Let’s hope they kept the receipt…

Weeks after The FA was embroiled in a row over appearing to buy off the FIFA’s executive committee (or at least their wives) with designer handbags, in the hope of securing some votes for England’s World Cup 2018 bid, FIFA vice-prez Jack Warner has decided he doesn’t want his anymore.

The £230 Mulberry bag has been sent back, along with a tear-stained letter claiming it’s brought him nothing but bad press:

Had [my wife] or I known then that the acceptance of what we all felt was a kind gesture would have resulted in the tainting of her character and mine together with the untold embarrassment to which we are still being subjected, none of us would have attended the dinner, nor would she have accepted what we thought was a gift in honour of her birthday [We’ll assume she thought it was in honour of the all the other wives’ birthdays as well - The Spoiler]

I have faced and continue to face all kinds of indignities from all manner of persons, but when these insults touch my wife, it represents an all time low.

So cheap and tacky, he put his name on it…

There’s still a fair chance Cristiano Ronaldo will have a lot of free time on his hands next summer, while the rest of his Real Madrid team mates jet off to South Africa for a post-season kick about. However, fans of winking and arrogance will be happy to hear CR9 could be lining up a contingency plan to make sure his face will remain plastered all over our TV screens come June.

According to US entertainment site TMZ (who broke the news of Michael Jackson’s death), horror-faced entrepreneur Joe “he’s worth more dead than alive” Jackson has told them he is set to meet the Portuguese man-o-sex early next month, to start filming TV, magazine and internet adverts for his latest venture - the laughably rubbish ‘Goalie Grill’ barbecue set.

Utd mogul and part-time defender turns shameless self-promoter

He might be starting to wane at his day job, but Rio Ferdinand is still a true Renaissance Man. Having just attended the film premiere of Dead Man Running, on which he was executive producer alongside Ashley Cole, he’s also three issues into his own magazine and co-owns a record label. Obvious, then, that budget airline BMI should choose such a worldly man to offer tips on the best places to eat out in Manchester, in the latest issue of their in-flight magazine:

“Rosso. It serves unbelievable food. I love the steak if I’m having a big main … The vibe is nice, too, with a casual dress code which I like. Plenty of footballers pop in for quality food after matches.

The chef is as hot as mustard! I love the flattened steak if I’m having a big main or the penne pasta, which is so good it’s ridiculous.”

But don’t bother trying to seek out Rio’s favorite eatery - it’s not even open yet. Although we’re sure he’ll make an appearance on the opening night … being that he’s actually co-owner of the place.

£3,600 bling confiscated by tax collectors

It’s not been a good September for Diego Maradona. Having starting the month with humbling defeats to Brazil and Paraguay in Argentina’s beleaguered World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign, he’s since been told by Viagra-hawking legend Pele he wasn’t actually that good at football after all and endured ridicule for being packed off to a fat farm in Italy.

The latest ignominy was suffered after Italian fraud squad police followed him to said fat farm last week and raided it, in an attempt to try and recover some of the £28m Diego owes in back taxes from his time at Napoli between 1984 and 1991.

Could a Big Four side really go down the pan?

As the Tesco Value teabags and “one square of loo roll per visit rule” at Spoiler towers demonstrates, the nation remains in the grip of a financial apocalypse.

Throughout the crunchy credit crisis, the Premier League has tried its best to remain impervious to global economics, by continuing to spend big, charge extortionate amounts for tickets and encourage potentially destabilising foreign investment. This week, however, cracks are starting to show in the supposedly invulnerable entity, whose members seem to believe they can buck the trend of a recession.

On Tuesday, The Guardian revealed that the Premier League is cumulatively £3.1bn in debt. Just over £2bn of those outstanding bank overdrafts, loans and other borrowings are attributable to the Big Four alone.

We have also learned that wages have spiralled to over £1bn for the first time, suggesting one too many clubs are operating with an unstable business model. Such a unevenly balanced ratio of wages to turnover could become a club’s undoing, particularly in light of the fact that ‘guaranteed’ income from ailing broadcaster Setanta may be about to dry up.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the fool’s paradise that is the Premiership, however, is the news that reached us this morning concerning Liverpool’s financial crisis.

In a set

Irish TV network is on the brink of collapse

Since they lost half of their Premier League live rights for the 2010-2011 season, Setanta Sports have been teetering closer and closer towards administration.

The Ireland-based TV network have been unable to pay a £3m bill to the Scottish Premier League, which doesn’t put them in a particularly good position to pay the impending £40m bill coming from the English Premier League. They must now rely on hefty investment from third parties or a takeover bid to stop them collapsing.

If Setanta were to become insolvent, a fire sale of all their TV rights would probably occur, meaning their grossly overvalued contracts (including the £425m one for England and FA Cup games) could fall into the hands of rivals for knock-down prices.

A surprise lifeline may actually come from big-dog rivals Sky, who have been asked to provide a £50m interest free loan in exchange for Setanta becoming part of the Sky Sports package.It may sound like a bizarre request, but it is actually in Sky’s interest to keep their weak competitor afloat, rather than letting a huge shark like ESPN into the tank. It is The Spoiler’s understanding that BSkyB will do just about anything

Figures reveal the Premier League’s elite are getting even richer

When Premier League chairmen meet this week for their annual summer gossip party, the most likely topic of conversation will be the continuing dominance of the Big Four, perpetuated by the ever-increasing amount of Champions League cash. In figures released this morning, it has become clear that the Champions League is now worth around double the amount it was three years ago for participating clubs.

In 2008/09, Manchester Utd earned £90m - nearly three times as much as the likes of West Brom and Middlesbrough.

Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal all earned in excess of £47m from Champions League prize and TV cash alone - more than the amount fourteen other Premiership clubs earned in total.

The rise in these figures - which do not include gate receipts and merchandise sales - can be attributed to the relative strength of the euro against the pound, an increase in TV rights payments and the English dominance of the latter stages of the competition.

Quite what the Premier League chairman will do to redistribute wealth among the Premier league is unclear, but they will almost certainly not adopt the lefty sharing scheme proposed by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham.

Check out the full list of Premiership earnings in 2008/09 after the jump…

New Government proposal ain’t never gonna happen

The last time The Spoiler checked, we lived in a capitalist society, whereby privately-owned wealth is generated by participating in a free market. However, this apparently isn’t the case any more, as our comrades in the Government are suggesting the biggest clubs in English football share their wealth with the rest of the Premiership.

Under new proposals by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, the billions of pounds generated by the TV appearances and Champions League campaigns of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester Utd and Chelsea would be redistributed among the other twenty clubs:

Champions League cash, worth £15million-£40m to each qualifying clubs each season, would be shared out