MICHAEL PEARLMAN SAYS: Magic day is always a fixture in my year (From South Wales Argus)

MICHAEL PEARLMAN SAYS: Magic day is always a fixture in my year

12:10pm Thursday 18th June 2009

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NEWPORT County fans have to wait, but the rest of us had one and only one question to ask colleagues, friends, family or the milkman yesterday, who have you got?

The fixtures are out and finally we can look ahead to the new football season.

It’s quite a process to decipher all the fixtures and conspiracy theorists should probably appreciate that before condemning the fact that their team has been stitched up by the infamous fixtures computer.

The fixtures announcement makes everything seem somewhat more real and though these odd, major tournament-free years are a pain, the Ashes and a mountain of televised pre-season friendlies mean the greatest game in the world will be back before we know it.

It also promises to be an almost unprecedented summer of spending in the Premier League, which will keep us all speculating for the next couple of months.

The transfer window has a kind of domino effect and Real Madrid’s return to their galactico policy – which worked so well last time – means the money is already in circulation. United will spend big, so will Chelsea, so will Man City and so on and so forth.

What has been hilarious though is hearing how Cristiano Ronaldo leaving United is for the best.

The papers have used so many ‘good riddance to the preening overhyped diver’ type editorials that I am starting to believe that he was, in fact, rubbish.

United fans are firmly in the camp now of ‘no player is bigger than club’ (which is true) or ‘he’s not a patch on Eric Cantona anyway’ (which is not).

A bit of perspective surely? Ronaldo’s £80 million-transfer fee IS obscene and grotesque, but in the current climate, he is worth every penny.

Only Lionel Messi matches his brilliance, he is the best player since Maradona and it’s interesting to note what the overhyped, diving, preening, whinging donkey has achieved in his time with United.

Three consecutive Premier League titles, an FA Cup, two League Cups, a Champions League trophy, the Club World Cup, FIFA World Player of the Year award, two Footballer of the Year awards, two PFA Players’ Player of the Year awards, Ballon D’Or, European Golden Shoe, PFA Young Player of the Year and 67 goals in two seasons (not to mention that more than 40 came in an EPL and Champions League-winning season).

He is truly irreplaceable and his departure blows the title race wide open, unless Antonio Valencia is ready to score 1000% more goals than he did for Wigan last term (four).

The Premier League might not miss Ronaldo, but United surely will.

Back to the fixtures and for those of us who follow the Exiles, it’s another two and a bit weeks – July 3 – until we can begin to plot next season, finding out when the Weston games are, Bath City, what the longest midweek trip will be.

Only football fans can comprehend just how exciting the release of a list of games are, but hopefully Tim Harris and Dean Holdsworth will provide some signing stories to tide us over. Watch this space.

* There was speculation again yesterday, thanks to an interview in the world-renowned sport publication Zoo Magazine, that Joe Calzaghe might yet don his gloves one more time for a massive payday.

Joe has reiterated time and time again in his Argus column that he has no plans for a comeback and it would appear however many times he says he won’t come back, people simply don’t believe him.

Perhaps that’s a sad indictment of the sport of boxing, in that a fighter retiring – and I am looking at Floyd Mayweather among many, many others – rarely means he’s gone for good.

A fighter retiring has become like a band leaving the stage without doing an encore. People just aren’t accustomed to not seeing them ever again doing what they do best. They don’t believe it.

But in relation to Joe Calzaghe – and I guess we at the Argus get better access than most to what he is really thinking – it simply isn’t going to happen.

For one, Joe Calzaghe simply doesn’t fight at a weight that would allow him an opponent to justify the huge sum of money it would take to tempt him back.

Only if he was considerably lighter and could meet a Manny Pacquiao, Amir Khan or Mayweather, or considerably heavier and could clash with a heavyweight world champion or even better, David Haye, would Calzaghe be able to command the huge sum of money he would want to come back.

At super middle or light heavy, Joe’s options are extremely limited, a rematch with Bernard Hopkins or a fight with an ‘up and coming’ American such as Chad Dawson his only real possibilities.

As it is, undefeated, financially secure for life and still with his faculties intact, Calzaghe seems happy and contented to be done with boxing as a fighter.

His career, as he mentioned last week when he won the American Boxing Writers Association Manager of the Year award, ended in almost fairytale fashion.

He had the home farewell at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium against Dane Mikkel Kessler in front of 50,000 fans and fulfilled his burning ambition to fight in the US, doing so twice in beating Bernard Hopkins in Vegas and Roy Jones at Madison Square Garden.

It was more than Joe had dreamed of for a career swansong and he was telling people he was done with boxing just hours after beating Jones at the most famous arena in the world.

He’s now hoping to kick Calzaghe Promotions into gear and will persue media opportunities, the fact that it’s reported so often that he might come back reflects the fact that he is now a mainstream British ‘celebrity’ and nothing more.

Therefore, it’s far more likely you’ll see Joe clashing with Len Goodman and that orange fella called Bruno on Strictly than climbing back into the ring.

* Continuing the boxing theme, I am desperately hoping that something can be done to save Setanta Sports.

While it is inevitable the issue of their Premier League rights has hogged the limelight, it shouldn’t be underestimated that Setanta’s demise would have a hugely detrimental effect on boxing.

Setanta have showed huge commitment to the sport and with ITV declaring that screening boxing is ‘no longer commercially viable’ it’s massively important to the sport that Setanta continues to rival Sky Sports in covering boxing.

Otherwise it’ll become almost impossible for most fighters in the UK to get any kind of televised coverage.

Setanta have created competition in screening big fights and they also happen to present them exceptionally well. Long may that continue.

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