Dr. Gonzo

Just seen some clips of Harvey Elliot's performance vs Lyon - looks pretty fucking good for a 16 year old kid

I think we’re going to get no deal though

Pretty sure that plan’s just a stop gap until actual trade agreements are put in place, so doesn’t really ease my worries we’re going to be negotiating trade deals from a position of relative weakness compared to our existing trade deals from EU membership. Which is basically my primary worry of a No Deal Brexit, and has been since day 1.

We've already got tariffs and quotas set under the WTO though, so our trade with the EU (and other countries we had trade agreements with as a EU member) would then have those tariffs apply. And yeah, we can't have discriminatory tariffs under WTO rules, it has to apply for all. But some of the tariff rates are known - as demonstrated by the particular examples given here by KPMG https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/uk/pdf/2017/07/customs-and-retail-thought-leadership.pdf but yeah we'll still get our passports, I'm not even sure that passports would even have a tariff imposed on them - I doubt they would. If shit like bottled beer isn't likely to face tariffs, there will be many more items that don't. That whole "the new passports won't be printed here, that's going to cause issues" I think is a non-story that's not important. There's a whole host of other issues for British importers and/or exporters that are far more serious.

Holy shit

I suspect we’ll bin off the domestic cups again, with more fixtures than we had last year and substantially the same squad

Good news for fans of the HBO series Chernobyl, a sequel may be in the works: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211511-gigantic-mysterious-radiation-leak-traced-to-facility-in-russia/

I’d care if it wasn’t preseason. I think the bigger worry is our front 3 still aren’t back and the season starts soon

Wouldn’t the passports still enter the country, just under WTO rules? So if there’s a WTO rate for passports, whatever that tariff is will be passed on to civil services. Which I think makes the answer to @Harvsky‘s last question “maybe” - it’s probably a more expensive to bring the passports in with no deal, but it’s likely a negligible tariff (granted, all I know about WTO rules off the top of my head is cars have a 10% tariffs) that’s not much more expensive. Or they didn’t, but I doubt it’s anything massive that’ll make getting a passport a painful and complicated mess compared to what it is now. There’s definitely bigger Brexit concerns than “can our passports get into the country” - and the idea that trade will just stop after Brexit is just madness. The cost of doing business will be higher, but trade is a necessity so it’ll continue whatever happens. My fear with Brexit is about our negotiating position and what leverage we have in future trade deals though. But we’ll get our passports, don’t worry about that.

I just watched some clips of Fowler in his prime. What a fucking player, we’d walk the league with him in our front 3.

Given the fact that so many Americans identify as "Irish-American," to the point where there's members of Congress who've donated to the IRA at the height of the troubles, and their voters don't give a shit... I doubt throwing the GFA into the waste bin would go over well. Even amongst those who have fully bought into the Trump cult.

Meanwhile the US speaker of the house has said that a US trade relations with the UK post-Brexit are contingent upon the Good Friday Agreement not being weakened in the outset of Brexit.

Yeah I agree with you, they could have told those clubs their plans and let them know they may be needing to file opposition... but at the same time, I think they'll have seen the reaction before with the Liverbird situation and seen how it eventually blew over without much fuss. And I think they're thinking the long term benefits of being able to better go after counterfeiters outweigh the short term benefit of negative PR before it all blows over. I understand both sides of the argument and I'm not particularly arsed as long as local businesses can still sell their "unofficial" LFC merch and if stuff like the Boss Nights can carry on unimpeded.

The weird thing about PSG/Qatar is that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have their own foreign policy issues... but they're also the only two nations where the state sponsored "brand" of Islam is Salafist Islam (and Wahhabis are a form of Salafi Islam). The UAE (which Abu Dhabi/City are part of) has been accused of being a Saudi puppet... but none of the UAE kingdoms are officially Salafi/Wahhabi (as far as I know) and the UAE has advocated a descalation of the Yemeni civil war and has asked the Saudis to stop backing the Hadi there. So I don't think it's as simple as "these two clubs are owned by Wahhabis" - only one of them might be (but I don't think the "official" Qatari brand of Salafism is Wahhabism... although, yes they're Salafists - so they're religious extremists). I think @RandoEFC is more on the money that these are incredibly rich ruling families in an area of the world where corruption is rife and where all problems they face are solved by paying the problem away. Both nations own their respective clubs primarily as a PR exercise for their respective countries. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was money laundering going on, but I'm not basing that on any evidence... I'm just basing it on the fact that they're from a part of the world where corruption is rampant and they're the people who are actively involved in the corruption. And when you've got wealthy Salafists, you're likely dealing with people that fund terror groups - which are obviously illegal in most countries, so having a money laundering operation running out of Europe could be handy for that. Granted, that is entirely speculative based on the fact that they're religious extremists from a part of the world where wealthy religious extremists usually means backing like minded extremists who will do extreme things and I can prove none of it. But I think the ownership of these clubs is generally to improve the perception of these Middle Eastern nations in the eyes of westerners... and even in the eyes of those in the non-Middle East part of Asia (particularly China).

I don't think trademark protection works like that, unfortunately. I think you try to register the trademark and then anyone in opposition files their opposition to attempt to either get you to withdraw your attempt at registering it, or to get you to amend your registration (so maybe here it'd be adding FC after the word Liverpool). I think if they do nothing though, they risk losing the right to claim a trademark on their merchandise - which means they risk losing a claim against various counterfeiters. I think the smaller clubs will be fine using shit like City of Liverpool in their club names. I think the people who've got the most right to be annoyed are the local shirt manufacturers that make better t-shirts for LFC related stuff than the club, because they'll likely have their businesses more impact. But going back to those other clubs using "Liverpool" in their name - I think because of those clubs existing prior to the club trying to register any mark... they'll likely fail to successfully register the trademark. But I think from a legal standpoint, if a business is seen to be doing nothing to try to protect it's intellectual property, then that can be used as evidence as to why they wouldn't care about future trademark, copyright, patent, etc... infringements in the future. I remember when there was an outcry about the attempt for the club to trademark the Liverbird (not just any Liverbird generally, but specifically the one that's got a talon over a football... the one we use on our kits). That was done over concern about counterfeiting - I suspect that this attempt to trademark the word Liverpool is the same. But I think in this instance, courts would find that you can't just trademark "Liverpool" broadly in a football sense, they'll need to add "Liverpool Football Club" or Liverpool FC" to the registration. Because there are 3 football clubs in England (that I know of) with Liverpool in the name, so I think it's unlikely they'd succeed in registering a trademark that'd fuck those clubs over.

I think it's more to go after counterfeiters than to harass the small little clubs that have "Liverpool" in their name

I think Hoever's going to be the long term backup to Trent, tbh. I wouldn't be surprised if by the time the season started (and if Clyne was still fit) that Hoever'd be ahead of him in the pecking order - he's the most like for like replacement we've got with Trent and while I think Clyne is solid... he's not really the same sort of fullback to properly fit in our system. This is shit for the club and for Clyne because Clyne further has his career hampered by injury issues... and now he won't play for a while (maybe not again this season, depending on if we're lucky enough to avoid injuries) and he's missing out on two windows. It also probably destroys what transfer value he might have had for us, he'll be leaving us for much cheaper than he would have otherwise - which is a bit of a shit thing to think after a player you like suffers a bad injury... but at this point, yeah it's first team wages to a player that's far from the first team.

Well, no, he is lying. He's an MEP and we haven't left the EU yet. So it is very much his job to defend a Brit's rights as an EU citizen. Oh and I've only now just read your second sentence and you agree with me on that

Uh where do you see that? Because googling for it turns up fuck all other than when they trademarked the Liverbird that shows up on our kit. *edit* Never mind, I've found it. Here's what they say - We are applying to register ‘Liverpool’ as a trademark but only in the context of football products and services." which is nowhere near as sensationalist as trying to say they're trying to claim the name of the city Liverpool as a trademark (because they can't do that). They're trying to do it in reference to football, which makes sense because it's Liverpool Football Club. Although it's a bit shit for all the local t-shirt manufacturers that make their own LFC branded shite that's better than what the club offers imo.

So it's not just the BBC that's taking Man Utd pre-season weirdly seriously then too

Nile Rodgers is a fucking genius

The Megadeth guitarist took people shit posting on his YouTube channel and turned it into a lesson in picking dynamics for metal heads

My Everton supporting mates and my cousin hate Mina.

That's a stupid fucking rule. Clubs can do it, but not players? Get fucked FA

Alright someone good at memes, whip up one of @SirBalon getting the TF365 meme thread wrong.