The governing bodies of some of the UK’s most popular sports, including cricket, rugby union and Premier League football, have criticised plans to force BSkyB to wholesale its sports channels to pay-TV competitors more cheaply.

Sports bodies have responded furiously to Ofcom’s consultation on its plan to ensure Sky makes its premium sport and movie channels available to rivals including Virgin Media, BT and Top-Up TV at lower prices, claiming it will reduce the amount of money they receive from selling media rights. The Rugby Football Union said that forcing this move on Sky would reduce the value of its exclusive live, terrestrial TV and mobile rights by 60%. James Robinson, The Guardian.

The rich and obscenely rich have taken over our sport long ago – now a Premier League game is little more than a money making event in which as much money as possible is taken from the poor deluded fans – and yes we are deluded – I haven’t been to match in 10-years I can’t afford the cost of a day out – adding up the cost of tickets, travel and food you’d be looking at over £200 – instead I fork out around £60 a month to Sky and ESPN.

It’s should be no surprise that The Premier League backs Sky against Ofcom – Sky is a very lucrative source of income for the Premiership – I guess that’s why rugby and cricket are also backing Sky – they can see the riches football already enjoys.

The question I have is how – or is it even possible to reverse the crass commercialisation of football?

The government has demanded immediate reform of the Football Association, insisting it implements recommendations made by Lord Burns four years ago in full or face a £25m cut in grassroots funding and the withdrawal of political support. Owen Gibson, The Guardian.

Why on earth are we giving the FA £25million – I don’t care what it’s for – there is so much money in football, £25million is only just over a quarter of the fee Man United received for selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid – if the FA wants to develop grass roots football I suggest it passes the hat round it’s wealthy clubs and leaves the tax payer alone.

Now I’d better state I’m a Chelsea fan – however the saga of a 12 month transfer ban seems to be missing the point. The player involved Gaël Kakuta has been banned for four months for doing nothing more than realising a contract he signed at 14 was illegal and that he could earn more money playing for Chelsea.

Lens had been training Kakuta since the age of nine, and he signed a pre-contract agreement with the club when he was 14 and a half years old that stated he would sign professional terms with Lens at 17, the first opportunity under French employment law. Chelsea’s legal advice appears to have been that the pre-contract was unenforceable, an interpretation that François Collado, general manager of Lens at the time, disputed from the outset. Matt Scott, The Guardian.

So as I understand it Lens effectively illegally signed a 14-year-old player and for that they are rewarded by FIFA with just over a million Euros, Chelsea are banned from signing players for 12 months and Kakuta is banned for four months.

Now if both teams weren’t so greedy – Chelsea for wanting to pay less – Lens for wanting more – we’d be none the wiser. You can be sure that Lens isn’t the only football team signing under-age players.

Now greed and football – that’s a venomous combination that’s playing havoc with our national game.

Details of ESPN’s plans for the 46 Premier League matches they’ve the rights to show have been revealed.

The US broadcaster ESPN has announced plans to launch a new UK sports channel, called ESPN, on 3 August.

The channel will show 46 live Barclays Premier League football games, which were to have been shown by Setanta until its recent financial problems.

Sky’s residential customers will have to pay a premium of £9 a month for the new channel if they already pay for Sky Sports or £12 a month if they do not. BBC.

I haven’t written about Chelsea recently, I know it’s a specialist interest, however the latest news that the club has lost £66m for the year to the end of June 2008 and that Russian owner Roman Abramovich has now invested £710m. Of that £66m loss £23m was down to compensation paid to former coaches and managers, but doesn’t include Scolari.

I don’t see exactly why we saw fit to sack Grant and Scolari, When Grant took over we’d had a poor start and finished second in the Premiership taking it to the last game and lost out on penalties in the Champions League – a pretty good record, but still sacked. Then Scolari after 36 games is fired, mainly over poor results for the last month – you can’t judge a manager in just 6 months; it takes years. If you look at the top clubs in England they don’t change managers often – even Benitez is approaching 5 years at Liverpool – the short term appointment of Hiddink isn’t management stability.

If that’s not bad enough for Chelsea fans then the news that in an attempt to scale back its debt, the club is aiming to pay for any purchases this summer by selling players – doesn’t look good for next season; then again how many players will want to sign for a manager-less club? Then again it doesn’t look particularly good for this season.

The management at Chelsea seem to be clueless about how to achieve success, constantly changing managers and financing player purchases out of player sales won’t achieve success.

Source: BBC.

I never had any idea why the European Commission forced the Premier League to split its matches between two broadcasters – something to do with consumer choice, which has been a complete farce it left many football fans having to fork out another thirteen pounds a month to Setanta, which I duly did. I won’t go into the reasons why I no longer subscribe other than to say when I signed up the deal was supposedly a monthly contract; however you try cancelling a Setanta contract, almost impossible. So I’m very happy that Sky has won five out of six of the available packages leaving Setanta with just 23 Saturday evening matches. Source: The Guardian.

In scenes reminiscent of Sunday League half-time’s Hull City’s manager, Phil Brown, kept his players on the pitch for a frozen half-time team talk.

“It was nice and cold out there and I thought it might keep the boys alive,” Brown said. “I felt they looked half dead in the first half. I also felt three or four thousand Hull supporters deserved an apology, some sort of explanation as to why we had been so bad in the first half, and it’s difficult to do that in the confines of a dressing room.” Source: Paul Wilson – The Guardian.

Didier Drogba is facing police and FA investigations after throwing a coin into the crowd during Chelsea’s Carling Cup fourth round defeat to Burnley. Source: BBC.

As I said tosser.

Five minutes, 52 swear words, the start of Newcastle United’s press conference, here’s a transcript.

JK Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]?

SB Me.

JK You’re a cunt.

SB Thank you.

JK Which one is Hickman [Niall, football writer for the Express]? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you’re saying I turned up and they [Newcastle's players] fucked off.

SB No Joe, have you read it, it doesn’t actually say that. Have you read it?

JK I’ve fucking read it, I’ve read it.

SB It doesn’t say that. Have you read it?

JK You are trying to fucking undermine my position already.

SB Have you read it, it doesn’t say that. I knew you knew they were having a day off.

JK Fuck off. Fuck off. It’s your last fucking chance.

SB You read the copy? It doesn’t say that you didn’t know.

JK What about the headline, you think that’s a good headline?

SB I didn’t write the headline, you read the copy.

JK You are negative bastards, the pair of you.

SB So if I get a new job next week would I take the first day off? No I wouldn’t. If I get a new job should I call my boss and tell him I am taking the first day off?

JK It is none of your fucking business. What the fuck are you going to do? You ain’t got the balls to be a fucking manager. Fucking day off. Do I want your opinion. Do I have to listen to you?

SB No, you can listen to who you want.

JK I had a 24-hour meeting with the entire staff.

SB Joe, you are only here six weeks, you could have done that on Sunday, or Saturday night.

JK No, no, no. I didn’t want to do it. I had some other things to do.

SB What? More important things?

JK What are you? My personal secretary? Fuck off.

SB You could have done the meeting Saturday night or Sunday. You could have had them watching videos, you could have organised them.

JK I was meeting the fucking chairman the owner, everyone else. Talking about things.

SB It is a valid point that was made in there. A valid point.

JK I can’t trust any of you.

Niall Hickman Joe, no one could believe that on your first day at your new club, the first-team players were not in. No one could believe it in town. Your first day in the office.

JK My first day was with the coaches. I made the decision that I wanted to get as much information out of them.

NH But why Monday, no one could believe it?

JK I’m not going to tell you anything. I don’t understand where you are coming from. You are delighted that Newcastle are getting beat and are in the state they are? Delighted, are you?

NH Certainly not. No one wants to see them get beaten, why would we?

JK I have done it before. It is going to my fucking lawyers. So are about three others. If they can find something in it that is a court case it is going to court. I am not fucking about. I don’t talk to fucking anybody. It is raking up stories. You are fucking so fucking slimy you are raking up players that I got rid of. Players that I had fallen out with. You are not asking Robbie Earle, because he is sensible. You are not asking Warren Barton? No. Because he is fucking sensible. Anyone who had played for me for 10 years at any level … [but] you will find some cunt that…
Other journalist How long is your contract for Joe?

JK None of your business.

SB Well it is actually, because we cover the club. The club say you are here to the end of October, then you say six to eight games which would take it to the end of November. We are trying to clarify these issues. We are getting no straight answers from anyone. How long are you here for. It is a dead simple question. And you don’t know …

JK I was told the length of contract. Then I was told that possibly the club could be sold in that time. That is as far as I know. That’s it finished. I don’t know anything else. But I have been ridiculed. He’s trying to fucking hide, he’s trying to do this or that.

There follows an exchange regarding the circumstances under which Kinnear had met the owner Mike Ashley and executive director (football) Dennis Wise.

Steve Brenner (football writer for the Sun) We are all grown men and can come in here and sit around and talk about football, but coming in here and calling people cunts?

JK Why? Because I am annoyed. I am not accepting that. If it is libellous, it is going to where I want it to go.

Newcastle press officer What has been said in here is off the record and doesn’t go outside.

Journalist Well, is that what Joe thinks?

JK Write what you like. Makes no difference to me. Don’t affect me I assure you. It’ll be the last time I see you anyway. Won’t affect me. See how we go at Everton and Chrissy [Chris Hughton, assistant manager] can do it, someone else can do it. Don’t trust any of yous. I will pick two local papers and speak to them and the rest can fuck off. I ain’t coming up here to have the piss taken out of me. I have a million pages of crap that has been written about me. I’m ridiculed for no reason. I’m defenceless. I can’t get a point in, I can’t say nothing, I can’t do nothing, but I ain’t going to be negative. Then, half of you, most of you are trying to get into the players. I’m not going to tell you what the players think of you, so then you try and get into them in some way or another, so I’ve got a split camp or something like that, something like that. It’s ongoing. It just doesn’t stop.
Journalist It’s only been a week.

JK Exactly. It feels more like a year.

Journalist It’s early days for you to be like this.

JK No, I’m clearing the air. And this is the last time I’m going to speak to you. You want to know why, I’m telling you. This is the last time. You can do what you like.

Journalist But this isn’t going to do you or us any good.

JK I’ll speak to the supporters. I’m going to tell them what the story is. I’m going to tell them. I don’t think they’ll interpret it any different, I don’t think they’ll mix it up, I don’t think they’ll miss out things. I mean, one of them last week said to me … I was talking about in that press conference where you were there, I said something like “Well, that’s a load of bollocks …”

Journalist “Bollocks to that” is what you said.

JK Bollocks to that. And what goes after that?

Journalist That was it.

JK No it wasn’t, no it wasn’t. What was after it? I don’t know if it was your paper, but what went after it?

Journalist I don’t know.

JK It even had the cheek to say “bollocks to Newcastle”.

Journalist I didn’t write that.

JK That was my first fucking day. What does that tell you? What does that tell you?

Journalist Where was that? Which paper said that?

JK I’ve got it. I can’t remember. It was one of the Sundays, not a Saturday. It was a Sunday.

Journalist But you didn’t say that to the Sundays, you said that to us. That was during the Monday press conference.

JK I’ll bring it in and show it to you. Why would I want to say that?

Journalist Are you saying that someone has reported you saying “bollocks to Newcastle?”

JK Yes. Lovely.

Journalist I don’t know who’s reported that.

JK I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring it in.

Journalist That’s obviously going to damage you. That’s not a good thing. But I don’t think someone’s done that. We have to have some sort of relationship with you.

JK So have I. But I haven’t come in here for you lot to take the piss out of me. And if I’m not flavour of the month for you, it don’t fucking bother me. I’ve got a job to do. And I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. I’m not going to spend any more time listening to any crap or reading any crap. Stick to the truth and the facts. And don’t twist anything.

Journalist You know, you know the game…

JK Of course I know, but I don’t have to like it.

Journalist Today we’ll print the absolute truth, that you think we’re cunts, we can all fuck off and we’re slimy. Is that fair enough?

JK Do it. Fine. Fucking print it. Am I going to worry about it? Put in also that it’ll be the last time I see you. Put that in as well. Good. Do it.

Much, much later after long discussions over whether Kinnear had promised Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan would be returning to the club

Press officer Let’s get on to football. Let’s have an agreement that everything said so far, if anyone has got their tapes on, it’s wiped off and we’re not discussing it.

Journalist But that’s what Joe has said he thinks of us.

Press officer I’m saying don’t push it. Let’s accept what’s been said and try and move on.

Journalist: Move on to not doing any more press conferences?

PO: No, to doing something now.

Journalist: What, one press conference only?

(Silence)

Journalist: Any knocks?

PO: Come on, let’s go football.

Journalist: What are your plans for training in the next three days? How’s the training going?

JK It’s going very well. No problems at all.

Journalist Enjoyed getting back in the swing of things?

JK Absolutely. I’ve loved every moment of it.

Source: The Guardian.

I can’t help thinking Kinnear’s cleverly made himself centre of press attention – no mean feat considering the troubles at Newcastle.

Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien has been ruled out for “several months” after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament, the club has announced.

A Chelsea statement read: “Michael has ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and will undergo an operation as soon as the majority of the swelling has subsided. We expect this to happen in a week’s time.

“In the meantime, Michael has started rehab in the aqua therapy centre at Cobham which will improve the condition of the knee prior to surgery. A return to full fitness is not expected for several months.” Source: The BBC.

Well that’s blown it, there’s no replacement for Michael in our squad – it’ll make for some very difficult games, particularly Manchester United on 21st September.