Fighting Talker

In the wake of the court decision allowing the John Terry-Wayne Bridge revelations to come out, England has erupted into a debate of what to do with John Terry.

Some argue that Terry should be stripped of his captaincy, others argue he might have to be kicked off the England team. There should be no doubt that what Terry (who's married) did, bedding a teammate's girlfriend, impregnating her, and then paying for her to get an abortion represents multiple violations of his teammates' trust.

This latest news stymies Terry's high-profile attempt to change his image from...

Soccer America's Ridge Mahoney moves the CBA story along about a fraction of an inch by reporting that the league and players union are engaged in "marathon talks." He then goes on to re-state all the conventional reasons why a strike would be a black eye for the sport.

But other than the fact that the two sides are talking, we really know next to nothing about what is happening. All I can say at this point is that it remains a positive sign that the sides are talking and that no one is throwing the dreaded word "impasse" around.

Other than that, there's nothing...

EPL Talk bemoans the cookie-cutter layouts and overall ineffectiveness of Premiership club web sites. In general, I agree with the sentiments.

But, more broadly, what do fans want from their official club websites in terms of design, content, and interactivity? What are example, inside and outside soccer, of good websites? What can soccer learn from websites of US teams perceived as very "web-forward" such as the Capitals and Mavericks?

I guess my main thought on this is that a website should be easy to navigate and easy to find whatever it is that you're looking...

German research seems to support the believe that taller players like Oguchi Onyewu get called for more fouls

The New York Times reports on a German study that claims that tall players get called for more fouls than shorter players. An author of the study uses Philip Lahm as an example.

...

The Al-Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar.

The Guardian is reporting that FIFA and Sepp Blatter are set to announce that the 2018 World Cup bid process will be limited to European countries while the non-European bids will chase after the 2022 World Cup.

Believe it or not, I think this is a good move. For one, with the removal of strong English and Iberian bids, it turns the USA into a monumental favorite for 2022 over Australia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Qatar. Also,...

Hey, in the wake of Dan's article and my own piece, I decided to solicit the opinion of one of my favorite authors and good friend Dave Lifton for his thoughts. His thoughts are below.

...

So, DC United has gone out and signed MLS' first ever Australian, forward Danny Allsopp from Qatar's Al-Rayyan club.

Earlier, I tweeted that I hated the move. Maybe that was a bit harsh. Let me restate it this way instead. I am hugely worried about this move. Here's why.

First off, I don't know what his salary is yet, so this is just speculation on my part. That said, I suspect he's going to be overpaid. Why? Because that's why a player goes to Qatar and...

So, I had originally planned to use Kartik Krishneyer's jump from blogger to NASL PR hack as a chance to discuss ethics in blogging and whether Kartik was honest with his readers during the whole USL/NASL/USSF kerfuffle.

But, in the wake of reading Dan Loney's hall-of-fame-caliber, if slightly oblique, takedown of the man, I decided to save the J-School discussion of ethics for another time and instead to simply jump up and down on his stupid little head.

He was a voice...

I just spoke with a prominent MLS player agent on the ballroom floor regarding the labor negotiations. Here's what he had to say:

• There have been two recent meetings between Garber and the union chiefs. One took place last Friday 1/8 and another took place yesterday (Wednesday) in Manhattan. He didn't know anything about what took place in those meetings.
• There is a real concern amongst the players that the Union is not keeping the rank-and-file informed.
• Says that the "two big things" the players are pressing on are guaranteed contracts and free agency.
• He said, "the players are

...

I'm live on the floor at www.twitter.com/aaronstol.