They had to give in sooner or later but it has now actually happened. Barcelona has agreed to display a sponsor’s name on their beloved shirts in exchange for a record breaking €150m (£126m). They had lasted 111 years without a paid sponsor’s name on their shirt although, since 2004, they have had a sponsorship deal with UNICEF but it is actually Barcelona who pays the children’s charity €1.5m a year for the privilege.

From next season the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organisation concerned primarily with education projects in the Middle East, will pay €30m (£25m) per season until 2016 for their name to be displayed on the Barcelona shirt.
Despite the record breaking deal with the Qatar Foundation Barcelona will still maintain their agreement with UNICEF so their jerseys will display the names of each. However, if that’s not possible the Middle Eastern organisation will take priority.

This week saw the final Group games of this season’s Champions League with the draw for the knockout stage being held on the 17th December.

The group winners were as follows:
Tottenham Hotspur, FC Schalke 04, Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Bayern München, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Shakhtar Donetsk.

The runners up are:
Inter Milan, Olympique Lyonnais, Valencia, FC København, AS Roma, Olympique Marseille, AC Milan and Arsenal.

The first legs of the knockout games will be played on 15/16 and 22/23 February 2011.

All eyes will be on the favourites Barcelona who could face Arsenal, again, in the next round. Another possible mouth watering tie could see last years finalists Inter Milan and Bayern München play each other again.

After months of waiting and hoping we have finally discovered which nations will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals and unfortunately England lost out.
The result astonished the England bid team which included David Beckham, Prince William and Prime Minister David Cameron. Their £15m proposal was beaten by a less superior bid made by Russia which will again arouse suspicions of bribery.
Rumours of back hand dealings are more than likely to rise due to the fact that England could only secure two votes and were therefore knocker out in the first round of voting.
It looks like these investigations and allegations made against FIFA members by the Sunday Times and BBC Panorama could have seriously damaged the bid. Although the purpose of the investigations was to highlight the corruption within football’s governing body.

This Thursday sees the long awaited vote to decide which nation will host the 2018 & 2022 World Cups.
England will be bidding for the right to host the 2018 competition along with Russia and Joint bids from Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium.
The location of the 2022 will be chosen from either the USA, Qatar, South Korea, Japan and Australia.

England have an excellent bid due to the fact that the infrastructure to host the event is already in place. However, recent reports from the British media have implied that bribery amongst certain lobbyists has taken place.

These revelations could result in either England not receiving the vote due to such corruption or because it’s the Country’s own media ruining the proceedings with such allegations.

Lets hope that these reports don’t ruin our chances and that football will come home.

Following my recent post about the reds suffering injury setbacks, it is now reported that two United favourites Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney are coming on well after starting training again. Giggs started training again on Thursday while Wayne Rooney has returned from his holiday in Dubai and started general running work with the physios.

Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested that Giggsy may make the Manchester derby while Rooney is progressing well but may be sidelined for another 3 weeks.

City fans beware. Fergie has a habit of unleashing his stars for the big games and could be playing mind games and hiding the fact that his two stars are closer to full fitness than he is suggesting.

Manchester United, recently boosted by the signature of Wayne Rooney’s new contract have suffered two injury setbacks. Firstly it has been confirmed by Sir Alex Ferguson that Michael Owen will be out for 4-5 weeks with a hamstring injury and then it was confirmed that although Rooney was thought to be sidelined for 3 weeks, it may now be a more lengthy period of time, with Fergie claiming it’s all about rest now.

Luckily for the reds, Carlos Tevez is back in Argentina recovering from an injury and is doubtful for both this weeks Premier League match with Wolves and next weekends game with West Brom . I think that both Tevez and Rooney will manage to shake of their injuries in time for the Manchester derby in November. What a mouth watering prospect that game will be if both teams are full strength.

Premier league football team Manchester United’s Javier Hernandez is fast proving his worth as a top class talent and a formidable front man for the reds. It’s far too early to call him a legend barring what was said in the football podcast. Wayne Rooney’s not a United legend yet (especially after his contract spat last week), but Hernandez has stepped up and helped the team over a difficult fortnight with 3 goals in his last 2 games. First was the game against Stoke at the weekend where his aerial ability and vision to position himself in the right place to grab his brace has been hailed as top class by pundits across the national press. Some past masters of the game have been saying that the ‘Little Pea’ or Chicharito as he’s known to the Old Trafford faithful looks like a football bargain buy. He has pace, ability, and eye for goal and he know the English language very well. See the football podcast where Sir Alex said in his post match interview with Sky Sports last night that he’s the first one on the training ground and the last one off. After his cameo appearance last night against Wolves in the Carling Cup (League Cup) it appears that the hard work is beginning to pay off.

His goal mouth heroics are only just beginning, but I see strong likenesses to Ole Solskjaer. He’s a player who gets in the right place at the right time.

With 6 goals already this season, Hernandez seems destined to be far more than a super sub.

Anybody who’s honest about that state of English Football on an international front will admit that the current crop of stars stand very little chance of success in the upcoming European Championships. The current “golden generation” of footballers performed pretty poorly against what is really only an average Montenegro side last night. I know there’s an argument that Montenegro set out a dogged defensive stall that was difficult to break down, but the fact that the current England squad is very much the same as that of the recent failed World Cup squad worries me.

I’m not expecting wholesale changes straight away – you can’t ditch 20 odd players and start from scratch but I have to say that the future of English football looks very worrying. Besides the emerging talent of Adam Johnson of Manchester City, I think we’ve got very little in terms of new top class talent to offer. England should qualify for the finals, but again, it’ll be Spain, Holland and Germany who succeed before the “golden generation” retires for good.

I must say that being a Manchester United fan, I’m a little concerned about the current league table. A quick glance tells a story of a start to the season where Chelsea have set the early pace and no other team has really been able to keep up. Chelsea I’m sure, will agree with the pundits in saying that they were handed one of the easiest ever starts to the football season, however United have been culprits in letting somewhat guaranteed points slip away with careless defending in the last few minutes of games against Everton and Fulham.

I’m also concerned to see Man City in second spot. However it’s early days and things can change again and again over the course of the season. I think that if Chelsea get a few injuries (OK, Fat Frank has been out for a few weeks) they will struggle against tougher opposition on the road. Especially if Drogba or Anelka are out for a period of time. Next May I reckon United will just pip Chelsea and get revenge for last season. Especially as Chelsea are the only team which have started with a bang and not really suffered a dip in form yet, largely due to their inferior opponents to date.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice if Liverpool got relegated too.

Come the end of the season I’m predicting the top 4 to look like this:

Man United

Chelsea

Arsenal

Man City

This weekend saw some great foot ball in the Premiership with only being two games in it is too early to call who could go on to win as anything could happen due to injuries and good runs.

However this weekend showed that Chelsea are the team to beat after winning comfortably against Wigan 6-0.

Arsenal beat Blackpool 6-0 with a great show by Theo Walcott who showed that not going with England to the world cup could have been just what he needed.

The final 6-0 of the weekend was a great win for Newcastle who recorded their first win back in the premiership against Aston Villa.