Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Only three Premiership teams are definitely through the Quarter Final.
FA Cup holders Chelsea have been given an away tie in today’s Sixth Round draw. The Blues will travel to Barnsley, who sensationally won at Anfield last Saturday. The other two, Manchester United and Portsmouth, have been drawn to play each other at Old Trafford. United won 2-1 when they met in the Fourth Round last season, also at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’.
Ricky Lambert’s late goal on Saturday put Bristol Rovers into the last eight for the first time for half a century. Even Jack Sparrow will be struggling to get a ticket with half of Bristol wanting to see the Pirates take on West Bromwich.
Sheffield United or Middlesbrough v Cardiff City; Manchester United v Portsmouth; Bristol Rovers v West Bromwich Albion and Barnsley v Chelsea are the Quarter Final matches.
The FA distributes prize money and broadcast payments to clubs for their participation in The FA Cup.
The FA’s stated objective is to use The FA Cup to redistribute funds throughout the game and together the prize fund and the television monies represent an investment in the competition of around £15 million.
All clubs receive money from The FA’s Prize Fund, while for matches on TV, live or highlights, or on the radio.
The most significant payments are: £900,000 for each winner of semi-finals matches and £1,000,000 for the FA Cup winner.
Tags: FA Cup
Posted in Chelsea FC, Manchester United, Portsmouth | No Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
Manchester United have moved from fourth to second in the list of the world’s richest clubs and Barcelona has reached second place, as Real Madrid stayed top for the third straight year.
Deloitte’s Football Money League, which is based on revenues generated during 2006/07, was headed by United for eight years until the Spaniards deposed them.
Chelsea are fourth in Deloitte’s table, even though the Blues regularly make huge losses. Arsenal are fifth. In all, there are seven British clubs in the top 20.
Three of the four clubs that dropped out of the list were also British - Manchester City, Glasgow Rangers, and West Ham United.
And, looking ahead to next year’s report, the authors state that “2007/08 could see England providing half the Money League clubs”.
The list shows that the game’s riches continue to be monopolised by the same group of clubs, with only one change in the top 10 from the previous season.
Deloitte’s figures take into account income from ticket sales, merchandising and broadcasting contracts but do not include transfer revenues.
Between them, the collective revenue of the top 20 clubs - all European - grew by 11% to £2.5bn in 2006/07, the highest rate of growth since 2002/03.
The 5 first places of that League are ( in millions of £): Real Madrid 236.2, Manchester United 212.1, Barcelona 195.3, Chelsea 190.5 and Arsenal 177.6.
Tags: Deloitte's
Posted in Chelsea FC, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Real Madrid | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
If we had to tell which team has got the best fans, we would say Liverpool (with the exception of Celtic). What a coincidence…! Both teams have got the marvellous hymn of “You’ll never walk alone” (which is singed before every match by everyone that is in the stadium, no matter if it’s CelticPark or Anfield), and they also share the hobby of drinking as much beer as possible (before, during and after the match). (Listen Liverpool’s fans singing “You’ll never walk alone”)
When fans of any team like (or love) a player, because he is fantastic, they use to say (in chorus) his name, but in Anfield, they not just say the name, they try to look for a piece of a song and create a lyric to sing him. Is really impressive the creativity of the kop (Liverpool fans)!
Many songs have been created for Spanish players that are playing in Liverpool, today we will focus in Torres’ song (Xabi Alonso and Luis Gracia have also got one, but no-one have been created so quickly as the Spanish striker) There are 2 versions, with the same music, but with different lyrics. Now in Spain there’s an ad in TV with this song, is called “Ants go marching” (in the ad… “los animales de dos en dos ua… ua…”). Whach ad). The two versions of the lyrics are:
His armband proved he was a red, torres torres
You’ll Never Walk Alone it said, torres torres
We bought the lad from sunny spain, he gets ball, he scores again
Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s number 9
Fernando Torres came from Spain, Olé, Olé
He came to make us great again, Olé, Olé
The Spion Kop will roar him on
He scores the goals and he scores for fun
And we all get blind drunk
When Torres scores a goal
Tags: fans, Fernando Torres, Spion Kop
Posted in Chelsea FC, Liverpool | No Comments »