Manchester United the World's Richest Club

According to Forbes magazine Manchester United are worth £1.4bn, making the world's richest football club.

The two Spanish giants are 2nd and 3rd.

    1. Manchester United - £1.4bn
    2. Real Madrid - £1.17bn
    3. Barcelona - £1.07bn
    4. Arsenal - $£800m
    5. Bayern Munich - £770m
    6. AC Milan - £615m
    7. Chelsea - £473m
    8. Liverpool - £385m  
    9. Juventus - £367m 
   10. Schalke 04 - £365m
 
According to Forbes.com Man. United's huge fan base around the world is the reason for the club having so much value.
  

City Fans 'Come Out of the Woodwork'

Rio has got it right when talking about Manchester City supporters.

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand says Manchester City fans have come "out of the woodwork". 

City are a point behind Premier League leaders United with nine games to play.

Ferdinand, 33, told BBC Sport: "Walking around in town, you see more and more blue shirts than you probably ever would have seen over the last 10 years.

"But success sometimes brings people out of the woodwork. So fingers crossed we can delay that and make sure that we get this title sewn up this season."

A Week is a Long Time in Football

It's been said that a week's a long time in politics, but after the week we've seen in football I think we could that about the beautiful game also.

There was the Harry Redknapp saga with court and the taxman, where Redknapp was cleared of any wrongdoing.

The England manager, Fabio Capello, spit his dummy out of the pram because the FA took the decision out of Capello's hands and sacked John Terry as Captain. Terry had already previously been demoted as captain by Capello himself, but it seems Capello is a slow learner.

Having said all this maybe the Terry thing was just a good excuse to jump before the European Championships. Capello might have reasoned that England wouldn't get very far anyway and he'd rather leave on a higher point than rock bottom.

Somehow I suspect if Capello was the Spain manager and the same captaincy fiasco had arisen Capello would have still been manager.

Let's face it, here in England we have a habit of paying people over-inflated salaries for failure, look at the banks for instance.

Then, on Saturday, sulky Liverpool player Luis Suárez refused to shake the hand of Patrice Evra in the pre-match line up. This was despite the fact that both Manchester United and Liverpool had agreed to the customary handshakes. Suarez is still smarting over his ban for racism.

Kenny Dalgleish is sadly not as strong as Sir Alex when it comes to keeping his players in check, and as Ferguson himself commented after the match Suárez has shown himself a disgrace to Liverpool football club.

BBC pundits were also critical of Suarez. And rightly so.

Oh, and the game finished up 2-1 to United, courtesy of Wayne Rooney, and a goal back by Suarez.

Both Manchester Premiership Teams Win, But City's Balotelli A Disgrace to Football

Both of Manchester's Premiership clubs won on Sunday, but one left a bitter taste to many football fans.

Manchester United overcame Arsenal at the Emirates winning by 2-1.

Antonio Valencia scored first for United just before half-time with a great header from Giggs' well targeted pass. Arsenal then drew level after Robin van Persie's shot went in with about 20 minutes of the game left.

Danny Welbeck worked hard and got himself into a good position and benefited from Valencia's work on the edge of the box to score United's winning goal. Substitute Rafael was himself substituted just a few minutes earlier, but he wasn't too pleased at Fergie's decision.

As for Manchester City, Harry Redknapp, Spurs manager, had a grievance about Balotelli who clearly stamped on the head of Scott Parker with a back heel when Parker was on the floor after a collision. How Balotelli got away with not being red-carded I have no idea. Hopefully the FA will do the right thing and review the event, and Balotelli should receive a four-match ban, should the FA intervene. Violent conduct has no place in football, and Balotelli and the City management should be ashamed of what happened. Sadly this is one player picking up a reputation for very different reasons.

Had the player been sent off the game would have been so different. It was Balotelli who was later fouled in the penalty area, and it was he who scored the resulting penalty. City won the match 3-2.

And to make matters worse, there is a question over whether an elbow by Joleon Lescott in the face of  Younes Kabou was accidental or deliberate. It looked deliberate to me, as well as the MOTD2 pundits, so there could and perhaps should have been only nine City players on the field at the end, with a very different scoreline likely.

Manchester United Fortunate in Derby Match

All was going so well in yesterday's match between Manchester City and Manchester United. It even looked like United might take sweet revenge with a similar scoreline when City beat them 1-6 in the Premiership a few months ago.

At half time United were 3 goals to nil up. City contentiously  had a player (Vincent Kompany) sent off early in the first half just a couple of minutes after Wayne Rooney got the first goal for the Red Devils. What went wrong during the half time break I have no idea, but United seemed to get complacent, and City came out in the second half all guns blazing. Having said that United could and should have had a second penalty, but the ref wasn't interested.

Should Paul Scholes  have been sent on with still around 30 minutes of the match to go? Well, debatable, but his mistake did cost United a goal for the opposition, as his pass in his own half was too soft to reach its target.

The final result was 2-3 so Manchester United go through to the next round of the FA Cup, and will  meet Liverpool. Though judging from Alex Ferguson's reaction after the match his players will need to perform a lot better than they did in the second half of yesterday's game.

Sad Day For English Football Over Racism Rows

The English FA's independent commission has slapped an eight match ban on Liverpool's Luis Suárez, and given him a £40,000 fine. It all stemmed from the match between Liverpool and Manchester United back in October when Suárez called United's Patrice Evra certain names that Evra took offence to.

They did not accept Suárez's argument that the words he used were perfectly acceptable for someone from Uruguay. The Uruguayan had argued that it came down to cultural differences and semantics, and that what was unacceptable in the UK was ok in South America.

Liverpool,  Suárez's club, might appeal the verdict. They are deeply unhappy with the verdict.

And further south in London, Chelsea's John Terry has been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service that he is to be prosecuted over an alleged racist slur made towards the Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

Terry will appear before West London magistrates' court on 1 February charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. This was alleged to have taken place  made during the Chelsea match with  QPR at Loftus Road on 23 October.

In one way it's sad that racism has reared its ugly head again, but good in another way in the fact that at least it is being taken seriously by the authorities.

Both Manchester Teams Out Of Champions League

It's so embarrassing! Manchester United getting knocked out of the Champions League last night after losing 2-1 to Basle means they drop down to the Europa League.

Manchester city, too, even with a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich, await the same fate. A win by 2-0 at Villarreal secured Napoli's Champions League place for the next round, which meant City losing out on a place.

Both Manchester teams have of course only themselves to blame because of poor results in previous matches. But somehow watching Manchester United play on a Thursday night just doesn't seem right.