Peter Wilt lets his sports' team support influence his emotions for better and worse. Here he reacts to Chicago Fire goalkeeper Matt Pickens giving him his 2006 US Open Cup championship medal

I tend to be an emotional person and need to work to avoid both highs and lows in my life.  I also tend to let sports results effect my mood inordinately.  The last week was a difficult week for me personally and professionally and the results of the soccer teams I follow all went against my desires.

I’ll avoid detailing the personal and professional downers except to say that they’re nothing anyone else doesn’t have to deal with on occasion.  I only mention it as it seemed to marry with last week’s soccer results which kept me down for an extended period.

I suppose sporting results, both good and bad, effect every sports fan’s mood to a degree.  Those reading this probably tend to be effected more than the average sports fan and more by soccer than other sports, so I imagine that these readers will commiserate with me a bit more than the typical person.

I had serious interest in four soccer results last week.  The matches and the results in order of importance to me:

UEFA Europa Cup Final, Fulham 1, Atletico Madrid 2:  The Cottagers are the only non-American team I’ve ever supported in any sport.  My Fulham fandom began in January, 2004 when Carlos Bocanegra left the Chicago Fire for Craven Cottage.  Since then Fulham has always had at least one American on its roster.  Fulham has never won a major trophy in its 131 year history and prior to last week had only competed in one other major championship game.  Fulham lost 2-0 to West Ham United in the 1975 FA Cup final.  Yet they seemed destined to win  the Europa Cup this year ever since Clint Dempsey’s special goal advanced Fulham past Juventus in the return leg of the last 16.  131 years without lifting a major trophy is a long time….in any sport.  Wait till next year!

Women’s Professional Soccer: Chicago Red Stars 0, Philadelphia Independence 1:  I left early. I rarely leave early.  But after 72 minutes of this match I could see where this game was going.  My WPS team – I’m a partner in the Red Stars - gave up an early goal (again), staggered through the first half and improved to frustrating in the second half.  We have an owners meeting tomorrow and we’ll be discussing the usual topics of financial and operational updates, but I imagine the topic of this talented team’s inexplicable poor record will also be on the agenda.

Major League Soccer: Chicago Fire 2, Kansas City Wizards 2:  There are two kinds of draws – those that feel like wins….and this one.  Brian McBride subbed in for Collins John at the half and scored a few minutes later to give us what seemed to be an insurmountable 2-0 lead.  It was the second time this year that the Fire captain started the game on the bench only to score soon after being subbed in.  That begs the question that Paul Gardner asked on Monday:  When a star forward scores off the bench, is it coaching genius or a sign that the coach should’ve started the forward in the first place?  Alas, Fire Goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra was caught off balance on the first KC goal and he left a rebound so wide open in the 90th minute that even Kei Kamara couldn’t miss.

FA Cup Final: Chelsea 1, Portsmouth 0:  I’m not proud of it, but as sports allegiances go, I’m also a bit of a hater.  While I passionately support the Wave, Red Stars, Fire, Fulham and White Sox, I also support whoever’s playing against the Cubs, Bears, Manchester United and…..Chelsea.  After winning the Premiership the previous week it was easy to support former Blues coach Avrum Grant and his relegation bound Portsmouth squad in Grant’s revenge match against Chelsea at Wembley in the FA Cup Final.  While the FA Cup brings memories of Monty Python’s philosophers football match -  Immanuel Kant was a real pissant - this match provided real hope for an upset as the clock ticked away.  In fact, Portsmouth had a 56th minute penalty to take the lead, but Kevin-Prince Boateng took it right down the middle (and earlier took Michael Ballack out of the match and the World Cup) and allowed Petr Cech to save.  Just three minutes later Didier Drogba’s 59th minute free kick caught David James flatfooted and the post finally yielded for the first time in six chances against Chelsea.

Throwing himself into his favorite teams has allowed Peter Wilt to enjoy their successes to their fullest.

The cumulative virtual effect of these four decisions along with the barbiturate effect of recent real world factors resulted in my morose mood that carried over to mid-week.  I wish I could separate these results from the reality of life, but long ago I allowed sports results to be part of my life.  The benefit of living life this way is that the victories send me on a high that is memorable and inspiring.

So while I may be down today, the same passion for my sports teams that made me despondent this week will allow me to love and live life to its fullest tomorrow.

A quixotic Milwaukee bar that gave a glimpse at the future of American soccer

Every summer when I was a kid, my dad packed my brother, sister, mom and me in the 1966 apple red Ford Country Sedan Station Wagon and headed out on the American highways in search of Civil War battlefields, countless Holiday Inns and camp grounds.  Being the youngest, I had the last choice of seats and inevitably ended up in the way back, surrounded by suit cases and tent poles facing backwards.  In between exhorting truckers to blast their horn, I would yell a question to the front of the car.  It was the same question that I found myself asking Monday night while sitting at the bar of the 4th Base tavern:  “Are we there yet?”

While the question from the back of the Ford was a high pitched whine requesting an answer towards the end of an 8-10 hour day of driving/riding, the same words I uttered the other day were rhetorical and quizzical.  The question I asked myself Monday was in reference to the United States’ journey to become a soccer nation.

Interior of the 4th Base is a virtual sports museum.

I had tickets to the Mexico vs. Senegal World Cup tuneup at Soldier Field Monday Night.  I also had a 4:00 pm sponsor meeting in suburban Milwaukee.  The meeting went long and the rush hour traffic, exacerbated by Milwaukee’s highway construction,  was bumper to bumper.  I detoured off the highway and tried to cross town on an arterial road.  Another detour directed me past the 4th Base, one of my favorite places in Wisconsin.

As I approached, my Honda Civic Hybrid seemed to take control and pulled itself over at 5117 W. National Avenue.  The 4th Base is a blue collar sports bar in a blue collar town in a blue collar state, West Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Opening the door, there’s a thin haze of cigarette smoke clouding above the U-shaped bar.

Milwaukee Braves pitching staff is one of many old baseball pictures gracing the walls of the 4th Base.

Wisconsin has thousands of bars like it, but none that are JUST like it.  Sure, there’s a 1950s wall mounted pinball machine, Patsy Cline singing from the juke box and a matronly bar maid playing bar dice with a couple of flat topped customers.  The 4th Base, however has a few important differences from the thousands of other shot and a beer joints in America’s Dairyland.  It is a virtual sports museum.

The walls display dozens of old photos – many of them of the bygone Milwaukee Braves who played a dozen years in Milwaukee County Stadium a few blocks north of the bar which now has the stadium’s final home plate embedded in its side.  Many of the photos are of a single

The great Roberto Clemente is memorialized more than a dozen times throughout the 4th Base.

Puerto Rican hero who gave his life for earthquake victims after giving the Pittsburgh Pirates exactly 3,000 hits.  There are football helmets – NFL, college and USFL.  The ceiling is draped in basketball jerseys, including an Atlanta Hawks Pete Maravich #44 and the wooden decorative cover of the Milwaukee Brewers home dugout at old Milwaukee County Stadium.

And of course, dangling over the cash register wearing a white sanitary stocking and blue stirrup sock  is the prosthetic leg of former American League batting champ and Milwaukee Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn.  Kuenn operated Cesar’s Inn, a two (maybe) star motel and bar just down the street for many years.

The last home plate at the old Miwlaukee County Stadium is built into the side of the bar at the 4th Base.

Baseball pictures, basketball jerseys, football helmets - even if impressively unique and classic, are well placed in a homey establishment like the 4th Base.  The food, however, is severely out of place.  There is no menu per se.  Patrons are directed to the refrigerated deli case, which is wedged between the far side of the bar and the ladies room.  There you can view dozens of delectable options inviting your imagination to select the meal.  The cook (it’s hard to call anyone a chef in a place like the 4th Base) will help you choose between steamed lobster, pan fried walleye, crab legs, tilapia, alligator, jumbalaya, filet mignon or killer sirloin burgers.  I chose a 22 ounce black and blue porter house steak with steamed vegetables.

I was shocked Monday night, but not by the food selection, not by the crowd gathering before the Milwaukee Brewers vs. Atlanta Braves game and not even by the chocolate lab sitting a few bar stools away.  I was blown away instead to see what the new bartender was wearing.  His name was Mike, he’s a 2002 graduate of Milwaukee’s Pius XI High School and is going back to school to finish his degree in history from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee – Richie Cunningham’s alma mater.

Mike, the 4th Base bartender, was wearing a Frank Lampard Chelsea jersey.  In this classic Milwaukee establishment, the royal blue top was more out of place than the blackened swordfish or shrimp scampi.  I figured he must be an impostor of sorts.  Assuming he was another recent bandwagon jumper, I asked him how he came to support the Blues.  He said he became a fan in 2005 when he spent a semester in west London and took in a 2-1 Chelsea victory over Fulham in the derby held at Stamford Bridge.  Other signs of true soccer fandom included his knowledge of Didier Drogba’s second half hat trick on Sunday and pleasant recollections of attending Milwaukee Wave indoor soccer games in his youth.

Mike wears his Frank Lampard jersey while Harvey Kuenn's prosthetic leg hangs over the bar,

A couple of patrons teased him for wearing a soccer jersey.  The bar matron came to his defense by saying “At least it’s a sports shirt.”  And then two customers across the bar started chatting with him about Chelsea’s return to the top of the Premier League.  That’s when, thinking that this may be evidence of a tipping point in American soccer, I whispered to myself, “Are we here yet?  Has soccer finally arrived in the United States?”  Mike then burst my bubble.  I asked him if he’d been down to Chicago for an MLS game.  He said he hadn’t, but he’d love to take his fiancée.  I inquired when he was getting married.  His response…and his ignorance to the meaning of the date and time of his wedding, brought my hopes that this was a sign of the arrival of soccer crashing down.

Mike, the American soccer fan who supports England’s (current) top club is getting married on June 12th….at 1:00 pm CT.

Given how things went for Chelsea this week, here's a reminder of when they were "Kings of Europe" (or at least the 1971 winners of the European Cup Winners' Cup).

Photo credit: ca1951rr on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Big Story
Chelsea are debt-free. Their owner and benefactor Roman Abramovich has converted no less than $541 million in interest-free loans to the Premier League club into equity, apparently in advance of possible forthcoming UEFA financial regulations that will require clubs in the Champions League to be breaking even to enter the competition by 2012.

But this does not mean the future is necessarily rosy for the club. Chelsea’s hopes (expressed early into Abramovich’s reign by Peter Kenyon) of becoming profitable by 2010 have clearly not been realised. As generous as Abramovich has been with these loans, now converted to equity, the question remains whether the club can continue at its current competitive level without further massive cash injections from the Russian, which seem unlikely to come.

Indeed, this may be exactly why Abramovich has recently taken a different strategy to squeeze his rivals in the coming years, culminating in this debt-relief. It was a visit from Abramovich himself to Michel Platini at UEFA that gave considerable momentum to the plans for the proposed new “financial fair play” regulations in European competition.

This of course is convenient for Abramovich and Chelsea, as their main rivals do not have the same option of their billionaire owner converting debt into equity. The banks will not be so kind to Manchester United or Liverpool. Abramovich remains rich enough to do this, even if he is not crazy enough to keep pumping in hundreds of millions of more dollars into the club to keep up. He has attempted to make the club big enough to generate serious cash itself, and is now using the unsustainability of the Premier League’s madcap spending that he helped generate in the first place to push UEFA to restrain the rest of the elite as he draws back.

Pretty clever, if you think about it.

Worldwide News

• Yet the dangers of reliance on a benefactor are clearly shown elsewhere in the Premier League. Portsmouth have been given until February 10th to clear their debts to HM Revenue and Customs, a deadline they are unlikely to be able to make, and are thus likely to be made bankrupt. A long saga of mismanagement and broken promises is ending in disaster. As John Beech comments, looking at the club’s history back to the 1970s, “Portsmouth provide a textbook example of the unsustainability of the benefactor model.”
• Gary Megson is fired as manager of Bolton, and it’s the fans blamed by Barney Ronay at the Guardian for “a rather grisly, bullying version of “fan power”.”  It’s curious, though, that the piece never mentions who actually fired Megson (hint: it wasn’t the fans.).
• Everton’s stadium plans are back at the drawing board, though there remains hope the city council can help the club find a new home. Maybe it’ll help that the council leader is an Everton fan.
• Anyone want to read about Ronaldo telling us how “real” football fans should behave? Thought not.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Newcastle United vs. Chelsea, St. James' Park, March 1973.

Photo credit: travelswiss on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Once the English press has sunk its teeth into you, it’ll find anything to try and ramp up the pressure, making a parody of itself in the process. Hence the new “storm” today over John Terry’s selections for FIFA’s World Player of the Year award.

“John Terry FIFA vote storm: England captain names Chelsea pal Michael Ballack as No 2 player in the world (but doesn’t rate runaway winner Lionel Messi)” headlines the Daily Mail, “revealing” (as if all the votes hadn’t been available to the public as PDF downloads since the vote winners were announced yesterday) Terry chose Drogba, Ballack and Iniesta as his vote-winners, meaning he apparently “faces further questions about his professional judgment” (from who, it’s not said).

Last year, Terry voted for Xavi, Fernando Torres and Cristiano Ronaldo, suggesting he just doesn’t rate Messi has highly as some of his Barcelona teammates, a judgment some might say is actually fairly astute. Voting for his own Chelsea teammates this year might have been a little selfish, but it’s pretty clear the “nepotism” Goal.com says questions the validity of FIFA’s system because of Terry’s choices is neither restricted to Terry not exactly much of a secret.

After all, looking at the list of votes, Eto’o voted for three of his old Barcelona pals, Javier Mascherano picked Steven Gerrard in his votes, Thierry Henry picked three current or former Barca teammates (Messi, Eto’o, Xavi), Iker Casillas picked two of his Madrid teammates (Ronaldo, Kaka) and Zlatan Ibrahimovich picked three Barcelona teammates (Messi, Xavi, Iniesta). I could go on, but I’m starting to feel sympathy for John Terry, and that isn’t a pleasant feeling.

Worldwide News

• The English football world has settled on its villain in the Man City debacle, and it’s bumbling CEO Garry Cook, who kindly dug his own grave for the press yesterday by sending out a press release with a blatant lie about when City had first discussed the managerial job with Roberto Mancini. The text of the press release, incidentally, has since been altered on City’s website to reflect Cook’s new recollection of the course of events.
• Meanwhile, the growing number of Italian managers in the English game is shockingly revealed to be down to the money they are paid here and not “altruism” by the Independent, in an otherwise good piece on the contingent.
• Following up on yesterday’s discussion about Marta winning the FIFA Women’s Player of the Year award, there’s an excellent podcast discussion of the award with Shek Borkowski at Set Piece Analysts. Worth a listen as Shek discusses the lack of global awareness even within the women’s game on performance around the world.
• Latest stadium news across North America: the heavy machinery has arrived in Kansas City, Missouri as construction begins on the Wizards new digs; the Vancouver Whitecaps find a temporary location while BC Place is renovated; there is more on the Houston Dynamo’s continued hunt for their own home; and the Portland Timbers’ design plans for PGE Park are revealed, looking like it will keep its intimate feel.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story

The fallout from FIFA’s ruling against Chelsea in the Kakuta case continues to dominate the headlines. Of course, it took that case for the British press to notice that several similar cases were also working their way through FIFA, and today it’s Manchester City under the poaching spotlight, with French club Rennes accusing them of luring away teenager Jeremy Helan. And domestically, Everton are being forced to pay up to £1m for 16 year-old Luke Garbutt, snatched away from Leeds. Such deals may in the future be illegal: UEFA are looking into Michel Platini’s proposed ban on transfers for under 18s, a move which would have to be carefully pursued to abide with European law.

The issue of youth transfers is a more complicated one than the simple morality tales being peddled around, however. Brian Phillips at the Run of Play interestingly raises a forgotten part of this debate: the child himself. “The big-club-vs.-small-club narrative is so ingrained in football that we reflexively see anything that benefits a smaller club at the expense of a bigger club as “fair.” But this isn’t fair. We’ve gotten so used to seeing Premier League clubs as wicked developers strip-mining the talents of poorer continental clubs that we’ve started thinking the latter have some kind of moral right to control the futures of their very young trainees. But players that age ought to control their own futures. In any other field, we’d look at this story and see Lens standing in the way of the right of a child and his parents to decide what’s best for him. In football we see the kid as a strategic weapon in a quasi-declared class war in which his preferences don’t really count.”

Meanwhile, Trevor Brooking asks what damage the influx of foreign talent into British youth academies is doing to the national team’s chances, and the Independent looks at the network of scouting that goes into the Premier League’s poaching strategies. Ian Wright and other former players are also under the spotlight for their academy in South Africa. This story is not going to die any time soon.

Worldwide

• Sheffield United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny received a nine-month ban for failing a drugs test after taking over-the-counter medication, even though the commission accepted he had taken it innocent of any performance enhancing desires. While this might seem harsh at first glance, the commission’s ruling that Kenny had shown a “complete disregard” for his professional responsibilities by failing to consult with anyone at the club before medicating himself does have some merit.
• England’s women are on the verge of glory, where they’re forced to face “perennial nemesis” Germany in the European Championship final this Thursday. The Guardian has a good rundown of who’s who, Richard Williams praises coach Hope Powell to the skies and Tony Leighton profiles up-and-coming England star Eniola Aluko. It’s great to see all this coverage from the Guardian, and lets hope this translates into more regular coverage of the women’s game in general going forward. Oh, and a special good luck from here to England’s Karen Carney of the Chicago Red Stars.
• Thierry Henry ripped into French coach Raymond Domenach with some aplomb at the weekend.
• Perhaps no team will feel more pressure than Bahrain in the World Cup qualifier’s this week. Having never qualified for a World Cup, Bahrain will head to Saudi Arabia — in front of an expected crowd of over 65,000 — in the Asian Football Confederation play-off, with the winner to face Oceania Football Confederation champions New Zealand home-and-away for a place in the World Cup finals.
• There’s a very interesting interview with Blackburn Rovers chairman John Williams in the Lancashire Telegraph. It’s notable not just for some very interesting nuggets of information about Premier League finances, on budgets, wage bills and profit/loss, but also just because Williams is so open about the numbers, explaining plainly to the public why Rovers have spent what they have (and haven’t) this summer. It’d be good to see more of this from other top executives.
• Footiebusiness looks at the disappointing attendance for the New England Revolution, who had their second successive sub 10k turnout at the weekend. A 16,700 average in 2007 declined to 14,300 in 2008, and around 12,000 so far this season. There are a myriad of reasons for the decline, but the fact is despite some solid performance, New England have never gone full throttle on or off the field as an elite club. At the end of the day, much of the blame has to lie at the door of the ownership, the Kraft family.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story

There is, of course, a lot of reaction to digest on the FIFA action against Chelsea announced yesterday for inducing Gaël Kakuta to break his contract with Lens and sign with the London club. Chelsea not surprisingly said they will appeal the decision, stating pompously and with no substantive claim against the actual decision that “The sanctions are without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence and the financial penalty imposed.”

David Conn agrees with our initial thought that given the precedent in various cases, Chelsea may find their appeal to CAS hard going. And Patrick Barclay easily rubbishes the idea this is part of some conspiracy against the English. Henry Winter provides further praise for FIFA, rightly asking “Why should Lens not reap the rewards of all the hard work they poured into nurturing Kakuta?” James Lawton offers a similar reaction to your own editor’s, commenting that “What on earth is happening to football? Could it really be in danger of being properly governed?” Lets not get too excited just yet, but this strong and consistent stance from FIFA is to be applauded.

Meanwhile, David Hytner considers the consequences of this for Chelsea’s Frank Arneson, who was “at a low ebb” at the time of the signing as head of youth development, with the implication being he made a desperate and foolish decision to pursue the brilliant Kakuta at all costs. Surely, though, Peter Kenyon also deserves some blame. The Independent speaks with Lens’ Francis Collado, who asked Arneson for $8m compensation for Kakuta two years ago. According to Collado, Kenyon smiled and said “That’s not possible”. He’s not smiling now.

Finally, on the playing side, Jamie Jackson looks at the consequences for Chelsea, noting that unless there is a successful appeal, Ancelotti will have to cope with a squad assembled almost entirely by his predecessors until 2011. And of course, the key question is: could Kakuta actually be worth all this trouble in the end anyway? Matt Dickinson at The Times and Simon Kass at the Daily Mail profile the so-called Black Zidane, a young man who one must feel a little sorry for given the pressure now riding on him.

Worldwide

• Manchester United fans shouldn’t laugh too hard at Chelsea just yet, as their club face accusations from Le Havre that they induced France U-16 captain Paul Pogba to join them just last month. The French club are saying that United offered very large sums of money to Pogba’s parents to end his contract with the French club.
• From Four Four Two is a rare piece from Iffy Onura, a blogger at the site but better known as a former professional footballer and most recently, assistant manager of Lincoln City. Iffy, along with manager Peter Jackson, was recently fired after a string of poor results and tells us “what it feels like to be sacked”. It’s interesting to see where Iffy places the blame; he laments about the short-term reaction of a “vocal minority” (presumably of supporters), and decries “that scourge of the modern coach/manager, the unofficial websites and forums”, where questioning about Iffy’s role at the club had begun to percolate.
• Real Madrid’s Galactico project(s) have always had a touch of the absurd about them, but their determination to create a caricature out of themselves is confirmed by the announcement of Florentino Perez that the club is “considering the creation of a Disneyland-style theme park” on the outskirts of Madrid.
• Four Four Two looks at the biggest salaries in Serie A. Surprising — even though it is Inter and Mourinho — to see a coach top the scale, has that ever happened before in one of the big four European leagues?
• Dan Steinberg has an excellent piece in which he actually talks to supporters (imagine that!) at the D.C.-Sounders Open Cup Final, with a wide-range of opinions surveyed, the most common comment from the Sounders fans expressing amazement that D.C. could not sell more tickets, despite some grudging respect they all had for Barra Brava. One Barra founder didn’t take kindly to the Seattle visitors, commenting that “You have to earn your stripes….I respect them for coming from far away, but I don’t like them talking [junk]. That’s why they’ve become to me, if not No. 1, the second place people we hate, besides New Jersey. We respect people as long as they don’t mess around. They need to show respect.”
• FIFA.com has its weekly, excellent world leagues preview to get you ready for the less obvious action around the globe.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Gael Kakuta

Big Story
I’m not sure there’s much point to the rest of the Sweeper given the dominance of today’s Chelsea news: the club have been banned by FIFA from signing players for the next two transfer windows, meaning they won’t be able to register a new player until January 2011. FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber found that Chelsea were guilty of “inducement to breach of contract” by luring Gael Kakuta from Lens in the summer of 2007. But does this decision follow precedent, and does Chelsea have a good chance to overturn it on appeal?

It’s worth looking at the actual FIFA articles related to the ruling. FIFA announced that “sporting sanctions were imposed on both the player and Chelsea in accordance with art. 17 par. 3 and 4 of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players.” It’s 17.4 that pertains to Chelsea, and leads to the registration ban:

17.4
In addition to the obligation to pay compensation, sporting sanctions shall be imposed on any club found to be in breach of contract or found to be inducing a breach of contract during the protected period. It shall be presumed, unless established to the contrary, that any club signing a professional who has terminated his contract without just cause has induced that professional to commit a breach. The club shall be banned from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, for two registration periods. (emphasis mine)

It seems clear, of course, that Kakuta failed to convince the DRC that he had “just cause” to break his contract and that Chelsea failed to convince FIFA’s DRC that they had not induced the player to such a breach, with the burden being on them to do so.

It’s important to note that FIFA have had this set of articles on their books since at least 2005 (the earliest set of regulations they have published on their website from that year contains the same wording). The Court of Arbirtration for Sport, to whom Chelsea have 21 days to appeal the decision to, has upheld FIFA’s decisions in similar cases before on breach of contract, an issue that FIFA and CAS have stressed strongly in recent years, quite rightfully in my view.

In 2008, the CAS upheld FIFA’s decision against Czech player Tomas Mica and Swiss side FC Wil 1900 in a breach of contract case after the player signed for FC Wil 1900 despite being under contract to PFC Naftex AC Bourgas. And the CAS also upheld FIFA’s decision against Al Kuwait SC, who were ordered to pay compensation for breach of contract and banned from signing players for two registration periods after it was found they had breached the contract of Vjatseslav Zahovaiko.

Of course, we don’t know the precise details of this case, and it’s possible Chelsea will find some convincing grounds for appeal we don’t know about. But given the CAS has upheld FIFA’s firm stance for contract integrity before, it would have to be a very well-grounded and exceptional case proving Kakuta had “just cause” to break his contract (such as maltreatment by Lens).

I’ve already seen much discussion claiming FIFA has a conspiracy against English clubs and many presuming this will easily be thrown out on appeal. But it’s clear that FIFA is applying its rulebook consistently and that CAS has upheld rulings based on these articles before. Chelsea had better have an ace up their sleeve to present to the CAS to wiggle out of this one.

Given all the focus on Chelsea today, just a brief roundup of other news for you:

Worldwide

• A rare report on North Korean football appears with a profile of goalkeeper Ri Myong-guk, apparently known as the “Gatekeeper of the Iron Wall”.
• Jamie Jackson looks at the challenge facing Portsmouth. Already off to a terrible start to the season, they now face the task of integrating a further seven new players signed in the past week.
• Meanwhile, West Ham’s finances look even worse than we presumed they were, with debts and other liabilities approaching  £100m.
• The Seattle Sounders beat DC United 2-1 yesterday to win the US Open Cup. We have of course followed the marketing effort for this final closely, and the announced crowd of 17,329 pleased DC’s PR team — not that that will make up for the defeat or the embarrassing red card for Josh Wicks.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Part of the confusion was that many of the African students assumed all English speaking visitors were, in one way or another “Englishmen” (in the same way many Americans assume “Africa” is all one place).  But mostly it was just a matter of one of the odd and interesting effects of globalization: in many parts of Africa pieces of one’s identity are wrapped up in the English Premier League.  With the start of the new EPL season and the countdown to South Africa 2010 I was reminded of those exchanges, and inspired to think a bit about the ways that European soccer and African soccer get wrapped up in the dynamic flows of globalization (a topic that has been previously raised on Pitch Invasion).

The phenomenon of Premier League fandom in Africa is not the only interesting example of soccer and globalization, and I hope to write some future posts about issues such as European teams that set up youth academies in Africa and related issues of labor immigration.  I also recognize that the popularity of the Premiership in contrast to other elite leagues varies significantly between African nations, often due to different histories and languages (when I lived in Angola I saw more knock-off versions of Benfica jerseys than I had previously assumed to exist in the world—related both to an interest in the Portuguese league and a local version of the club).

But for no other reason than entertainment value, the strange presence of the Premier League in the many parts of African consciousness is a fun place to start.  When I was travelling in Uganda and Kenya I found it greatly amusing to observe the markers of Premiership fandom in all sorts of odd places—from graffiti on rural huts to logos on urban minibuses.  And throughout I’ve found it interesting to reflect a bit on what it all means.

Seeing the Premiership in the most unexpected places

African passions for European soccer have exploded with the increasing availability of television and satellite broadcasts.  I saw an example of this process during my first stint in Africa when I lived in Malawi between 1996 and 1998.  At the time, I was told, Malawi was the most populous country in the world still without any television stations.  But they were working on it, and South African satellite television was starting to become widely available in urban areas.  When the Institute where I worked obtained one of the first satellite televisions in the area, it immediately became a week-end gathering place for soccer fans and Saturdays with the EPL became a major local happening.

In the ten years between those Saturdays and my trip to east Africa last summer the infusion of media technology (including television, internet, and cell phones) has been the single most obvious change in African life.  Though most households still do not have televisions of their own, televisions are available at various points in most communities and budding entrepreneurs regularly charge token admission for coming together to watch soccer.  The improvisational effort is often impressive—in an electricity-less Angolan refugee camp where I worked in 2002-2003 the local televisions were hooked up to car batteries for the important matches.

Interest in watching the EPL has also grown with the increasing presence of African players in the Premiership; last year the BBC published an account of the EPL’s popularity in Nigeria, tying interest there to the 1997 signing of Celestine Babayaro by Chelsea.  That account (along with a similarly themed article on soccer in Kenya) also highlights one of the major concerns about the EPL fandom in Africa—that it is taking fans and resources away from already tenuous national leagues within African nations.  While I take up that concern below, the pervasive interest in the Premiership is beyond question.

Among my examples, for me that most striking came when I was on a boat in western Uganda, far from any major urban center and not many miles from the quiet tragedy that is the Democratic Republic of Congo.  While on a wildlife cruise we passed a fishing village where some of the locals had taken to marking their canoes with favorite tags.  One, apparently, was a fan of Manchester United and to my great dismay had turned his two man fishing vessel into a moving billboard for that icon of the ills of global capitalism—the American Insurance Group.  I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry.

This habit of tagging one’s life with the monikers of EPL clubs proved to be surprisingly popular across the communities I visited.  In one village outside of Jinja, Uganda houses had been marked with tributes to Arsenal and Chelsea:

Likewise, at a school near Kyarusozi, a Ugandan student had used chalk to pay tribute to Patrice Evra of Man United, and to document Liverpool’s triumph over Arsenal on the chalkboard that served as the school’s official timetable:

And then there was the business side of things; In Dandora Kenya (an area in Nairobi) local businesses both identified themselves with their favorite teams and set up small businesses by creating improvised home theaters to show Premier League soccer:

Finally, when I was travelling through Kampala, Barclays Bank (which has a large presence in Uganda and a few other African countries) sponsored a visit by the Premier League trophy sans players or teams:

Beyond conveying the power of branding, I think such scenes fascinate me because they highlight what seems initially to be an incongruity.  When outsiders think about Africa we often think of poverty and under-development; in service of rationalizing the value of our relative wealth we imagine life in Africa to consist largely of desperation and necessity.  Seeing passionate fandom for distant and ultimately frivolous endeavors such as the Premiership seems counter to what we imagine of Africa.

I always think of this fallacy as akin to the subtly pernicious popularity of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—we like the idea (despite much evidence to the contrary) that life is a pyramidal progression that makes for simple and logical paths up from the “basics” like food and shelter to the really good stuff like love and aesthetic pleasure.  But human needs are more complex than that, and it is possible to simultaneously suffer from global inequalities and genuinely enjoy a good London derby.  But that still leaves the question of whether the global reach of the Premier League is ultimately a good or bad thing for Africa.

Soccer as neo-imperialism?

When academics and intellectuals talk about globalization they usually talk about bad things.  A 2007 Economist article about the popularity of the Premier League in Africa, for example, was titled “Neo-imperialism at the point of a boot: The English premiership sweeps all before it.” The charge of “neo-imperialism” is a common theme of fears about globalization, the idea being that modern global power dynamics allow Western influences to overrun local cultures.  Certainly the popularity of the EPL does logically suggest that even beyond competing with local leagues for business (which is a real problem—but one I also worry about in the US and MLS with the increasing availability of the EPL on outlets such as ESPN), former colonial masters still unduly define the parameters for how to organize, present, and maybe even play soccer.

At least one African graduate student (whose work I stumbled across in researching this post) has analyzed the influence of the EPL as a form of “media imperialism.” Looking at the case of Premiership fans in Zambia, Leah Komakoma notes the widespread popularity of the Premier League in Lusaka and recognizes the potential that popularity creates for Zambians to come under the sway of European marketing and ideals.  But ultimately that potentiality depends upon the people themselves—and Komakoma argues that the Zambian Premiership fans she interviewed were competent enough to decide for themselves what they want to take from their soccer consumption.

Franklin Foer made a similar point in an article he wrote for Foreign Policy about globalization and soccer titled “Soccer vs. McWorld” (written before the publication of his interesting book on similar topics How Soccer Explains the World).  Arguing that Sven Goran Eriksson’s tenure with the English national team was more a matter of the Swede adapting to a stereotypically English style than imposing his own continental ambitions, Foer claims

When Eriksson succumbed to Englishness, he upended one of the great clichés of the antiglobalization movement: that a consequence of free markets is Hollywood, Nike, and KFC steamrolling indigenous cultures.  It is ironic that the defenders of indigenous cultures so often underestimate their formidable ability to withstand the market’s assault.

So do African communities possess this “formidable ability” or is this just an excuse for unfettered corporate capitalism to steamroll the soccer world?  In my opinion it is probably a little bit of both.  As most soccer fans of any nationality can attest, the EPL is a masterpiece of entertainment marketing that provides pleasures similar to any addictive (potentially dangerous) drug.  The telecasts brim with energy and atmosphere, while the storylines and allegiances create an unending stream of drama and conversation. Despite my most virulent resentments of economic systems that allow for insane concentrations of wealth among Premier League owners, I can’t seem to stop myself from getting up at ungodly early hours (at least for a Saturday) to catch Fox Soccer Channel’s west coast presentation of Manchester City v Wolverhampton (Man City of all teams!).

What’s more, part of the appeal of the EPL in Africa is what appeals about being a sports fan anywhere—it’s enthralling to identify with teams that offer a sense of community, aesthetic pleasure, and emotional engagement.  The recent enthusiasm over American sports writer Bill Simmons seeming conversion to soccer fandom through his gushing about watching the US play Mexico at Azteca, for example, was preceded by his own intentional effort to find an EPL team to support (likely to the confusion of many Africans he chose Tottenham—not a team I ever saw mentioned in Uganda or Kenya).  Is Bill Simmons just another victim of neo-imperialism?

If we grant that EPL fandom is an enthralling endeavor, and that African soccer fans have every right to share, then the most interesting question here may not be whether the globalization of the Premiership is a neo-imperialist endeavor but whether African fans can find additional spaces in their hearts (and their pocketbooks) for local leagues?  Unfortunately, the reality is that many African nations have neither the infrastructure, population base, nor the expendable income to support high level leagues.  There are, however, some gradations within that generalization—and a recent piece by Mark Gleeson offers some optimistic projections about South Africa’s Premier Soccer League.

It may then be the case that leagues in smaller and poorer nations will continue to struggle—those Ugandan schoolboys will likely continue to attend more carefully to the travails of “Liverpol” than the latest Ugandan Super League showdown between Kinyara Sugar Works FC and Uganda Revenue Authority (known locally as the “Taxmen”).  But those struggles likely have more to do with the widespread challenges of underdevelopment than with loving the EPL.  As with so many things in Africa, there is a disconnect between human experience and global systems of inequality—and soccer gives us all a chance to think about that fundamental question: Who do you support?