Real engineered ‘Ronaldo in Paris?’

There is a theory that on the eve before Ronaldo joined Real Madrid from Manchester United for a world record fee of £80 million, greater forces were at work. On his Guardian blog, Mark Borkowski argues that it is highly likely Ronaldo’s appearance in a nightclub in America canoodling with the infamous socialite Paris Hilton was no accident. Borkowski suggests it was orchestrated by Real Madrid, as part of a media onslaught designed to place their future player on the course to celebrity stratosphere.

I agree with Borkowski, it is undoubtedly a marriage made in franchise heaven and the headlines lived up to expectation. I can’t help but think however, and I may be naiive, that there is no -way on earth Real Madrid could organise a piss up in a brewery let alone a media campaign that involved placing Christiano Ronaldo alongside Paris Hilton the night before the player moved to Real Madrid.

There are many reasons why, the first of which being Real’s appalling pursuit of Ronaldo last summer, the protracted transfer that never was led to an awful season for Real and was rather embarrassing for all involved, in short, a PR disaster. Second, it was inevitable Ronaldo would go. Third, and this is crucial to Borkowski’s argument, it is argued that ‘they want to hook the American Latino market, which is where the US's huge soccer audience is to be found’; why then, does Ronaldo appear on the front cover of the UK tabloids? And why are these the only articles highlighted? I would suggest the reason is this would not be deemed worthy news elsewhere.

Ronaldo is the best football player in the world. He has just been bought from one of the biggest clubs in world football for a monumental world record fee. The fact he is in a club with Paris Hilton is inevitable, that it is the day before the deal is confirmed is credit to her.

Jack posts encore-porate sponsorship

The Times: "Manchester United are expected to announce the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in football history in the next few hours after agreeing an £80million partnership with Aon Corp, the American financial giant. "

Reading this piece of good news for the Red Devils, I had a real urge to listen to Linkin Park and Jay-Z.

Can I get Aon Corp? Do want you more?

...probably taking the piss if they do. There's a recession on after all.

N.B. Money can't buy you happiness. I'll leave Barcelona and Unicef to lecture United on this point.

Team GB looks likely...

There is an excellent post on the BBC by Mihir Bose on the decision for there to be a British football team at the 2012 Olympics. I certainly did not know the background to this debate. Bose makes a good point when he points to the unique privileges afforded the home nations; this combined with a nationalist sentiment prominent in Scotland in particular and in Wales, to a lesser extent, has led to a roadblock of what might still be quite an exciting project.

It is a situation which I find exasperating though. It’s a shame that there can’t be a genuine British football team, on a similar basis to that of the Lions Rugby Union team. There is no debate I have come across about the extent to which a Lions rugby tour erodes our sense of national identity.

Indeed there is so much, in my view, that football could learn from rugby union. Simply at a pragmatic level, the world of football is so reluctant to embrace new technology. Florent Malouda’s goal from the FA cup final is a case in point, video/goal line technology would assist referees and their assistants no end. We are reluctant to amend current regulations sensibly, the fact that someone could be sent off for taking their shirt off is beyond me. Of course there are a lot of positive goings on at the top end of football, but I certainly believe that they could be humble enough to learn from best practice achieved elsewhere and I hope that there may yet be hope for a genuine British football team to take part in the 2012 Olympics.

That’s it. Rant over.