*** Journalist Grant Wahl to run for FIFA president.  Although he says that he does not expect to win the post, he is doing it to start a conversation about dramatic changes needed in FIFA’s leadership.  In related news, Mr. Wahl sustained severe injuries attempting to joust a windmill.  We wish him a speedy recovery.

*** MLS announces new playoff structure; 10 of the 18 teams will advance to the playoffs.  Under the new system, the top three teams from each of the two conference will make the playoffs along with the next four teams with the highest point totals regardless of conference.  This structure was narrowly adopted over a competing proposal which called for Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle to qualify automatically with all remaining spots decided by a hip-hop style dance battle.

*** Las Vegas mayor announces interest in MLS franchise if the city fails to land NBA franchise.  The lure of gambling, brothels, and general excess is expected to be a major selling point for future designate player acquisitions.

*** Ronaldo announces retirement.  This past Monday, the Brazilian goalscoring legend announced that he would cut his final season at Corinthians short and enter retirement.  During his illustrious career, Ronaldo won two world cups and was named FIFA player of the year three times.  transsexual hookers and churasscaria owners throughout Brazil are all licking their lips.

*** MLS releases 2011 schedule.  In his most recent super mega huge major announcement, Don Garber revealed the schedule for the 2011 campaign.  The timing of the announcement caught many supporters off guard, in light of the previous string of delays many expected that the schedule wouldn’t be released until early 2012.

“In the customer service center, all you could hear was people saying things  ,’ ’Really,’ ‘Really,’ and ‘they gave us a trophy, and everything,’” reported a source within the organization,  “They weren’t even calling to buy anything – they thought they were doing us a big favor by pointing out the ‘misprint.’”

General Executive Dictator Jeff Plush explained that he could barely get in a word edge-wise during a meeting with several local Youth Soccer directors before having to explain that they actually won the MLS cup: “As I began my presentation, they all raised their hands and it was always the same question.  I told them that ‘we really, really won’ and they still clearly didn’t believe me.  It totally derailed the meeting – I ended up having to have an intern fetch me the trophy just to prove it to them.”

Despite all of the phone calls and meetings, not everyone got the message.  Newspapers throughout the region were ‘alerted’ by readers of the Rapids’ ‘false claims.’  In one editorial, James Barrows, a Community Relations Manager in North Denver, dismissed the claims as totally nonsensical: “Yeah right.  We all fell for this with the Nuggets back in the nineties and we aren’t going to fall for it again! Everyone knows that Los Angeles are the MLS champions.  They have Dave Beckham for God’s sake!  From what I can tell, they’ve won every title since he signed that $500 million contract.”

The Rapids have their work cut out for them.

[contributed by Rory Miller, thanks Rory!  For more by Rory, check out: www.tiny.cc/1nt1i]

*** MLS dashes Atlanta’s hopes for franchise.  In recent months, Arthur Blank, the founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons, has been taking time out of his busy tanning schedule to lobby MLS for an expansion franchise.  Don Garber, however, rejected the Bea Arthur lookalike’s overtures stating that there would be no franchise until they had a plan in place to build a new soccer specific stadium.  I’m not terribly familiar with the geography of Atlanta, but if you live in a distant suburb full of parking lots, strip malls, and lightly-used industrial parks, you may someday be in store for a modest low-budget soccer stadium in your neighborhood. 

*** UEFA withdraws threat against Ukraine.  Previously, we reported that UEFA was rattling its saber, threatening to withdraw Ukraine’s right to host the 2012 Euro championship due to political influence over the soccer federation.  After the Ukranian government and federation officials assured UEFA that no further interference would occur, UEFA said that Ukraine would remain co-host of the event.  It is unclear yet how many cars these “assurances” can purchase.

*** According to the Zimbabwean, “The Zimbabwe Football Association will get a whooping $300 000 bonus from world soccer governing body FIFA”   http://bit.ly/fZGPLE (emphasis added).  It is unclear what makes this bonus, which stems from FIFA’s huge profits from the 2010 World Cup, so noisy but hopefully it will be spent before it causes undue disruption for the poor citizens of Harare.  [Aw, yea - I went there - take that online editor of low-budget African newspaper!]

Within hours of his signing several anonymous editors collaborated to create a page about Puerari.   Puerari was not impressed and immediately went about correcting it. 

“First off, I saw that someone listed me at 5 foot 7, and I nearly came to tears,” Puerari said, “I am a solid 5′ 8″ and that isn’t even when I wear my European man-heels. So, naturally, that had to be corrected.”     

“Also, whoever made my entry added little more than facts and figures about which teams I had played for, and so on.  There was no flair.  No representations about my greatness,” Puerari went on, “People make it out as if anyone can score 14 goals in 78 matches in a middling South American league, but it isn’t true.  It takes a special talent and my Wikipedia page desperately needed to reflect that, so it was imperative that it mention that I ‘impressed’ several major clubs and that I was a ‘key player’ for the  Montevideo Wanderers.”

Despite his edits, Puerari is still not fully satisfied about his entry.  “I keep removing the word ‘diminutive’ but someone keeps putting it back up – I mean, how is that necessary? Or even accurate?  I weigh a solid 103 pounds! Since when is that diminutive?” Puerari asked, before being knocked to the ground by a gentle breeze.

*** Sepp Blatter comments upon accusations of World Cup voting fraud.  Also during the BBC radio interview, Blatter confirmed that there was an alliance between the World Cup bids from Spain/Portugal and Qatar ahead of December’s vote.  Blatter said: “I’ll be honest, there was a bundle of votes between Spain and Qatar, but it was a nonsense.”  No one is quite sure how to interpret Blatter’s comments.  On one hand he acknowledges a quid pro quo scheme that would appear to undermine the integrity of the voting process, while at the same time dismissing – without, of course, any shred of explanation – that this scheme was anything more than “a nonsense.”  In the meantime, we will just have to take solace in FIFA’s unsupported assertions.  If a secret FIFA investigation fails to find corruption, then there must not have been any corruption. 

*** FIFA TV announces Broadcast innovations for Women’s World Cup.  Niclas Ericson, director of FIFA TV, says coverage of this summer’s Women’s World Cup in Germany will be greatly enhanced.   Matches will be shot by up to 18 cameras, and will include in-goal cameras, steadycams, spidercams, and a helicopter camera.  In related news, there is a “Women’s World Cup” and it is apparently broadcast on TV.  Amazing.

*** Canadian Soccer Association announces new governance structure. The CSA has adopted a new governance structure at a meeting in Ottawa that brought together members from all 12 provincial and territorial associations…. yawn.  God. Everything in Canada is boring.

***  FIFA to debate whether “snoods” – the loose-fitting neck scarves popularized by Carlos Tevez - should be outlawed as a safety risk.  If snoods are prohibited, it would mark only the second time that  an accessory would be banned pursuant to the rules against wearing anything “dangerous.”  The last uniform accessory to be banned under this provision was the NASL Colorado Caribous’ infamous fringe jersey.  That jersey did not result in any on-field injuries, but several supporters suffered severe rectal bruising after wearing replicas in “the wrong sort of bars.”

*** UEFA warns clubs on spending restrictions in wake of Torres and Carroll transfers.  UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules require clubs to balance their books at the end of the year, but do not set in until the 2012-13 season.  Nonetheless, these large transfers are expected to have financial impact well past the present season and so UEFA wasted no time in claiming that they would enforce the new rules rigorously even if it meant losing revenue by banning top clubs from European competition.  After making this empty threat, UEFA and club officials alike probably had a right good chuckle.

*** Qatar fires national team coach Bruno Metsu after quarterfinal Asian Cup exit.  Despite home field advantage, Qatar failed to make a splash at the Asian Cup and, as a result, slipped to 114 in the world rankings (behind such powerhouses as Kuwait, Oman, Azerbaijan and the Cape Verde Islands).  Qatari official, Muhammed al-Dirka Dirka Jihad, explained that Metsu was 100% responsible for the side’s shortcomings and that the loss had nothing to do with Qatar being a tiny country with few talented players.  Mr. Jihad further said that  without the burdensome Metsu around he had full confidence that Qatar will acquit itself well at the 2022 World Cup.  When reached for comment, Metsu bleated “Maaaaaaaaah…..maaaaaaaaaah!”

Together with general manager Frank Klopas, Mr. Hauptman has hatched a plot to assemble a team so awful that no one would possibly come to watch them, thus facilitating the team’s move to Miami.  This is not their first attempt: the scheme began last year when they hired Carlos de los Cobos, who most recently split his time between operating a small muffler shop and coaching the El Salvador national side.  Although the team played pitifully, attendance was still not bad enough to terminate the lease.

Last year’s has-beens performed too well in the attendance department.  So, this year, the Fire have decided to populate their roster almost exclusively with no-names.  Gone are the swan songs and unibrow freakshows.  In are 30 year olds who failed to make strides in the Azerbaijani third division.   

Hopefully, for Fire fans at least, this rag-tag team can rally and foil their owner’s scheme and rally to win a place in the MLS playoffs (perhaps with inspiration from a cardboard cutout of Mr. Hauptman where portions of his clothing are removed pursuant to each victory), but I sincerely doubt it.

Asked for comment, Lichaj said “It would be nice to go somewhere where I wasn’t called ’Lick-age’ by everyone.  The problem, however, isn’t only a club issue – this extends all the way to the national team as well.  It’s awfully convenient that all of the guys with difficult to pronounce last names get relegated to the backline.  I mean, Onyewu, Bornstein, Cherundolo, Bocanegra, c’mon - unless you have a pretty mustache like Sacha Bob won’t let you play midfield with an ethnic-sounding last name.  This just isn’t fair – if Spector can play midfield, anyone can.”

[contributed by Rory Miller, thanks Rory!  For more by Rory, check out: www.tiny.cc/1nt1i]

Unfortunately for Fire fans, their hopes of adding a big new scorer appears to be fading. Negotiations have hit an impasse. “Greezy” Geech Slopnik, who shares the Interstate 90/94 Fullerton underpass in Chicago with an oil stain shrine of the blessed virgin Mary, explained that Chicago’s current offer was “an insult.”

Geech explained that, despite the deplorable public transportation situtation for Toyota Park, Chicago refused to offer him any means of transportation to and from the Park for training and matches. “Do I look like I own an [expletive] helicopter?” Geech mused.

Geech also reportedly failed to hit it off with Fire manager Carlos de los Cobos. “He looked at me like I was some worthless pile of [expletive]. But, I mean, what has he ever done? Take a team that was on the verge of the MLS finals to failing to make the playoffs? Check. Oh yeah, he nearly took El Salvador to what? Late round losses in CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers? Give me a break. He’s the one who deserves to be out here in the cold smelling like rat piss.”

“If they aren’t willing to make me an acceptable offer, I am perfectly content to go back to drinking at all hours, aggressively asking for change, and unapologetically masturbating in the public library,” Greezy coolly explained ,”I’m not some kind of animal that you can just take advantage of.”