Victor von Doom

From your point of view, I see someone like Cameron Champ, massive driver in hand, flexing his impressive muscles as he strides towards the 1st tee on a Scottish links course... having previously seen neither Scotland nor a links course in his life. It'll be interesting and I genuinely hope it works out well for you, but this is exactly the type of appointment I wanted Celtic to make last month. Better pedigree in most respects than Caixinha, but I won't be backing Cameron Champ in The Open next month and I'll likely be looking to oppose Killie in early season bets. Could be a masterstroke but, while it's an incredibly brave decision by the board, I'd rather have had Moyes, Adams, one or two of the Usual Suspects or Hopkin if I were a Killie fan... which I'm not. Wish you all the best, but it's an audacious appointment.

This is like one of those threads by fans of that Sassenach league. You know the one. Rupert Murdoch devised it when he invented football a few years back. Or was it Stewart Regan?

Big thread about this takeover on Miggsnet just now. Barclay brothers being named by someone on the thread as the source of the "investment" Poster must be on the wind-up, but I'd almost accept Celtic winning 10 in a row if the trade-off with Mephistopheles was the Spoonburners being acquired by a pair of basketcases like the Barclays. You'd be better off accepting "investment" from a Rathkeale-based consortium. At least a bunch from Rathkeale would be able to tarmac the site once the "Leith San Siro" has been sold and demolished... which is the only reason the Barclays would get involved.

I backed Adelaide at $16 about Christmas time. Looked OK v. Richmond but not likely to terrify Geelong. Looks like Jenkins might have damaged himself seriously. The Cats are their next opponents after a bye next week. A bit of a run of fixtures then: Port, Suns, Essendon, Carlton, Saints. Should be in the top 4 before facing Eagles & Pies after that. I don't think the 15/1 is anything other than a fair price. I reckon Geelong and Collingwood will make the 4. Eagles thereabouts. Doubts about GWS, who still look an uncoordinated bunch of individuals instead of a team too often for my liking. Richmond have a string of games coming up at the MCG & I was quite impressed with them in Adelaide but losing Rance in round 1 was a bigger loss than most realised. Players coming back but too big an ask in my book to make the 4. Wouldn't rule Hawthorn out of sneaking under the radar. Cats, Pies, Crows, Eagles the 4 and one of them will win the flag.

In all seriousness, I hope UEFA haven't over-estimated media requirements. Banks of empty media seats won't go down well with ripped-off or ticketless fans. SFs and Final apart, there will almost certainly be far fewer journalists at any given match in next year's Euros than is normal for a finals tournament. Media companies may send teams of reporters, presenters, cameramen, engineers & producers to one country for a tournament, then have them move around a couple of hundred miles at a time. I doubt many of those on duty in Rome on opening night will be flying to Baku, St.Petersburg or Copenhagen for a match on day two though. There were about 5,000 applications for media passes in the Russia World Cup - the majority obviously from Russians, most of whom would've been covering only matches in their local city. There should be more overall applications this time, but most journalists with passes won't leave their own country. A lot of media teams will be confined to studios.

Scheidt-Hole-on-Circ Stadium was only down for the semis & final. Brussels had problems and withdrew from staging their allocated games . UEFA then moved the Brussels matches to the midden of mosques & madrassas in Middlesex. Maybe the FA Cup Final was already booked in for its normal date & the English FA couldn't move it. Bound to be other stuff on there at weekends in May. Still pish-poor that the Cup Final has to be moved forward two weeks. I know fumigating the ground & basic decontamination of the area takes a while after Celtic fans have visited, but surely not a whole month.