Arsenal FC, the Rocky Mountains, and Fidel Castro

That's right, I said Fidel freakin' Castro.

Yesterday, the Colorado Rapids announced that they have teamed with Arsenal FC in a player development deal, which will include the "Arsenal Center of Excellence" for youth academy training in Denver, the exchange of training, coaching, and marketing information, and the introduction of a youth tournament, dubbed the 'Arsenal Cup'. This deal is massive for MLS, and for Arsenal FC, as they try to spread their 'brand name' around the world. And with a world class training facility setup in Denver, it can only help the development of the players in this country, hopefully leading to more situations like this, and creating a stronger foothold in this country for the World's game. And, if a certain north London squad were to travel to this country (which manager Arsene Wenger really does not want to do) to play a friendly against the Rapids, that would be fantastic.

Now, about the Fidel Castro part...
According to Arsenal's official encyclopedia, the Gunners fan base has now grown to 27 Million fans around the world. This unofficially makes Arsenal FC the third most popular club in the world (from 2006), and this number continues to grow. Case in point: Arsenal offers many different types of membership programs, and all together, they have 171,000 registered members. This number is greater than the World record for club members held by Benfica (which was 161,000), and is enough to fill the Emirates Stadium almost 3 times. This report, which is reported here, also states that the club has been followed by many famous people, including one Fidel Castro. So, apparently that makes me a card-carrying communist as well (just kidding, but I did buy a red membership from my favorite footballing side).

Just kind of thought this was interesting (and btw, 3 posts in a week *shock*).