William Gallas: One man's ode to Dumb & Dumber. Football's sugar daddies. Real men wear pink boots. Marc Janko's assault on history. Not everything is butterflies & cupcakes for Sven. Uruguay shows the rest of the world what a football riot should look like. Maradona takes on Scotland & Google. Click to continue reading...

Last week, Forbes announced it's list of the 10 Richest Men in Football. None of them are footballers. Though playing the game is spectacularly well rewarded, players earn peanuts next to these guys. Top of the list is a Russian gentleman, but not the one you're thinking of. He's number two. Number one is Oleg Deripaska [. Click to continue reading...

In this era of massive valuation shifts in industries and economies across the globe, I thought it might be prudent to capture - at least for posterity - the Forbes 2008 list of most valuable football clubs. The original article is here, courtesy of Forbes magazine.

Rank | Team | Country | Value in $US Millions

1 Manchester United -England 1,800
2 Real Madrid -Spain 1,285
3 Arsenal -England 1,200
4 Liverpool -England 1,050
5 Bayern Munich -Germany 917
6 AC Milan -Italy 798
7 Barcelona -Spain 784
8 Chelsea -England 764
9 Juventus -Italy 510
10 Schalke 04 -Germany 470
11 AS Roma -Italy 434
12 Tottenham Hotspur -England 414
13 Olympique Lyonnais -France 408
14 Inter Milan -Italy 403
15 Borussia Dortmund -Germany 323
16 Newcastle United -England 300
17 Hamburg SV -Germany 293
18 Werder Bremen -Germany 262
19 Valencia -Spain 254
20 Celtic -Scotland 227
21 Everton -England 197
22 West Ham United -England 195
23 Manchester City -England 191
24 Aston Villa -England 190
25 Olympique Marseille -France 187 Click to continue reading...

SoccerFiesta.net - England soccerstar David Beckham again turn up to the top of list highest earning soccer players by Forbes, while current Manchester United soccerstar Cristiano Ronaldo on second place. Here is the Top 3 highest soccer players in 2007.

1.

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Forbes.com recently released a report that looked at the economic side of MLS and also put a value on each of the Major League Soccer franchises. At a macro level, things are looking up for MLS. Seven of the league's 14 teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, five of which have been built since 2002. Click to continue reading...

According to a recent study conducted by Forbes magazine, many of the MLS clubs are doing well financially and basically the article describes a very promising future for the financial status of MLS. This study describes how the league is not yet profitable, but that signs exist which indicate that MLS will continue to grow. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has a breakdown of MLS' money streams, which we already knew looked a lot healthier today than they did six years ago.

Included: A list of each team (excluding San Jose, which just returned to the field this year), with estimates of team value, revenue and operating income.

Los Angeles, Toronto and Dallas are profitable, according to the estimates.

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How much do you think the Wizards are worth? $10 million? $20 million? The answer is $22 million, at least according to a new Forbes magazine article about MLS' most valuable franchises. The numbers, which are taken from last year, have the Wizards as the least valuable franchise, $1 million behind the Crew. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has done a valuation of 13 of the 14 current MLS clubs. Read all about it here.

Here is an excerpt:

Seven of the league's 14 teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, five of which have been built since 2002. Expansion franchises in Seattle and Philadelphia recently agreed to pay $30 million each to join the league, three times what Toronto FC paid to join MLS three years ago.

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Must read article of the year at Forbes.com. It's great to see them finally doing this with MLS, as they've been doing it for other sports for years. Based on last year's data, 3 teams made a profit (LA, TOR, DAL). Overall, not counting San Jose, the league lost $20 million with $166 million in revenue. Click to continue reading...

I'm not sure about these lists of virtually everything these days that passes for journalism, but for what it's worth Forbes has now issued its inaugural list of the most valuable teams in MLS with the Galaxy sitting atop the rankings.

The financial magazine estimates the Galaxy are worth a cool $100 million (have they seen them play lately?

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In their inaugaral valuation of Major League Soccer, the Red Bulls rounded up the top five most valuable teams in the league.

Here is how they stand, per Forbes:

Value: $36 million

Revenue: $10 million

Operating Income: -$4.5 million

The Red Bulls hope their days as a small fish in the big New York sports pond will be over once they begin play at Red Bulls Arena in Harrison, N.

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You know how you know MLS is doing really well now? Because when you read about it in the Wall Street Journal or Forbes or when you see it discussed on Fox Business it always seems to be about sponsorship deals or something else positive. It used to be that everything you mentioned in the financial press mentioned the contraction of Miami and Tampa. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has put out a list of the best paid benchwarmers in all the major sports. Included in the list are MLS players. The fact that Forbes is including MLS in it's list is definitely a good sign for the league. Jeff Cunningham, Ante Razov, William Conde, and Franco Niell are all on the list. Along with those 4, is Wizards midfielder, Sasha Victorine. Click to continue reading...

David Beckham banked No. 5 on Forbes "Celebrity 100" list on Wednesday, trailing only Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie and Beyonce Knowles as one of the most powerful celebrities to date. This year's annual list is based on Beckham's past year's rise in stock.

Forbes evaluates the celebrities in four categories:

1) base salaries including endorsements
2) web presence and searches
3) press coverage
4) television/radio presence. Click to continue reading...