CORNER KICKS
1 There are rumors swirling around Europe this week that Ronaldinho, 27, the Brazilian who is arguably the world’s most gifted and popular player, is on his way out at FC Barcelona and might be acquired by Chelsea for a reported $100 million.
Commenting on what appears to be a growing rift between Ronaldinho and Barcelona, which also has Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o and Giovani dos Santos among its attacking options, Roberto de Assis, Ronaldinho’s brother and agent, said, “I am sure that a campaign exists against Ronaldinho.”
Ronaldinho, currently sidelined by a calf injury, has been out of form for some time, at least for his club, but played well for Brazil in its three most recent games.
Deep-pocketed Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is preparing to make a mega-million-dollar bid for the 2002 World Cup winner, according to English tabloids.
2 The Galaxy’s David Beckham, who is expected to return to light training next week, is among 55 players nominated for selection to a World XI as voted upon by FIFPro, whose membership consists of 45,000 professional players worldwide. The team will be announced Oct. 5.
3 Kansas City Wizards and U.S. national team striker Eddie Johnson stopped by his favorite jeweler a couple of weeks ago and bought a little bling.
Make that a lot of bling.
Johnson and the Wizards were in L.A. over the weekend to play Chivas USA, and a team spokesman said Johnson, 23, had splashed out $85,000 on a new watch, necklace and a jewel-encrusted mouthpiece, “like a retainer,” to add a few diamonds to the Johnson smile.
4 Austria, which will jointly stage the 2008 European Championship with Switzerland next summer, is not exactly earning the support of its fans.
The national team is without a victory in its last eight games and the bleak run has prompted fans to launch a petition drive asking for Austria, which qualifies automatically as co-host, to be left out of Euro 2008.
“The way Austria is playing is an insult . . . to every fan’s aesthetic understanding of the game,” said one of the petition organizers.
5 Even if Chelsea does land Ronaldinho, it won’t help the team achieve its stated goal of becoming the biggest brand in soccer, according to Arsenal’s chairman, Peter Hill-Wood.
“I don’t want to run Chelsea down, but one has to concede that Manchester United and Liverpool are probably the biggest names in U.K. football and probably throughout the world,” he said. “For Chelsea to think they are suddenly going to dominate United and Liverpool is fantasy. It’s not going to happen.”
Hill-Wood said Arsenal, which earned $400 million in the year ending May 31 and made an operating profit of $103.7 million, said Chelsea can’t buy fans. Arsenal, on the other hand, regularly sells out its new 62,000-seat Emirates Stadium.
“Our fan base probably started in the 1930s and it’s been handed down from father to son and so forth,” he said. “It takes 100 years to build and about 100 minutes to destroy. Money is irrelevant to history and how big your club is.”
