Shaka Hislop discusses the role of futbol players involved in the fight against racism:

The role that sport and sportsmen can play in tackling racism cannot be overstated, and as honorary president of the foundation I would like to express my gratitude to those who came and made Monday such a special occasion. Gordon Brown (who seemed quite shy, although his football knowledge was ok) hosted 170 footballers, managers, basketballers, rugby players, and other celebrities and dignities. Chelsea's manager Avram Grant found time to be there despite this being the biggest week of his professional life. The Reading chairman John Madejski was there even though his club had been relegated the previous day and he was on crutches because he broke his ankle a few weeks ago.

This is a very good and important blog post -- check it out in full here .

That is the rumor after Cris Ronaldo noted in an interview ahead of next weeks Champions League final that a move is possible. He told Antena 3:

'I am happy here but let's see what happens after the Champions League final.

'I am feeling calm here. I'm happy but in the future I don't know. I know Real Madrid like how I play and I know that other teams in Spain like my game as well, so that's good. 'It is good to know that other clubs are interested in you. I have said millions of times that I would love to play in Spain.'

This story will certainly run and run!

At the risk of jumping the  gun, I want to report that Man Utd have moved two clear goals ahead of Wigan with a few minutes to go, ensuring that they will be EPL Champs!

Well done to Utd and congrat's to Chelsea who pushed them to the end.

Hey Global Futbol,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Global Futbol from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Global Futbol and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of sports material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

As we get ready for the final round of games in the EPL, the critical question left to be answered is whether Man Utd have the coolness and confidence necessary to get a crucial win against Wigan and guarantee the EPL. Chelsea have a game against Bolton and I am sure that the Blue Machine will roll over the Wanderers in pretty convincing fashion.

I am betting that Utd do finish the job against Wigan. Wigan have already guaranteed their survival and I have a feeling that their players may play looser but will also play with an eye towards the beach.

As for Utd - with Ronaldo and Tevez in good form and with the energy of Owen H and Anderson to call on they should have more than enough to get the points.

Of course Chelsea probably have an eye towards the CL final and I wonder how Grant will play things if Utd score a couple early at Wigan. My guess is that he would look to withdraw Drogba, Ballack and perhaps Ricardo C at some point to rest them for the CL final and ensure they don't pick up injuries....yes I have just picked out the top 3 players for Chelsea.

As for Utd -- Ronaldo, Rio and VDS are probably their key three.

Wow -- what a depressing game for Barca fans:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=532843&cc=5901

The details are here:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=531804&cc=5901

I will write my own summary of this a bit later.

Good read for a Sunday morning:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=531102&cc=5901

I wish Toronto FC every success (aside from when they play DC United!)

King Kev is looking forward to Newcastle Getting in the way of Chelsea's title charge:

"It's a chance for the players here to test themselves against the very best, probably for the first time this season playing one of the top-four sides while we are in a run or form and while we have got some confidence."

Playing for Pride v Playing for the EPL:

"There's no doubt that should help us. Now whether that will help us enough to play for 90 minutes-plus against a side of Chelsea's calibre and get us a result, that's what we don't know. But we are going into the game with an awful lot to play for. We are playing for the biggest thing of all, we are playing for pride."

Man Utd thumped West Ham 4-1 today to move a step closer to the title. It was a very good all around performance from Utd and Ronaldo in particular seemed up for the game from the start.

Chelsea now have to ensure that they get a win at Newcastle on Monday night to force Utd into a search for a win the following week at Wigan.

While I am sure Utd would have liked to have secured the title by now, they will feel very good about the fact that their destiny is in their hands.