Chatterers are chattering that American John Fisher is looking to buy AS Roma of the Italian Serie A. Who is John Fisher you ask? Well let’s start off by saying the dude is loaded. And when I say loaded, I mean he is a billionaire. Now that we have that out of the way….John Fisher is also the son of Donald Fisher who is the founder of The Gap (which also owns Banana Republic and Old Navy). John is also responsible for putting up a serious amount of money as an owner in the Oakland A’s baseball team and he is also a part owner of the San Jose Earthquakes.

News reports out of Italy say that Mr. Fisher is preparing to buy out the $580 million in debt that Roma has and that there is also talk of a new stadium. Is any of this true? I don’t know. We’ll file this one under the “rumor” category and go from there.

As owners of our own clothing company (Bumpy Pitch…ahem, plug), I find it very inspirational to see that a fellow American clothing guy is already part owner of an MLS team and looking to expand his soccer interests. I’m pretty sure we would / will do the same thing. If by chance you are reading this Mr. John Fisher, give us a shout. We would love to talk soccer and apparel.

image via Brann

After going on record that he wanted out and refusing to return to Norway (would have faced Timmy Howard’s Everton last Tuesday in Uefa competition), MLS has negotiated a buyout with SK Brann of the Norwegian Tippeligaen for American left-back Ramiro Corrales. It doesn’t stop there as New/Old San Jose Earthquake coach Frank Yallop’s first order of business was to trade for Corrales’ player rights as they had stayed with the Houston Dynamo (when they were the original Earthquakes) when he first left MLS for Norway club Ham-Kam in 2005. Confused yet? Now Corrales is back home in Salinas, representing locally in Northern California for the reinstated MLS club.

(image via soccernet.com)

Trading away the first pick for proven toughman Nick Garcia is a great way to kick off the countdown to the 2008 MLS Draft. Think about, with Cannon in goal and a physical duo of Cochrane and Garcia in front, SJ is starting to look like a team that will compete off the bat. With EJ rumored to be on his way to Fulham USA, hopefully Curt Onalfo has some serious players in mind when replacing two very important starters from last years squad. Who pairs up with Conrad is my question.