Well it’s about damn time

In their latest bid to increase their following in Americaland, Chelsea have produced an official basketball shoe.

The adidas TS Commander LT - which comes with a free scarf and Chelsea shirt - drops on August 29, but will only be available at a retailer named Bodega. They’re based in Boston, where NBA star and Chelsea fan Kevin Garnett plies his trade.

Quite why the Blues chose to launch a basketball shoe instead of taking the natural progression towards a football boot is beyond us, but you can take a closer look at it after the jump…

Commemorate Tevez for a game that he might spend on the bench

Not content with ripping off their fans with yet another season-ticket price hike, Manchester United have found a new way to bleed money from them.

For the bargain price of £69.99, you can buy a special edition Champions League Final Shirt with “Tevez 32″ on the back, even though it’s far from assured that the Argentine will even figure in the clash with Barcelona.

The shirt, which costs £30 more than your average white away top, has the barely-visible words “Final Roma 2009 27th May Stadio Olimpico” stamped on and a Champions League badge on the arm.

As our screengrab shows, the club are quick to point out that there are no refunds so if you end up with a shirt commemorating someone who doesn’t even play in the match, your just left to rue your own hard luck.

London Mayor sighted signing Gooner merch

This morning, a Spoiler fan spotted London Mayor Boris Johnson loitering outside the newly-refurbished Arsenal World of Sport club shop at the Emirates complex. He was signing one of the brand new away kits for staff.

Does anyone know if ol’ BoJo is a genuine Gooner?

Spoiler bonus: Relive Boris’ greatest footballing moment after the jump…

Flame-haired midfielder was cut a slim slice of the profit cake

Following his transfer to Chelsea in July 2007, Steve Sidwell insisted he was not at the club to ‘make up the numbers’. Despite this, he only ended up playing fifteen times for the Blues, and was shipped off to the Midlands a few weeks ago.

Sidwell’s lack of first team football, however, may not have been the only motivation for his departure from West London. According to a friend of The Spoiler, each Chelsea player is given a quarterly cheque to remunerate them for image rights of merchandise sold in the club shop (each time an item is sold featuring a particular player’s name, said player receives a small amount of the profit). Most players’ cheques ran into the thousands, provoking much jubilation as the envelopes were opened. Sidwell, however, was less bothered about punching the air - one of his was for the princely sum of £16.80.

Celebrate a perfect season that never happened

The sports merchandise industry was so confident that the New England Patriots would stride through last weekend’s Super Bowl that they started churning out all sorts of junk commemorating the 19-0 perfect season. But the perfect season didn’t quite

Triple Euro winners try to lift our spirits with some unintentionally vulgar slogans

You don’t need to be reminded that June is going to be a slow month without a major football tournament to worry about, but at least the Germans, with their famous sense of humour, have tried to cheer us up.

Their official slogan for Euro 2008 is