We were disappointed to learn today that English Premier League has elected to move forward with a different media partner despite FOX Sports Media Group's aggressive bid. FOX Soccer has been the primary US voice of EPL for almost two decades, and has done much over the years to increase its popularity, value and availability. We wish them well.

FOX Soccer continues to serve as the primary television and digital destination in the US for elite competitions including UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, FA Cup, CONCACAF Champions League, CONCACAF Gold Cup, and is the future home of FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women's World Cup beginning in 2015.

Like CWSKeith says, right now they can't show what they've got already. They showed the Barca-Real Madrid game then cut to the 2nd half of the Milan derby because they overlapped.

Sadly, I can't make it to Kinsale's this morning. Damn school. I'm there in spirit.

Also, we managed to get pretty blitzed for the AM

12 minutes of extra time in City-Swansea. I've never seen anywhere near that much.

With a whopping 12 minutes and 38 seconds of added time after two second-half injuries, the game was officially the Premier League's longest ever, which will come as no surprise to anyone who watched it. I

Also I need the offside rule explained to me again as it relates to that Arteta goal. Not sure if that was onside, or the if ref messed it up?

There was nothing in that one that suggested or even hinted that Suarez was offsides. I just can't figure out what the ref saw. That was a horrible horrible call.

I guess one possibility is that Suarez reacted so quickly to the ball, and so much more quickly than the Everton defense, that he fooled the sideline official.

Looks to me like it's an instance of 'exaggerating the contact' -- Evans seems to clip him, and Torres is just trying to sell it. Don't see how you can send him off for that.

I think so, too. With all the talk about Suarez and Bale this year, people haven't paid attention to how much of a diver Torres has become but I guess it caught up to him today.

Wow, that's crazy. Fox Soccer will have... the A-League?

They still have the Europa and Champions Leagues. And the SPL. But yeah, they're ######.

But yeah, they're ######.

I think they're actually not that ######. It's only a three-year deal, starting 13/14. So that takes it through 15/16. In theory, FSC could have figured they didn't have to bid TOO big on these, because if they win out the rights for 16/17, and 17/18, that gives them two seasons to reestablish before the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, for which Fox has the rights.

I hope Fox can somehow get Bundesliga rights. No reason they can't do for German football what they did for the EPL.

Overall I'm hopeful that the NBC deal won't be horrible. They have CNBC and MSNBC to shunt matches to on weekends where there's nothing showing anyways and, unlike FSC, I already get all of their channels in HD.

Overall I'm hopeful that the NBC deal won't be horrible. They have CNBC and MSNBC to shunt matches to on weekends where there's nothing showing anyways and, unlike FSC, I already get all of their channels in HD.


There is an NBC Sports channel, too, which is where I'm guessing the majority of games will reside. It was launched just prior to the Olympics, if I'm not mistaken, and already shows some MLS games (not sure what else).

Seriously FSC is f'ed. I forgot that BeIN also swept up the rights to the Championship as well.

What about the Mexican league and Brazilian league? Plenty of people would rather watch them than the Erediviie or Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga.

British press coverage is maddening... So what is Clattenburg accused of saying

Luis Suarez (Liverpool), Gareth Bale (Tottenham Hotspur), Ashley Young (Manchester United), Sergio Busquets (Barcelona), and Neymar (Santos) have all been nominated for the FIFA Fallon d'Floor 2012.

Reading shouldn't get too cocky as Arsenal can score in bunches.

LONDON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - FIFA president Sepp Blatter thought English soccer "was run by idiots" which was a reason England failed to win the right to stage the 2018 World Cup finals, according to a new book by Sebastian Coe.

Twice Olympic 1,500 metres champion Coe became involved in England's bid after leading London's successful bid in 2005 to hosts this year's Olympic Games.

He was later appointed by Blatter to chair FIFA's Ethics Committee but stepped down from that role to work unpaid to help bring the World Cup back to England for the first time since 1966.

But, he says, almost from the start of his involvement he felt the bid was doomed to fail.

...

Against this background, says Coe, his "instincts" were that Blatter always wanted to take the World Cup to Russia, which is what transpired, However, he said, people who believed Blatter wanted that outcome because he hated England were wrong.

"He doesn't. He's Swiss and like a lot of Swiss, he's rather fond of England. He likes the political stability, he likes the pomp and tradition.

"What he always has a problem with is the English game. And from his perspective, its not hard to understand.

"As president of the international federation he sees the unwillingness of English clubs to release players for international duty. He sees the purchasing power of the English game - big name clubs buying up players from all over the world.

"And he sees a national federation, that, at the time of the bid, had no chairman and no chief executive.

"Blatter once said to me 'Your game is run by idiots, its not run by bright people'...I was obviously disappointed, very disappointed."

Lloris will be Spurs #1 for years and years. It's not going to kill him to watch Friedel, one of the great keepers in recent history, for a few more games.

No, but it might kill me.