Investors gambling on the Championship (The Guardian) Considering the Elfin Jermain Defoe (Run of Play) Football in Barbados in crisis (NationNews) Remembering Ipswich at the 1981 Uefa Cup Final (Extreme Groundhopping) Photos of African football supporters (Road to 2010 World Cup) The most politically charged match on the planet? Click to continue reading...

As we've noted in our historical series, the European Championship (originally European Nations' Cup) started out on a small-scale in the 1960s: just four teams played in the finals, allowing an exciting knock-out tournament as qualifiers. Now Uefa is considering expanding the Championship finals to take in 24 teams, greater than the number of teams [. Click to continue reading...

You may have heard Fergie's rant about the fans at Old Trafford for the 1-0 win over Birmingham on New Year's Day "That was the quietest I have heard the crowd, it was like a funeral," Ferguson said, "The players need the crowd sometimes but the atmosphere inside the ground wasn't good." But what most [. Click to continue reading...

Mysoccerclubusa.com, which aims to enter a fan-owned team in the National Premier Soccer League in the United States, was recently mentioned in the New York Times Soccer blog as it looks to attract thousands who will contribute $50 each to the venture. This has attracted new interest in something we have questioned before, due to concerns [. Click to continue reading...

Boxing Day today sees the first league meeting between Bradford City and Lincoln City at Valley Parade since a fire at the stadium on May 11th 1985 left 56 supporters dead and another 256 injured. Bizarrely, both Lincoln and Bradford are today managed by men who played that day. Bradford's talismanic boss Stuart McCall was a [. Click to continue reading...

Waiting in van for Don Fabio (Reuters Soccer Blog) The Goalkeeper stands alone (Run of Play) EPL fans connect over internet (EPL Talk) African footballers to storm Swedish shores (Road to 2010 World Cup) Paris, a dangerous place to fail (The Offside) Crap football songs (Extreme Groundhopping) The magic of the Indonesian Conductors (Jakarta Casual) Soccer and ice hockey together at last, [. Click to continue reading...

Barca vs. Milan, an identity battle (Treasons, Stratagems & Spoils) G14 even greedier than before (The Offside) Why we should care about the World Club Cup (200%) What Taylor Twellman did next (The Offside Rules) Van Basten's best goals (Who Ate All The Pies) How (not) to describe Peter Crouch (Run of Play) Everton's troubled plans for Kirkby stadium (SoccerNet live) Real [. Click to continue reading...

Barca vs. Milan, an identity battle (Treasons, Stratagems & Spoils) G14 even greedier than before (The Offside) Why we should care about the World Club Cup (200%) What Taylor Twellman did next (The Offside Rules) Van Basten's best goals (Who Ate All The Pies) How (not) to describe Peter Crouch (Run of Play) Everton's troubled plans for Kirkby stadium (SoccerNet live) Real [. Click to continue reading...

With the 2008 Olympic soccer tournament approaching, China is eagerly preparing to completely miss the point: "Zhongguo, Zhongguo ha, ha, ha. Zhongguo, Zhongguo bi sheng," the crowd shouts, simultaneously beating yellow, stick-shaped batons to the rhythm. "Jia you, jia you." Rough translation: "China, China ha, ha, ha. Click to continue reading...

MLS and the financial crunch (USSoccerplayers.com) Encountering Newcastle fans in New York (Deadspin) Rochester Rhinos, from (nearly) MLS to (perhaps) bankruptcy (Who Ate All The Cupcakes) Over a hundred arrests at Bremen Match (The Offside) Exploring Bosnian football culture (Bosnian Football Culture blog) From Bethlehem, to Palestine, via Kansas (Culture of Soccer) Did video games ruin English football? Click to continue reading...

This is not an Onion story. According to Reuters, a Peruvian game ended in a riot after Ancash's Efrain Viafara controlled the ball with his backside. Sport Ancash's match at home to Universitario ended in uproar following an odd piece of ball control by midfielder Efrain Viafara. Ancash were leading 2-1 when Viafara, who [. Click to continue reading...

Venezuela is known more for baseball than football, but the improved form they've managed under Richard Paez since he took over in 2001 apparently wasn't enough for the fans. He quit La Vinotinto today after being roundly booed and jeered in San Cristobal last week as Venezuela beat Bolivia 5-3 to move into fifth place in [. Click to continue reading...

English football and the culture of overreaction (Run of Play) Brazilians might dominate national teams (SI.com) India gets serious about football (The Offside) Argentina's title race hots up (Hasta El Gol Siempre) Seattle's MLS and the Seahawks involvement (GOAL Seattle) Click to continue reading...

Maybe Sepp Blatter couldn't shut up with his ridiculous blathering this weekend because he hoped to occlude some bad news from both South Africa and Brazil. There have long been concerns about the safety and infrastructure in both places ahead of the World Cups in 2010 and 2014 respectively, and those were seemingly amplified this [. Click to continue reading...

Terrible news just filtering in tonight via our friends at Gramsci's Kingdom that a stand has collapsed at Estadio Fonte Nova, playing host to a Brazilian Serie C game, with at least eight feared dead. Go there for more details and updates, and I'll also try to report here if any more news comes [.. Click to continue reading...

Podcast on the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (EPL Talk) Surprise, football doesn't save Iraq (Matthew Yglesias) Stunned Fans Admit Second Half of MLS Cup Final "Not Bad" (Ian Plenderleith) Three phrases lazy headline writers use on soccer articles (Throughball) West Ham in America (The Offside Rules) Bangladesh football stadium photos (Bangla Football) What happened to English goalkeeping? Click to continue reading...

The news this morning that myfootballclub.co.uk (henceforth MFC) are to purchase Ebbsfleet United has set-off a firestorm. Apparently BBC News has had over 600,000 hits on the story and the MFC website has crashed. Our own discussion here earlier today reflects the passions the purchase arouses, and there are very interesting points made for and against [. Click to continue reading...

Myfootballclub.co.uk and their thousands of members have agreed a deal to buy Ebbsfleet United, of the Blue Square Premier (Conference National), one rung below England's Football League. Doubts are already being voiced by those within the footballing establishment, with Birmingham's co-owner David Sullivan opining that it "it will be an utter disaster. Click to continue reading...

Austrian football is at a bit of a low internationally. Now, considering my own country is unlikely to make it to the big dance next summer, I'm not one to suggest Austria shouldn't be playing in Euro 2008, which they're co-hosting with Switzerland. Fortunately, I don't have to, as over 10,000 of their own [...] SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Austrian Fans, Not Keen on Losing in Euro 2008", url: "http://pitchinvasion. Click to continue reading...

Gabriele Sandri, a well-known DJ from Rome and a Lazio supporter, was shot dead by the police this morning at a gas station in Badia al Pino, Arezzo. This followed an incident in which a group of Lazio ultras had attacked Juventus fans in their cars, the latter appealing for help from passing police; the [...] SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Lazio Fan, Gabriele Sandri from Rome, Shot Dead Today", url: "http://pitchinvasion. Click to continue reading...

"Yid Army! Yid Army! Yid Army!" It's become a war cry for Tottenham fans over time, rather oddly: Spurs have had a traditionally significant support in North London's Jewish community, but it has become an identity embraced by fans regardless of their actual Jewish heritage. And like at Ajax, the chants have only mushroomed [...] Click to continue reading...

Remember those crazy chaps at myfootballclub.co.uk, who were going to band together for 35 quid each to buy an English football club? It looks like they're about to pull it off, as they're in due diligence for the purchase of an as yet unnamed club, as their site explains: Over 53,000 signed up to phase [...] Click to continue reading...

Reading are firmly ensconced in the middle of the Premier League table, but apparently their recent inconsistent form has prompted enough guilt for the players to decide to pay 75% of the coach fare for 350 of their fans to travel to the next away game. Reading captain Graeme Murty told BBC Sport: "We know [...] Click to continue reading...

We here at Pitch Invasion have a solemn duty to report on actual pitch invaders, a duty we usually shirk. Remember the idiotic Celtic fan who ran at Milan's Dida last month, causing the goalkeeper to reveal he was an equally idiotic person? As well as being banned for life, he's now got 120 [...] Click to continue reading...

Passion in Finnish football (Football in Finland) Man Utd's Saudi trip and the media's hypocrisy (EPL Talk) Which football code will spread furthest? (Dave's Football Blog) Billy Beane and the future of football (Soccer Silicon Valley) Playoffs in the Premiership? (Some People Are On The Pitch) Supporting the losers (Ian Plenderleith) Click to continue reading...

In most countries around the world, football supporters often live in fractious relations with the authorities. But there's always somewhere that has it worse unless you live in Lebanon. There, James Montague of the IHT tells us, all supporters have been banned from attending matches, for fear that their presence could raise tensions amongst rival [. Click to continue reading...

So, Brazil in 2014 it is then. As we discussed last week, all is not rosy in this choice, despite the obvious allure of that country; the lack of competition to win the rights to host the World Cup has hardly helped them kick things into shape, either. I was going to write about this at [...] Click to continue reading...

Brazil sounds like a dream location for football fans to host the World Cup after next. Samba nights. Kids playing barefoot on the beaches. A true festival of the beautiful game. And it surely will be Brazil: earlier this week, FIFA's inspection group's report affirmed that "It would be appropriate to choose Brazil as the [...] Click to continue reading...

Premiership coming to the US? (The Offside) Football in the land of football (NYT Goal) Football in the Serengeti (Gramsci's Kingdom) Earthquakes seek to cure futbolitis (Offside Rules) A clueless American & Pompey (EPL Talk) World's oldest football birthday (200percent) Glazers refinancing debt (Red Issue) The Wizards cauldron (kansan.com) Philly expansion (Soccer By Ives) Latest on Seattle MLS (Seattle PI) Click to continue reading...

The surreality of Gooner fans in Tanzania (Gramsci's Kingdom) The Decline of the Football Pools (Political Economy of Football) Kudos to Cobi (Offside Rules) The Trouble in Italy (Spangly Princess) Among the Hollywood Thugs (Notabbott.com) Usmanov's PR push continues (Bloggerheads) Click to continue reading...

Football fandom in the afterlife (Some People Are On The Pitch) When the ball hits your head and you sit in row Z, thats Zamora. (Who Ate All the Pies) Partizan and Red Star in trouble (ESPN) Inter in trouble, and Napoli too(Italy Offside) How Dida saved Celtic (101 Great Goals) The Hope That Kills Us Plenderleith on Scotland [...] Click to continue reading...

I'm pretty partial to Tottenham Hotspur, but I have to say thinking of my own health I'm glad I'm not a regular at White Hart Lane. There's a big difference between following a team on television several thousand miles and marching to the ground week after week, and apparently, if you want [...] Click to continue reading...

Debenham Leisure Centre might sound more like something out of The Office than a story related to English football's most storied tournament, but that's the key to the good old cliched romance of the F.A. Cup. This weekend, DLC prepared to take on the might of A.F.C. Wimbledon, a relatively big fish in the non-league [...] Click to continue reading...

Just a reminder that as ever, we're looking for contributors and tips on stories as we hope to cover angles on football missed by the media. Drop me a line at tom@pitchinvasion.net if you have any ideas. Some further reading in the meantime: This year's inflated Premiership ticket prices (EPL Talk) Hill-Wood questions Usmanov's credentials (The Guardian) MLS-related [. Click to continue reading...

To follow-up briefly once again on the ongoing Alisher Usmanov saga, his high-priced lawyers have finally gotten their way and Craig Murray's website has been taken down. This follows the massive legal pressure put on by Schillings to websites such as this one, that only seek to put into the open claims by Murray which [...] Click to continue reading...