CABLE's World Club coup a welcome late addition to schedule

Well CABLE came up with the goods again this past week.

Just when people were scratching their heads wondering why no channel in Hong Kong was showing the World Club Cup match from Japan, in stepped CABLE with a Monday announcement that they had bagged the rights.

With CABLE totally committed to winning subscribers using soccer as a battering ram to get into people's homes, this should come as no surprise. They are already the SAR's exclusive rights holders for the 2002 World Cup. Incidentally, CABLE will show the draw for the qualifying rounds of World Cup 2002 on Tuesday. One can only assume that CABLE will also snag the rights to the newer expanded World Club Championship, which will be played in Brazil in January.

If that tournament can approach anything near the quality of play seen in the Toyota Cup match on Tuesday then it will be worth seeing.

The play offered up by Manchester United and Palmeiras was fantastic. It was open, flowing, skilful, attacking football - the game at its best. Never mind pre-match worries that United would not be taking it seriously or that Palmeiras might take it too seriously (i.e. violently), it was a great advert for the game.

United can be seen in live Premier League action this weekend, at home to Everton in the second match tomorrow. Coverage of the first match, Leicester v Arsenal, is at the earlier-than-usual time of 7pm. This round of fixtures are the return matchups of the fixtures on the opening day even though a complete round of 19 matches has not been played yet.