Kop at Anfield as Tottenham attempt to create one of 'the best atmospheric stadiums in Europe'.
The proposed moving dates have also been released to the public with Daniel Levy stating that Spurs will be playing in the their new, as yet unnamed, stadium by 2012. Click to continue reading...

After years in coaching in Spain and now England, it seems Fabio Capello has turned on his Italian compatriots...or at least is now far enough away to not fear a violent attack from the ultras. At an seminar organized by the Italian FA about the state of calcio, Capello is quoted as saying:

"It's the ultras who give the orders in Italy.

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Gertrude was not thrilled with the news!

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JOHANNESBURG South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June, they said on Friday.

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First, a question: Does the United States need a national soccer stadium? The answer, without hesitation, is "no". America is bursting at the seams with stadiums, many purposely built with soccer...

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Here's a story that slipped by us over the weekend Serbian President Boris Tadic (pictured above, center) was charged by police last Friday for allegedly breaking an anti-hooligan law barring the sale or consumption of alcohol in stadiums.

Tadic and other officials reportedly popped bottles of champagne in their VIP lounge at Red Star Belgrade stadium following Serbia's World Cup qualification clinching victory of Romania.

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A glut of stadium-related news has hit the American soccer scene in recent weeks; from Baltimore potentially getting into the DC United business to the glory of grass, professional soccer facilities...

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Courtesy of OregonLive through WVHooligan comes an update on the Portland MLS efforts: Timbers owner Merritt Paulson is talking tough about a potential stadium deal with the city of Beaverton for his...

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If you could pick any 20 teams to be in the Premier League, which clubs would you pick and why?

To make it harder, you can only pick clubs from the Premier League, Football League and non-league football. And, to make it fun, you can select teams from the Scottish Premier League too, if you like.

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We here at Black Cloud Brigade headquarters feel it's important for potential recruits to understand exactly what it means to be a part of the BCB. So to help further educate our potential recruits, we offer this short mission statement to outline the goals and views of this elite group.
The BCB reserves the right edit this mission statement as it sees fit. Click to continue reading...

You might notice the cheeky slight change to our weekly stadium feature's name we've pluralised it as we are looking at more than one this week. We feature the renderings for the four new, impressive stadiums being built in Angola for the African Cup of Nations 2010, to be held in January.

Luanda
Capacity: 40,000
Stadium name: Estádio Cidade Universitária

Rendering of Estádio Cidade Universitária, Luanda's stadium under construction for the 2010 African Cup of Nations

Benguela
Stadium Name: Complexo da Sr.

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There is a delicious sense of the absurd in the way Don Garber has gone about his MLS business in the last few days, almost like a Steven Colbert satirizing the moronic "ideas" market of the Blatter/Warner contingent in order to expose football's upper echelon time-wasters for what they are.
First, we had Garber telling European clubs that MLS could be a model for wage sharing on the continent, the equivalent of asking the Germans to slow down on the Autobahn or the French to "clean up those unions so everything can run better in the country and there'd be less strikes and stuff. Click to continue reading...

As the pitch was besieged with red-hot flares and racist monkey noises during Saturday's Ukraine v England match, there was a third menace, literally flying under the radar with its threat of gliding danger. That threat?

Paper planes.

Says David James:

"They were big flares, granted, but you could argue that someone throwing a paper aeroplane on the pitch might take someone's eye out.

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Boston Pro Soccer Examiner L.E. Eisenmenger has a Vancouver stadium update, courtesy of her interview with Vancouver Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi. BC Place won't only get a roof, he says, it...

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MLS explores playing indoors to shift schedule:

"Perhaps we have to start thinking about roofed stadiums at some point. But do we have to have a fan base that is developed enough to be immune to the weather, like they do for American football where they will come out to watch a game regardless of the climate?

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Damien Plessis is hoping to secure his first senior appearance of the 2009-10 season when Liverpool do battle with Arsenal in the fourth round of the Carling Cup later this month.
The French midfielder was an unused substitute for the victory over Leeds United at the last stage of the competition, and is eager to be involved against the Gunners at the Emirates. Click to continue reading...

This is tricky because there are so many fixtures you'd think would be boring to watch until you consider one or two auxiliary factors.
Let's take for example Liechtenstein v. Azerbaijan. Who's gonna watch this hopeless run around? Well, let's say someone told you this was the only game you would ever be allowed to watch again for the rest of your life. Click to continue reading...

Reading through the submissions these past two weeks, stories of waiting for years for a club to arrive in your hometown a decade too late, seeing your club switch stadiums only for the supporter culture to die off, wondering what Don Garber has up his sleeve regarding the league's growth in the next five to ten to twenty years; you get the impression that, ultimately, the future of MLS is out of our control. Click to continue reading...

The first few comments I received when I kicked off this little experiment immediately went into the relegation/promotion question. It goes without saying that structurally, R/P is a non-starter for Major League Soccer; private investors spent a lot of time and money insuring the necessary infrastructure had been put in place before securing their MLS club, with the agreement said club would always play at the highest professional level. Click to continue reading...

Wow!!!

I know that I haven't been to all of the great football stadiums of Europe, very few as a matter of fact, but I have a hard time believing that there possibly could be a better place to watch a football match in the world than Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. I was blown away.

Now, to be sure, the experience could have been much greater.

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M&T Bank Stadium during the World Football Challenge Baltimore's dalliance with soccer this summer during the World Football Challenge has led the city's mayor, Sheila Dixon, to request a study to...

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Another week, another victory! This week was a 4-0 route of Nuremburg. Bayer 04 have become, along with HSV, one of the dominant teams in the Bundesliga. But it was only a year ago that Bayer, under Bruno Labbadia had a blistering start. But it wasn't anything comparable to this start, because the Werkself aren't just winning, their winning with panache and style.

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As everyone is well aware, Chicago's hopes of landing the 2016 Summer Olympic Games came crashing back to Earth last week with a thud. You can place the blame wherever you please, many people are, but you can't deny that it comes as a blow to our collective sporting ego. It's at this time that we must accept the fact that Rio simply put forth a superior bid and redouble our efforts to land the World Cup the world's largest sporting event in either 2018 or 2022.

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Not sure I pictured this as a alternate career for Andres Iniesta.
Pretty awesome though.
On to the links:

• Three-year ban for Manchester pitch invader. [USA Today]
  
• W.C. stadiums are nearly finished. [SI]
  
• There's a hooligan-fighting unit in France.

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I wasn't expecting to go to a fussball match while I was in Switzerland since I was going to be there midweek last week. Once I found out that the Swiss Super League was having a midweek matchday, though, I decided that I had to make it out to Letzigrund Stadium.

If you have been following the Champions League, then you know that Letzigrund Stadium is home to current competitor FC Zurich.

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Hassan Sunny Tampines Rovers
Lionel Lewis Home United
Shaiful Esah SAFFC
Noh Rahman Sengkang Punggol
Precious Emuejeraye Woodlands Wellington
Gabriel Obadin Young Lions
Daniel Bennett SAFFC
Juma'at Jantan Home United
Sevki Sha'ban Gombak United
Tengku Mushadad Home United
Hariss Harun Young Lions
Fazrul Nawaz Gombak United
John Wilkinson SAFFC
Shahril Ishak Home United
Rosman Sulaiman Home United
Itimi Dickson Home United
Park Tae Won SAFFC
Aleksandar Duric SAFFC
Indra Sahdan Sengkang Punggol
Agu Casmir Gombak United
2009 Sultan of Selangor's Cup
Sunday 4 October 2009
Jalan Besar Stadium, Singapore
Curtain Raiser: SINGAPORE VETERANS vs SELANGOR VETERANS
Kick off: 6. Click to continue reading...