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

The Big Story

UEFA again expressed concern at the spending by the likes of Man City, with general secretary David Taylor commenting “I would say in this financial climate, it is surprising – a little bit destabilizing of the market”. Taylor goes on to voice concerns about the level of debt in English football, worrying clubs will spend too much to match City: “There are a number of English clubs where the value of the club itself has fallen significantly and they are effectively on the market,” he said.

Indeed, this report on the plunging value of many English clubs — a number of which were recently sold for less than City bid for Joleon Lescott — ought to wake folks up. The business is not always a fairytale.

So why do these warnings fall on deaf ears to so many administrators and fans in English football?  Twohundredpercent says “Just as no-one thought it would happen to them when it happened to Leeds United, and no-one thought that it would happen to them when it happened to Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton Athletic or any of a sizeable number of other clubs, so it is that most football supporters are still thinking that it will never happen to them.” Of course, it will.

Worldwide News

• Marcela Mora y Araujo has another excellent article on the financial crisis in Argentina we mentioned last week, commenting that the “the worst-case scenario” of no football kicking off as scheduled on August 14th remains a serious prospect, especially with the undercurrent to the discussion centering on the thorny issue of internet gambling.
• Looks like Some People On The Pitch have another good series coming, with a new weekly round-up of all things French — to start things off, they preview Ligue 1.
• And another excellent season preview comes at SoccerLens, where Gary Andrews looks at the runners and riders in England’s fifth tier Blue Square Premier. It’s hard to see anyone stopping Luton (as another preview agrees), relegated from League Two for financial reasons — and will this season see the final unravelling of internet fan-0wned Ebbsfleet United?
• Match of the century! Easter Island, located in the Pacific Ocean around 3,500km from the nearest point of mainland Chile, is hosting its first ever official match on Wednesday against Colo Colo in a game to be broadcast nationally in Chile.

North American News

• We wrote today about the touchy dynamic of players tweeting, but it’s spreading much higher in the food chain — Chivas de Guadalajara’s owner Jorge Vergera might have found the perfect medium for his short temper, as on Twitter he blamed his players for a recent defeat and defended their coach.
• In a very long piece at Yanks Abroad, the father of Kenny Cooper — recently transferred from FC Dallas to 1860 Munich — rips into the league’s treatment of Americans, saying MLS is substantially underpaying homegrown talent and forcing Americans abroad, warning of labor strife ahead: ‘There are all these stipulations and rules, but to me they’re all one-sided. It’s going to culminate with the union and the MLS getting together and agreeing to respectfully disagree. I would hope that the players don’t even think about going on strike, but something’s got to give.”  In this economic climate, it’s hard to see the players having a lot of leverage, however.
• Speaking of the MLS Players Union, the negotiations on the Collective Bargaining Agreement are just revving up — the Sports Business Journal reports the players are asking for guaranteed contracts and free agency. The latter appears to be a bargaining chip to gain the former, but even that seems unlikely — just how far are players prepared to go to get a good deal?

We covered the first at Celtic earlier today, I promise we’ll get to Arsenal’s Usmanov again soon as promised, but let’s look first at the latter as an interesting article has popped up about Thaksin Shinawatra.

In the Guardian, Richard Williams argues that Sven-Goran Eriksson’s acquisition of three Thais this week represents the bubbling to the surface of the agenda behind Shinawatra’s purchase of Man City.

Shinawatra, accused by Amnesty International of being a a “human rights abuser of the worst kind”, is according to Williams using City to play his way back into Thai politics, where the military junta still has him under indictment for corruption.

Whilst Shinawatra has made much of the undremocratic nature of the current leadership, his own rule was severely compromised morally itself (see this letter from Amnesty International to Shinawatra expressing concern over “excessive force against demonstrators; torture of detainees; and the impunity enjoyed by state officials for alleged human rights violations in Thailand”). Therefore, it is rather depressing to see football used to assist Shinawatra’s efforts to regain power.

Democratic elections are promised for next month, and Eriksson’s trip has been widely seen as part of Thaksin’s attempt to renew his popularity within the country. Unable to stand for election while facing charges of financial impropriety, he is believed to have been financing the campaign of the People Power Party, and his successful takeover of City has kept his profile high with Thailand’s millions of Premier League fans. The recruitment of the trio of Thai international players – Suree Sukha, a right-back, Kiatprawut Saiwaeo, a centre-back, and Teerasilp Dangda, a striker – is being seen in the same light. Should his party succeed in the polls, the charges against Thaksin would be dropped and the way cleared for his return.

“I’m glad democracy is returning to Thailand and it’s a pity that I couldn’t be there,” Thaksin said in the video message. “My aims are to make a good reputation for Thailand, both in managing the club and creating new talented players.” Plans were also announced for City to set up a football academy in Bangkok.

In between autographing City shirts which had been handed to guests by Thaksin’s daughters, Eriksson said the signings were not a direct order from City’s new owner. “We’re a football team, and the players are footballers. We never discuss politics,” he said. He added that he expected Sukha to appear in City’s first-team squad next year while the other two would be sent to feeder clubs, probably in Belgium and Switzerland, to await work permits.

“We know this is political, but that is not the only reason,” the head coach of the Thai national team, Charnwit Polcheewin, remarked with disarming honesty. Well, presumably the three new signings can actually play football. But the primary purpose of the transfers is as plain as the nose on Eriksson’s face, and it makes a mockery of everyone, from Richard Scudamore to David Dein, who tries to pretend that the Premier League’s new foreign owners are motivated solely by a lifelong love affair with English football – and also, incidentally, of anyone who believes that the wholesale influx of foreign players is not hampering the opportunities for young English footballers.

I don’t think it matters that Shinawatra is foreign in itself, and the last part is something we do believe (as we’ve argued recently) though if this insidious affair reaches the stage that Micah Richards is dropped just so that Suree Sukha can get a game in time for the Thai elections, maybe we’ll hear more protest from City fans over their ownership.