Whether Jerome de Bontin, the former Red Bull general manager, resigned or was fired early in March hardly matters when trying to assess the health of the franchise.

I have to return to the case of Andre Marriner, the English referee who recently misidentified a player, causing him to red-card the wrong guy.

Defending Arsene Wenger is becoming a rather thankless task. His repeated calamities -- both in the signing of players and then in getting them to perform on the field -- seem almost designed to mock anyone trying to take his side.

The tangled situation and the snap decision that led EPL referee Andre Marriner to red-card the wrong player during Saturday's Chelsea-Arsenal game have been, and will continue to be, argued at tedious length.

Jurgen Klinsmann has a reputation for being well-organized and disciplined. I suppose, rightly or wrongly, you expect that from a German.

We now know the identities of the replacement referees PRO used to officiate this past weekend's opening MLS games. If there was any doubt about that, PSRA -- the referees union (recognized by the National Labor Relations Board as such) -- published a list of them on its website. Complete with photographs and short bios. The information was headed "MLS Scab Referee Details."

It's not easy to see what MLS is gaining from its hard-line stance in the ongoing dispute with PSRA, the referees union.