In the run up to the Beijing Olympic Games, when all eyes will be on the Chinese capital, Lotto Sport Italia has announced details of a 20-year partnership agreement, from September this year, with Li Ning Company Ltd, for the production and distribution of the Lotto brand products in China.

With headquarters in Beijing and offices and logistics centres throughout China, Li Ning Company was named after its founder and famous gymnast, who won three Gold, two Silver and one Bronze medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2004 and with overall sales of 400 million euros in 2007 (+36.7% on 2006), Li Ning is aiming to exceed sales of 600 million euros in 2008.

Already dominating the medium-band sports market with its own brand, Li Ning has set itself the goal of leadership also in the upper price range, hence the tie up with Lotto as its ideal partner for achieving this important repositioning operation.

With the exceptions of Hong Kong and Macau, where Lotto will continue to distribute its own products through its subsidiary Lotto Sport H.K. Ltd., the new agreement involves the retailing of Lotto’s products in monobrand stores and counters in the most prestigious department stores of China’s largest cities.

Andrea Tomat, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lotto Sport Italia, said: “It’s a partnership from which we expect extraordinary drive for Lotto’s presence not only in China but right across Asia.”

Jorge Campos did a lot for the reputation of Mexican goalkeeping. At only 5 feet 6 inches tall, “El Brodie” Campos was never a likely candidate to become the first choice goalkeeper for a football crazy nation of over 100 million people. But, after playing professional football (very well) as a centre forward just to get noticed as a goalkeeper, he eventually managed to find his way into the limelight and finally notched up 130 caps and became Mexico’s most capped goalkeeper in the country’s history. But for all his success on the field, ironically Jorge Campos is perhaps remembered most for his outrageous goalkeeping kits and gloves.

According to popular reports, Campos was the designer of his own kits and possibly also some of his gloves, which he appeared to design by throwing as many different clashing coloured paints as possible at a canvas, especially fluorescent yellow, pink and green, and turning it into a goalkeepers shirt. The pint-sized keeper also had a bizarre preference for fashion of the “baggy” genre – well, it was the 1990s – and would often wear his kit about 5 sizes too big. Possibly no goalkeeper before or since has managed to create such an impression with his kit alone.

If Jorge Campos made goalkeeping shirts…

Although Campos himself was associated with Reusch and Nike goalkeeper gloves, Mexico has since been overtaken by a new goalkeeping brand, which takes up the Campos spirit of loud, bright and unashamedly flamboyant design. Welcome to the stage, Mexican goalkeeping specialist, Rinat Soccer.

Rinat is now one of Mexico’s biggest goalkeeping brands, with current Mexico international goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez wearing the Rinat Premier Uno goalkeeper gloves for the 2008-2009 season. Sanchez is known as “San Oswaldo” (Saint Oswaldo) in Mexico and is a hugely popular keeper, himself now on over 90 international caps and closing on Jorge Campos fast. Rinat goalkeeper gloves are also worn by a number of the Mexican top flight’s leading goalkeepers, including Miguel Calero, who notched up almost 60 caps for Colombia before his retirement from international football in 2007, Luis Michel of the Chivas Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s biggest club sides, and Omar ‘El Gato’ Ortiz of Necaxa, famous for his extensive tattoos and Rinat ‘Fenix Flame’ goalkeeper gloves, which feature flame images along the backhand of the fingers of the gloves.

Actually established in Mexico in 1986 – the year of Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ Mexico World Cup – Rinat has taken some time to reach the international stage, launching in North America during the 2006-2007 season. But in the true spirit of Jorge Campos, Rinat comes with a barrage of bright, stylish, and sometimes frankly ludicrous goalkeeping kit designs, particularly its goalkeeper shirts.

Traditionalists – look away now. Here we look at some of our favourites of the Rinat goalkeeping shirts for 2008-09:

The Rinat ‘Joker’ Goalkeeper Jersey
Available in red and green
“Mesh polyester fabric with a unique breathable weave that helps keep the player cool on those hot matchdays. Elbow padding” - available in youth and adult sizes.

The Rinat ‘Aztec’ Goalkeeper Jersey
Available in white as shown
“Short sleeved Aztec design jersey - 100% mesh polyester fabric with a unique breathable weave”.

Based on its success in North America, where women’s football is a very big deal, Rinat is also proud to be one of the goalkeeping brands that best caters for women’s goalkeeping. The 2008-2009 season sees the launch of the Rinat Frida Kahlo range of women’s goalkeeping shirts, inspired by the designs of famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The Kahlo jerseys feature a special cut designed specially for women.

The Rinat ‘Frida’ Kahlo Goalkeeper Jersey
Available in Black, Pink, Green and Blue
“Light weight mesh fabric and light elbow padding. 100% polyester with sublimated design.”

Rinat hopes its bright designs will capture the imagination of European goalkeepers in the same way it has in the Americas. You may have to have the arrogance of a South American goalkeeper to wear some of these, but brave enough to wear them or not, you can’t help but like them – Rinat stands out today as a fairly unique phenomenon in the goalkeeping world.

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Cheap Football Boots: How To Buy a Decent Pair of Football Boots At a Low Cost and the Cheapest Price.

Our Top Ten Tips on how to bag a football boot bargain…

Cheap Football Boots - Top 10 Tips

1. Cheap football boots are the older models, new models are top price.

2. Wait until a model is being replaced or updated, e.g. Nike Air Legend, when the new one comes in the old stock needs shifting so there are plenty of cheap football boot bargains to be grabbed.

3. Promotional Vouchers / Codes - these can be found in lots of places such as magazines, newspapers and at our old friend Google, i.e. if you are buying from an online store, do a Google search for: “voucher” then the shop name and use the discount.

4. eBay has a great selection of new and used football boots - as always with eBay, remember caveat emptor.

5. Footy Boots regularly showcases some hot offers in their boot room store, keep your eyes peeled.

6. Shopping comparison sites such as Kelkoo, Froogle, Pricerunner and DealTime let you do a quick comparison before you make a purchase.

7. Local sports shops try hard to compete with the big boys, and sometimes have limited offer deals or can be bargained with to drop their prices.

8. Think outside the box - is your local superstore selling football boots, and do they have a loyalty scheme which can help you get money off - or can you use your points or vouchers elsewhere such as Tesco Clubcard or Nectar points?

9. Trawl the net - go and try the football boots on at the local sports shop, and once you are happy with the fit and feel, use the internet to search for the specific football boot, and hunt out those deals.

10. Become a professional footballer, play for a premiership team, score for your team in the Champions League and wait for the football boot brands to throw their cash and latest boots at you for free!

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Nike have terminated their football boot sponsorship deal with Newcastle United’s Joey Barton, following his recent release from prison.

Newcastle have announced that 25 year old midfielder Joey Barton is free to kick-start his career at St James’ Park. Meanwhile his football boot sponsorship deal with Nike has been terminated, the football boot brand not taking the same soft option as Newcastle.

Joey Barton, with one England International cap, left Manchester’s Strangeways Prison on Monday, he had been jailed for assault and affray after an incident in Liverpool city centre in December.

He was also given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting an assault on former Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo during a training session last year.

Newcastle statement from the club website:

Newcastle United officials can confirm they have met with Joey Barton, following which it has been agreed by everyone involved that Joey will remain with the club.

Nike statement from Leo Sandino-Taylor:

We have provisions in all our sponsorship contracts to take into account any actions by athletes that bring the brand into disrepute. Whilst Joey Barton is a talented footballer, we cannot condone or accept what he did and his contract with us has been terminated.

Rene Higuita’s spectacular ‘Scorpion Kick’ has been voted the best ever football trick in our poll.

The crazy Colombian keeper’s antics topped the list with 20% of the votes ahead of the Ronaldinho Flik Flak (19%) and Ronaldo’s Step Over (18%).

The poll we conducted here on Footy Boots had the following results:

* Rene Higuita Scorpion Kick – 20%
* Ronaldinho Flik Flak – 19%
* Cristiano Ronaldo Step Over – 18%
* Cruyff Turn – 18%
* Kerlon Seal Dribble – 15%
* Lee Trundle Show Boat – 6%
* Maradona Keepie Uppys – 4%

The Higuita moment of magic occurred during the England v Columbia match at Wembley in September 1995 and was also included in Channel 4’s Top 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.Footy Boots editor Andy Kay said: “Our football boot forums have been full of debate around the best ever football trick for a while now, so we decided to conduct a survey to help try and settle the argument once and for all.”“Readers voted on a list of illustrious and legendary tricksters including Cruyff, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. The results were pretty close at the top with Rene Higuita’s Scorpion Kick just edging it. But we were all pretty surprised Lee Trundle edged out the World Cup-winning Diego Maradona.”

Footy Boots spoke with Rene Higuita RENE HIGUITA DELIGHTED WITH VICTORY after his victory.

FOOTBALL BOOTS AWARDS 2008 NOW OPEN

As the new season draws ever closer, new shirts continue to be unveiled.

James Bailey reports on recent football shirt events.

AC Milan ShirtArguably the biggest kit release over the past seven days was that of Italian side AC Milan. The “Rossoneri” unsurprisingly elected to stick with their trademark red and black stripes, which provides them with their nickname. The usual white away shirt and black third shirt were also released at the same time although the regularity was broken when it was announced new signing and former two time world player of the year Ronaldinho will be wearing the number 80 upon his back. With Dutch midfielder Clarence Seedorf already occupying Ronaldinho’s favoured number 10 shirt, the Brazilian decided on 80 as it was the year of his birth. Kit manufacturers Adidas have revealed they have so far received 11,000 pre-orders for replica Ronaldinho shirts.

AC Milan’s opponents in the 2005 and 2007 Champions League Final Liverpool revealed their third shirt for the forthcoming campaign. The green coloured kit will be worn by the likes of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres as they travel around Europe. The shirt completes the Liverpool collection for the 2008/09 season with their traditional home and away shirts having already been released.

Middlesbrough Home ShirtFellow Premier League sides to have made headlines in the kit business in the last week include Middlesbrough, West Brom and Everton. Errea, the company who manufacture the Middlesbrough kits have claimed the club’s new shirts are fully water resistant. By using nanotechnology, the manufacturers who pride themselves on scientific breakthroughs, have made the new shirts the first and only shirts to incorporate this knowledge. Furthermore the shirts are also resistant to all other liquids, so also useful to prevent any spillages in the pub prior to the game.

However, the kit releases for West Brom and Everton haven’t been as successful. West Brom remain without a kit sponsor and despite searching for a business logo to be adorned onto the blue and white stripes, the kit will go on sale without any sponsor the club have remarked.  Fans buying the latest shirts will be able to have the sponsor’s logo welded onto their shirts at a later date, free of charge. Talks have reportedly taken place with Carlsberg, Ladbrokes and LDV although an agreement has yet to be reached.

Everton FC are also having problems regarding their new kit. Umbro have decided to pull the original sets of 08/09 shirts after suffering problems with its Far East suppliers. The club though have promised the kit will be of the highest standard now the logistical problems have been dealt with.

Further clubs to have released their newly designed kits are Fenerbahce, Bayern Munich and Ajax. To find out more head over to FootballShirtCulture, who are first with football shirt news.

Order your team shirt HERE

Hansen sense

Thank goodness for Alan Hansen. The former Liverpool defender turned BBC pundit has made use of two of his favourite words, grit and determination, and urged Fifa to ban the current offside law. He says no-one in the Western World understands it and that the law itself is in utter chaos. Despite this, and a couple of examples of correct but seemingly baffling offside decisions at Euro 2008, the Premier League’s Head of Refs, Keith Hackett, says everything is fine and it’s the TV pundits who are causing the problems by not understanding the rules. Hackett alleges that the key area of confusion is currently determined by the PIG criteria – if a player doesn’t Play, Interfere or Gain (an advantage) he is fine.  Mr Hackett needs to get out more. The initials he quotes do play a part in the offside law, but only because Fifa have made a PIG’s ear of it. It exists only because people like Mr Hackett are happy to follow the party line and back them on it.

Generous Keegan

Many of us will have a view on Kevin Keegan’s abilities as a top flight manager, but as a human being, it’s hard to find fault with him. Not many of his colleagues would have been  prepared to give Joey Barton yet another chance but Keegan is backing the troubled midfielder to turn his life around. Barton, who was released from prison yesterday after serving just over 2 months of a 6 month sentence for assault and affray should thank his lucky stars he has a boss like Keegan, be the first in and last out of training everyday, give up the booze, lose his undesirable friends and find a few worthwhile causes to back with his £50,000 a week salary. Then he might be deserving of the opportunity Keegan has given him.

No fans

Even after his idea was laughed out of court by virtually everyone in authority within the game, The Premier League’s Chief Executive Peter Scudamore insists that his plans for a 39th international round of PL matches are far from dead. This, you may remember, is the absurd idea for England’s clubs to pack their bags during the season, jet off to all parts of the world and do battle for league points. Scudamore insists that he’s confident such a scheme will work due to the pulling power of the Premier League. Perhaps he should take a look at how many fans Chelsea attracted in their friendly against Chengdu in football mad Macau the other day. Mind you, he’ll have to look closely as the figure was a paltry 5,000. If ever an idea was dead in the water, it’s this one. Move on Peter.

Luton Down

Luton Town have been given the OK to start the new League Two season after the club’s new owners, LTFC 2020, accepted the deal offered to them by the Football league last month. And what a deal it is. LTFC 2020 will be allowed to remove the club from administration, providing they pay creditors 16p in the pound, and the club will start off at minus 30 points. I’ll run that past you again. Minus 30 points.  To put that in perspective, Mansfield and Wrexham were relegated from League Two last season despite amassing 42 and 40 points respectively. Chester City survived on 47 points. So, using that as a template, Luton will have to show the form of a Top Six club merely to stay up. Perhaps they could better use their time searching on their Sat Nav’s for the likes of Kidderminster, Histon and Northwich as they’re the type of teams they’ll be up against in 2008 / 2009. The Blue Square Premier beckons.

The transfer frenzy continues…! In just a few days since Part 1 of our goalkeeping transfer round up we’ve seen several more exciting transfer developments…

The big news of the weekend was Paul Robinson’s £3.5 million move from White Hart Lane to Ewood Park, as the under fire keeper looks to reignite his career with Blackburn. Paul Ince told the Rovers website “Paul is a fantastic goalkeeper… he is an England international with over 40 odd caps”. Robinson will be a replacement for Brad Friedel, who completed the signing of a 3 year deal with Aston Villa the day after Robinson’s arrival, for around £2.5million. Friedel will link up with fellow American Brad Guzan, who Villa look finally to bring to Villa Park from Chivas U.S.A. of the Major Soccer League, if a work permit is granted.

Blackburn boss Paul Ince said he was “very disappointed” to lose Friedel, but so too apparently was new Manchester City boss Mark Hughes. Hughes, according to reports, is looking to bring in a goalkeeper of experience, to work with City’s two young keepers, England Under-21 Joe Hart and Denmark Under-21 Kasper Schmeichel. With Hart’s outstanding performances in the 2007-2008 season, this seems a bit like ageism to us. In recent weeks, City have also been linked with Turkish international Volkan, who had an outstanding Euro 2008 tournament for the semi finalists.

In perhaps the most interesting transfer news of the summer, former Aston Villa, Manchester United and Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich announced his return to the game at the age of 36, after a 6 year absence. Bosnich retired from football after being ejected by Chelsea when his cocaine habit was discovered. Bosnich later confessed his addiction had cost him £5,000 a week at one point. Expensive. So expensive in fact that Bosnich was officially declared bankrupt by a UK court this week. At one time a hugely promising goalkeeper, Bosnich’s premature retirement was seen as a great loss for goalkeeping by many in the game, except perhaps Spurs fans, to whom Bosnich famously gave the Nazi salute during a match. Bosnich has returned for the Australian League side Central Coast Mariners, and has his sights set high, reported to be hoping to regain his place in goal for the Australian national side. We would love to see a return to the Premiership, which for a 36 year old goalkeeper is unlikely but by no means impossible. Villa have just paid up over £2million for 37 year old Friedel…

In other big transfer news, which has already been well reported, Brazil international and PSV’s Heurelho Gomes was snapped up by Spurs for £7 million. The 27-year old has a huge following in Holland after his consistently outstanding performances over 4 seasons for PSV, and will be a much needed addition to the Spurs backline.

Other goalkeeper transfers: round up

Everton: OUT Stefan Wessels, free transfer

IN (potential) Vladimir Stojkovic, from Sporting Lisbon

Hull City: IN Tony Warner, from Fulham, free transfer.

Middlesbrough: OUT Mark Schwarzer, to Fulham, free transfer. Schwarzer turned down the chances to move to Bayern Munich and Juventus to move to Craven Cottage

Stoke City: IN (potential) Thomas Sorensen, free transfer. Sorensen is reportedly training with Stoke and could join on a free transfer after finishing his contract with Aston Villa.

Sunderland: OUT (potential) Marton Fulop to Stoke City

IN Nick Colgan, from Ipswich, free transfer

Tottenham Hotspur: IN (potential) Johan Wiland, from IF Elfsborg

West Ham United: OUT Richard Wright, to Ipswich, £500,000. Wright links up with Jim Magilton and joins the hometown club he left 7 years ago. Still only 30, the former England international still has potentially a decade of football ahead of him, and has spoken of his wish to bring Ipswich to the Premiership and even win back his England place.

IN (potential) Jan Lastuvka, from Shaktar Donetsk

Canterbury isn’t a name that tends to pop up too much in the world of football. Indeed, the New Zealand company, having been set up in the early 1900’s to provide kit for the All Blacks, is much more synonymous with rugby union.

They are now the world’s largest and most technically advanced rugby brand and provide official playing strips to many of the world’s top teams including South Africa, Australia, Ireland and Scotland.

However, Canterbury is looking to make an impact beyond the sport of egg chasing and add to their list of sports apparel, the best known of which at the moment is Canterbury BaseLayer.

What they’ve come up, which certainly looks to be of interest to footballers, is IonX- a high performance range of garments designed to give athletes a competitive edge.

The specialist sport clothing uses a state-of-the-art Ionised Energy Fabric which ionises the body through a negatively charged electromagnetic field. This process improves the delivery of oxygen to the muscles through the bloodstream, which in turn increases average output by 2.7% and accelerates recovery.

Ionisation is a natural process which occurs when atoms become positively or negatively charged, such as during electrical storms or in the vicinity of waterfalls. When worn next to the skin, Ionised Energy Fabrics provide two key beneficiary effects – an improved level of performance and a faster rate of recuperation.

The increased level of performance happens thanks to the improved flow of oxygen-enriched blood which creates more energy in the body’s muscles. This helps to raise an athlete’s average power output and in turn improves speed and strength.

The greater transfer of oxygen from the blood to the muscles also has a beneficiary effect on the body’s anaerobic energy system, removing excess residual waste such as lactic acid more efficiently. With recovery rates increased training or competition can begin again more quickly.

Canterbury have made their new kit available for scientific testing and have got the thumbs up from Prof Mike Caine, B.Sc., Ph.D., Director of the Sports Technology Institute at Loughborough University, who said: “The preliminary findings of a study carried out by a team of Sports Technologists at Loughborough University have indicated that athletes wearing IonX treated garments demonstrate an improved level of power output during repeated, short duration maximal efforts.

“With the benefit of time and further studies it should be possible to understand how to maximize the potential of IonX, however it is already clear that the garments have the potential to make a valuable contribution to the performance of athletes during training and competition.”

The Real Madrid home kit has been revealed. This kit will be used in the forthcoming season.

Order Yours Now

Arjen Robben and Raul are pictured wearing the new  Real Madrid kit for the 2008-09 season, featuring adidas trademark technologies ClimaCool and ForMotion.

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The Liverpool European football kit has been revealed. This kit will be used in Europe during the 2008/09 campaign.

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Steven Gerrard is pictured wearing the new Liverpool European kit for the 2008-09 season, featuring adidas trademark technologies ClimaCool and ForMotion.

The first time adidas and Liverpool used this colour was in the 1991/92 season - this colour is Liverpool’s traditional adidas green.

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Frank Lampard’s future at Chelsea and in England for the start of next season may not be confirmed, but he has confirmed he will be available to host a coaching session for 150 competition winners.

The FA and Tesco are today launching a unique opportunity for young footballers to improve their skills this summer, with the chance of winning a place at an exclusive FA Tesco Skills coaching session hosted by specialist FA Skills coaches and England internationals Frank Lampard and Kelly Smith. This once-in-a- lifetime opportunity is open to 5-11 year old boys and girls across the UK, and will take place at a top level training ground usually reserved for the country’s best footballers. A total of 150 places are up for grabs at the session, with youngsters simply needing to register online at www.TheFA.com/Skills to be in with a chance of winning.

As well as this special coaching session, young footballers will be able to develop their game during the summer holiday thanks to the Tesco Skills Roadshow. During August, this inaugural Roadshow will visit Tesco stores and town centres across England, showcasing The FA Tesco Skills Programme to young players and shoppers. Leading the Roadshow will be a selection of the specialist Skills Coaches, all fully qualified FA coaches who have completed an age appropriate skills coaching course, making them experts in both football and children’s learning needs.

In addition, The FA and Tesco have launched a massive in-store Summer Ball promotion to further help young footballers practice their basic skills. From today, anyone entering a Tesco store throughout the country can buy a bespoke FA Tesco Skills mini-football for just £2.50. On purchasing the ball youngsters will be given a unique code that will allow them to unlock exclusive skills videos from Frank Lampard and Kelly Smith online at www.TheFA.com/Skills.

Co-ordinated by The FA and joint-funded by Tesco and Sport England through the National Sports Foundation, the programme aims to deliver sessions to one million boys and girls by summer 2010.

England and Chelsea star Frank Lampard said;

This is a great opportunity for kids to work on their football skills during the summer break. As a youngster in the school holidays I would always grab a ball and play football in the garden to help improve my skills. In fact I still put in the extra time now by staying for back after training if there is something that I want to practice.

Sir Trevor Brooking, The FA’s Director of Football Development, added:

The FA Tesco Skills Programme has been a huge success since it launched last summer, with the numbers of kids taking part in skills coaching sessions already topping the 400,000 mark. Along with Tesco and the National Sports Foundation we really feel we can make a difference to the technical skills levels of young players in this country.

Rene Higuita is delighted to have had his “Scorpion Trick” voted the Best Football Trick Ever. Footy Boots caught up with the Colombian goalkeeper….

Rene Higuita topped our sensational poll earlier this week, HIGUITA’S SCORPION KICK VOTED THE BEST EVER FOOTBALL TRICK.

The result has seen the former Colombian goalkeeper reclaim celebrity status, with global newspaper coverage and features on Colombian TV news shows.

We thought it was only right to congratulate Rene officially, so we sent our South Amercian correspondent Felipe Bazon on a trip to Colombia, where 41 year old Higuita is in training with his club Deportivo Pedreira.

Footy Boots - Rene, congratulations, you have been voted no 1 in the poll of the best football tricks ever, how do you feel?

Rene Higuita - Well I was very surprised when I heard the news. I was actually eating breakfast when I heard, but of course I was very happy to hear this.

I am so happy with this award, in fact delighted that this trick has beaten other great tricks performed by other football legends.

Footy Boots - The poll was conducted on an English speaking site, did you know you had so many fans outside of South America?

Rene Higuita - No I didn’t but it’s great to know that my trick has been recognised worldwide.

Now I can die in peace knowing that my trick will be remembered by my sons, grandsons and many generations to come as the best football trick ever.

When you love the game so much and play with your heart things like this are likely to happen and I am delighted to be recognised for that.

Footy Boots - How did you originally come up with the Scorpion Trick?

The Scorpion was created five years before I performed the trick at Wembley.

I was shooting a Colombian soft drink TV commercial with some kids. One of the kids chipped the ball over me and I reacted with the Scorpion move. Luckily they were recording at the time and the Scorpion Trick ended up on the commercial.

Five years later, and after the Scorpion had been on the commercial time and again, I’d get loads of requests from fans and people around the world asking me to perform the Scorpion, so I decided to do the Scorpion live to the world.

Footy Boots -  Rene, it was a pleasure talking to you, do you have a final message?

Rene Higuita - Yes, I’d like to dedicate this victory to my family and all the Colombians. Thanks to all the Footy Boots readers that voted and the ones that didn’t. God bless all Footy Boots readers.

Rene Higuita was interviewed live on Colombian TV Channel Caracol,here’s the video.

In the summer lull, as fans sit around drumming their fingers and another week of poorly-contested friendly matches goes by, we can only thank the heavens for the summer transfer madness to keep us entertained. This summer’s comings and goings, undignified player outbursts, rumours and gossip seem even more frequent than usual, as the boredom and inactivity seems not only to have got to fans, but gone to several players’ and managers’ heads too…

It’s week 1 of our round up - let’s start with the facts.

Premiership and European champs Man Utd are pretty happy with their goalkeeping lot – and with Van Der Saar, the promising Tomasz Kuszczak and the equally promising Ben Foster all fighting it out for the #1 spot this season, they could hardly be otherwise. Ferguson really does have an embarrassment of riches here. VDS is now 38 but still at the peak of his game, and Ferguson this week described him as “one of the best goalkeepers of all time”, who “will start the season in goal for United”. Kuszczak has done his stint on the bench and more than held his own when called upon last season, and Foster was explosively sharp in his performance against Derby County after coming back from his long injury layoff, his two saves from Kenny Miller with the score at 0-0 arguably a key turning point in ensuring the Premiership title stayed at Old Trafford. Our guess is that Ferguson might be tempted to try more rotation of his goalkeepers than he has done until now, with Van Der Saar still number 1 for the big games, but rested in other matches. And from Ferguson’s recent comments – we think Foster is edging it between the other two: “I can see Ben as the England goalkeeper for the next few years… he will be challenging for a first team place this season”.

Chelsea. Good news for those down at the Bridge, with big Czech Petr Cech putting pen to paper on a new 5 year deal this week that will keep him with the Blues until 2013. However, recent reports have stated that Carlo Cudicini has finally given up at his attempt on the “World’s Most Unambitious Goalkeeper” award, and may be tempted to move away from Chelsea to one of a number of clubs, possibly Paul Ince’s Blackburn. Chelsea may seek to fill the spot with Newcastle youngster Tim Krul, who is an Under-21 international for Holland, although Krul was quoted this week as being “in love” with Newcastle, and uninterested in a trip down south.

Over on Merseyside, Liverpool swapped one £3million sub-keeper for another. Out: England’s Scott Carson - £3.25million to West Brom (which would rise to £3.75million). In: Brazilian Diego Cavalieri from Palmeiras, for a fee of around £3million. This has to be one of the stranger moves of the summer, indicating to the unfortunate Scott Carson how far his stock has fallen since a fateful night in November 2007 and a nasty skimming long-ranger from Croatia’s Niko Kranjcar. Carson had previously been rated at £10million by Liverpool, with Martin O’Neill desperately keen to make Carson’s loan move to Villa Park permanent – but not at that price. Surprising then that Liverpool weren’t able to find a middle ground with Villa between the £3.25million they took from West Brom, and the £10million they were originally asking for, and get more for their man. Particularly as it might have bought them more negotiating power in the long wrangling over a potential Gareth Barry move in the opposite direction. But if Carson really was worth the hype he achieved in the early part of last season, then there can’t be anybody in the Baggies camp, apart from Dean Kiely, who isn’t patting himself on the back at the £3.25million snatch.

Rounding up the rest of the activity among the Big Four, Jens ‘Sanity’ Lehmann finally got his move away from Arsenal after a disappointing season on the bench for Arsenal, heading back to Germany to join Stuttgart. Manuel Almunia may be able to relax a bit now, particularly with the public backing of moustached club legend David Seaman, who recently came out in favour of the Spaniard and his assured performances last season. Nonetheless, this hasn’t quelled rumours that Newcastle and Ireland international Shay Given might become a transfer target for Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, forcing the 32 year old Irishman publicly to commit his future to The Toon a couple of weeks back.

Shay Given’s loyalty is all the more impressive given the general unrest emanating from St James Park. Long time understudy Steve Harper stated in a recent interview that the Newcastle dressing room suddenly felt a bit empty, after the departure of a number of players over the summer, and Given himself echoed this in interviews this week, remarking that Newcastle needed to dust down the kitty and get spending.

Enough of the facts – let’s pay a visit to the Rumour Mill. Starting with the Hammers’ Robert Green. A lot has been said recently about the re-emergence of slavery in the modern football game, after Sepp Blatter and the lovable Cristiano Ronaldo’s comments that the life of a £125k-a-week professional footballer resembles the life of a chained servant with no human rights. In this context, self-confessed “England’s # 6” Green may be short of sympathisers after his recent reported public “outburst”, that £28k-a-week made him by far the poorest paid player of the Hammers’ first team. Green recently returned from a trek this summer up Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, in which he collapsed shortly after reaching the summit, got frostbite in his fingertips and lost a stone in weight. Perhaps it went to his head. All the same, he may have a point: Freddie Ljungberg apparently earns 3 times the goalkeeper’s salary. Greeny may in the end decide to take his gloves somewhere they’re more appreciated.

Like Aston Villa. Martin O’Neill, has again been linked to Green, although Brad Friedel is reportedly still his number 1 target, with Paul Robinson and Wolves’ Wayne Hennessey on the shopping long list. Friedel stunned Ewood Park with his admission that he would like a move away to another (more generously paying) club. Villa and Man City will slug that one out – and poor Joe Hart, after seeing off fierce competition last season from the seriously underrated Andreas Isaakson and Schmeichel Mark II, to win his first England cap in June, could even find himself sitting on the City benches next season in favour of veteran Friedel…

We’ve barely scratched the surface – Robinson, Gomes, Schwarzer, Kirkland, Wright, Mark Bosnich (!) – they’ll all be here - look out for Part 2 of our round up next week!