The rumour is given considerable believability by the fact (as revealed by Arsenal-World today) that the internet domain names emiratesstadium.com and emiratesstadium.co.uk were both registered on October 1st (last Friday), by Arsenal FC. You can see it for yourself at any one of the many "whois" servers on the net, such as SamSpade.org.

There are a couple of interesting clashes here. As many Arsenal fans will notice immediately, Emirates are the current shirt sponsor of the other football team in London. But apparently that deal is set to end in the summer, and given that Emirates are a company with a pretty decent reputation (apparently they won "Airline of the Year" in global polls in 2001 and 2002, and "best economy class" in those years and this year as well), it's understandable that they might to raise the calibre of football team that they are associated with.

The other interesting clash is that, as every is well aware, Arsenal announced at the start of September that BMI are now our official airline. I'm not completely au fait with the airline industry, perhaps BMI and Emirates aren't exactly competitors. But it does suggest that whatever Arsenal get out of Emirates, it won't be air travel. Speculation about exactly what we will get out of it seems a bit pointless to be frank. Latest estimate is a gazillion pounds over a 10 year period.

Of course, it's possible that Paul Farmer, Arsenal's IT man, saw last week's rumours and decided to register the domains as a smoke screen. If that turns out to be the case then we'll take our hat off to him for a cunning ruse.

Otherwise, expect an announcement very soon, cos they'll want to do it before everyone already knows.