With a familiar name and ambitious backers, Mike Woitalla finds the MLS’s latest team are already winning over the locals
The city known for Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft and grunge rock is giving Major League Soccer a welcome boost as it copes with David Beckham’s jilt and a tanking economy. And if the Seattle Sounders ring familiar, it’s because they’re the reincarnation of a North American Soccer League (NASL) team that popularized the sport in the Pacific Northwest.
Bradford left it to the last moment before calling off their match with Darlington. Jason McKeown looks at why they waited
Football postponements are rarely satisfying. Often one manager will launch conspiracy theories about the other pressurising the referee to call it off, the chairman rues money lost on those now worthless pie orders and programmes, away supporters who’d already set off complain it should have been postponed sooner.
Setanta will be covering half as many Premier League games as a result of their new deal. Denis Hurley ponders the implications
Where now for Setanta? The Irish company’s attempt to play hardball in the recent Premier League live TV rights negotiations ended with it winning only half of what it previously had. They will be paying £159 million to show 23 live games on Saturday evenings for the three years from 2010-11, down from the 46 of the previous deal as Monday night games were lost.
Pubs are asserting their right to show matches on foreign channels and games are being fed online. Dave Lee looks at how our viewing habits are threatening Sky’s stranglehold
Broadcasters, football clubs and the Premier League have stepped up their pursuit of pubs using foreign subscriptions to show live games – and the battle is going all the way to the European Court of Justice.
After a winter of mud and ice Ligue 1 sides are eyeing a permanent solution to bad pitches, reports James Eastham
When French sports daily L’Equipe described the Emirates Stadium pitch as “magnificent” the day after Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Roma in the Champions League last 16, you could almost hear the envy in their voice. Ligue 1 has just emerged from a winter in which the dreadful playing surfaces made a mockery of dozens of games. The word bachee (tent) entered the sporting lexicon as French clubs erected great big canvases over their pitches in futile bids to keep the frost at bay. When the covers came off just before kick-off, referees would usually decide pitches were playable, but the evidence in front of our eyes said otherwise.