Pearce’s decision to leave Beckham out of the Olympic squad shocks everyone

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Harry Redknapp, the recently sacked manager of Spurs, has said that Stuart Pearce’s decision to leave David Beckham out of his GB Olympic squad had effectively made him kiss goodbye to the possibility of ever getting a knighthood. He also praised Pearce, however, for being brave enough to go against the majority of football fans and chose the squad that he wanted.

Redknapp, speaking to The Sun, said that undoubtedly Pearce will have upset some in high places who would have loved to see Beckham in the squad, and he himself was sad and surprised he hadn’t been picked. Redknapp added that Pearce could kiss a knighthood goodbye, but credit had to be given for his bravery as he was the manager and should be free to choose who he wants.

Beckham had spoken of his hopes that he would be included in the squad as one of the 3 over-age players each team is allowed, and he was widely expected to be picked by those inside and outside of football. He made it as far as the extended list of possibles, but revealed yesterday that he had not made the final cut, and the 3 places are understood to have gone to Craig Bellamy, Micah Richards and Ryan Giggs.

Danny Mills, the former England defender who was a teammate of Beckham’s in the World Cup of 2002, has hit out at the decision of Pearce and claims that the former boss of Manchester City has, in the past, struggled with big players and while everyone around the world knows ‘Brand Beckham’ he is still one of the finest footballers and can still cut it.

Beckham was a key player in drumming up support for the bid London put in to stage the games back in 2005, and it looks likely that the chairman of London 2012, Sebastian Coe, will now offer him a role in the Olympics.

 

Maradona’s shirt set to be the star exhibit at the new Museum of Football

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The new National Football Museum certainly has some interesting exhibits, including a penalty shootout area, coins given out at petrol stations and one of Maradona’s shirts. Whilst Steve Hodge may not be English footballers most memorable figures, and is often referred to more as a journeyman than a star, he is the proud owner of this most renowned item of football memorabilia.

At the end of the notorious quarter final in the World Cup of 1986, when a certain Mr Maradona effectively punched England out of the competition with his hand of god goal, it was Hodge who swapped shirts with the diminutive Argentine cheat. From that day he has held this in his possession, well almost, as he had to keep it in his bank as his home insurance company deemed it to valuable to insure under his contents policy.

While it isn’t recorded anywhere officially, it’s rather safe to assume that Diego didn’t have the same problem with Hodge’s shirt. From next weekend though, Hodge will no longer have to make an appointment with his bank manager if he wants to have a look at this shirt of shame, as it will take its place amongst the 3000 items that make up the display of Manchester’s new National Museum of Football.

Adam Comstive is the marketing and communications manager for the museum, and he says that when they have had test groups around, it’s one of the first things they go to see. He added that he thinks its is an object that we all love to hate.

To be honest, the object of such revision isn’t much to look at. A short sleeved, Royal Blue shirt with visible scuff marks on the neck, presumably from where it had to be stretched to fit over the wearers vastly oversized head.

 

Blackburn start their Championship campaign with Steve Kean at the helm

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At the start of the new championship season Blackburn Rovers will have a manager in the shape of Steve Kean. Shebby Singh, the club’s new global advisor, announced that an agreement has been made with Kean.

Rovers were relegated in May, following 11 years in the Premiership. Supporters have been putting increasing pressure on club owners Venky’s and Keane himself since Sam Allardyce was replaced in December 2010 be the Scot. The 44-year-old flew to India at the end of last season for talks with Venky’s, and it appears he will be trying to lead Blackburn back to Premiership football in the first year.

Mr Singh who is a former Malaysian international, and has been working as a football pundit recently in Asia, was appointed by Blackburn Rovers Football Club at the start of the week.

Although he reportedly called for Kean to be sacked in a Singapore paper (New Paper), he now appears to support the Scot. In the newspaper column he said that Steve Keane was not the man to lead the club back to the Premiership. He has stated that when the article was written, he was looking at him critically as a sports pundit, not as a work colleague.

Mr Sing goes on to explain that they need to talk about certain aspects for an extremely long time. He feels that there were a lot of areas which weren’t looked into in the last season. In particular He mentioned tactically naïve, lightweight teams, players past their prime, team members who were played out of position and unhappy players.

He said they weren’t going to wallow in self-pity, but quickly move on. Mr Singh agrees he has been critical and in his new role as global adviser his views need to be more constructive.

 

Ex manager Walter Smith seeks to buy Rangers

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A new bid to buy Rangers has been announced by former manager of the side, Walter Smith. The offer is thought to be approximately £6m and Mr Smith will put part of the money in alongside other Scottish businessmen, to include Douglas Park and Jim McColl. Mr Smith has asked the previous leading bidder, Charles Green, to stand aside. Mr Green and his consortium were about to complete their £5.5m purchase.

Mr Smith has confirmed in a statement that he is leading a bid for the club, saying that he and his partners want the club to be in the capable hands of Rangers people, to help stabalise the club. He continued by saying that he had asked Mr Green to step aside so the deal could proceed, saying that the new deal would be in the best interests of the clubs employees, the fans, the creditors and all other stakeholders of Rangers F.C.

This development came on the day the CVA (company voluntary arrangement) was rejected. This failed after Revenue and Customs told the club’s administrators that it would not vote in favour of the proposal. The club required 75% backing to move it out of administration. Rangers Football Club now moves towards liquidation and Mr Green will soon acquire the business and assets of Rangers Fc on a newco basis. On Thursday the administrators confirmed an ‘imminent’ newco deal, following the rejection of the CVA.

Mr Smith, who was at the Ibrox helm for two successful spells, said that the motivation behind the 11th hour bid was simply to save the club, and not because anyone in the group wanted to own Rangers Football Club. The consortium hope to make the club self-sufficient, and stress that long term sustainability is essential.

Rangers demotion could lead to Sky pulling out of SPL TV deal

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Sky is ready to pull out of the £110million deal to show SPL games should Rangers plunge to Division Three, causing terror and stress in the boardrooms. However, it may not be such a bad thing. Matches were traditionally played from 3pm on a Saturday but now times differ according to TV air time, putting many supporters off.

Club chairmen are dreading the thought of the SPL without the funding that Sky gives. Stephen Thompson, of Dundee United, said that they day the club has to go without satellite cash could be described as Armageddon; Michael Johnston from Kilmarnock is not too pleased about the idea either.

If the game went back to the old days, kicking off at 3 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, the clubs would be taking a huge gamble. However the management teams do not want to ignore what the supporters want. They understand that a club needs supporters to survive, however they also need large injections of cash flow, which is one thing that Sky TV coverage regularly brings.

They have a difficult decision ahead of them on how to find the balance. Generally the two main revenue streams are TV money and sales of season tickets, but smaller clubs need the TV money to remain in business.

A huge 30% of the SPL income received by Dundee United this season came from television contracts. With clubs such as Kilmarnock in considerable debt it is important to have a regular income, which is promised with the Sky deal. Kilmarnock FC have tried a number of ways to pull more crowds in, however they remain unconvinced that a return to the traditional kick off times would help bring punters in. He described the idea as “a step into the unknown”.