No really....

Dear Congressman,

As my recent trip to England has demonstrated, I am not eligible to ever be elected President of the United States due to my place of birth being outside these shores. Even though I am a naturalized citizen, I still follow English soccer as an avid fan, as this is one of the few sports that runs August - May of every year with National team tournaments (Euros 0r World Cup) in the even numbered years during the summer. Can't say that about the NFL, can you.

Oh wait, we are both Bengals fans thus we would probably not be able to handle the type of suffering, humiliation and self loathing that would come from watching the Cincinnati Bengals continually lose games for 9 months on end.

But I digress...

I came across an article that demonstrates that disingenuous team management is not strictly a United States phenomenon. As follows:

"Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has rubbished reports that Craig Gordon is not being picked to avoid paying a bonus of £330,000 to Hearts. The keeper has played 49 times for the Black Cats following his £9m move from Hearts and the bonus payment will be triggered when he plays his 50th game."

Now Craig Gordon is Scotland's starting goalkeeper and could be an asset to most teams, but it takes someone with a world class poker face to stand up to the media and say with a straight face that one of their team's best players is "riding the pines" because of a hangnail rather than the other $495,000 (£330,000) reasons.

So kudos to Niall Quinn and his straight face...