Rage Online Blog

Extraordinary, astonishing, unbelievable! Today's Observer carries a story that has surely been released early, actually intended for April 1st.

It appears that those wonderful philanthropists at the FA and the Premier League, those knights in shining armour, those benevolent benefactors of the modern game, have purely out of the goodness of their hearts selflessly offered a total of £15 million to shore up the ailing Football League clubs, with those poor souls in the First Division getting a whopping 70% of it. Of course these grants and loans are offered with no strings attached and no likelihood of any favours accruing (such as a possible reduction in the number of relegation places from the Premiership, for example).

Or maybe I'm being too harsh?

Labels: FA, philanthropy, Premier League

Greed begets greed. Some Premiership clubs are threatening to boycott this season's FA Cup according to this report from the BBC, claiming that they want a share of the FA's income generated by the competition. Although all clubs that are members of the Football Association are obliged to enter the competition, some Premiership clubs may possibly field sides that are so weakened they may as well not bother (although they would doubtless take their share of the gate money). Of course these are the same clubs that removed the away teams' share of the gate money which has been a major cause of the gap between rich and poor clubs increasing, and now they want yet more money. They won't rest until they have all the income the game generates, by which time there won't be a game.

Labels: FA, Money, Premier League

Some potentially good news for supporters of Wimbledon FC is the news that the Chief Exec of the FA, Adam Crozier, has said on the FA's official web site that they oppose the proposed move of the club to Milton Keynes. Although apparently powerless to act to prevent the relocation, due to the legally binding arbitration between the Football League and Wimbledon, the opposition of the FA must give some hope that a loophole can somewhere be found to prevent the move (such as not allowing the club to enter all FA competitions, perhaps?), according to the Guardian, anyway.

Labels: AFC Wimbledon, FA

We have also discovered that, despite rumours to the contrary, the FA has not changed the offside rule.

Labels: FA, referees