For the fourth consecutive summer, a selection of Europe's top clubs have incorporated the relentless pursuit of the Yankee dollar into preparations for their new campaigns. Lured by seven figure appearance fees, and the possibility of flogging shirts to the eight million American kids between the ages of six and 16 who play the game, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid are quite happy to placate the locals with platitudes off the field without ever really breaking sweat on it. The by-now familiar script involves praising the improving standard of the local sides, lauding the growing knowledge of the fans, and talking in vague terms about the viability of linking-up with MLS clubs to use them as feeder teams.

"I think they are evaluating that, " said MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis of Barcelona's reported interest in this regard. "It would be presumptuous to say they have a fixed plan. The tour is the first part of exploring a relationship that could be many things, depending on which direction they decide to go. It could be Barcelona players playing in the MLS and a relationship in which there are regular tours with the first team."

Several years after Real Madrid and Manchester United first seriously investigated the possibility of buying into the MLS as a way of establishing a foothold in the US, Chelsea have inked a marketing agreement with Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) committing them to future American tours. As part of that initiative, a bemused-looking Jose Mourinho participated in a symbolic jersey exchange with the Los Angeles Galaxy coach Frank Yallop and general manager Alexi Lalas earlier this week.

"We can co-operate in a lot of aspects, " said Mourinho.

"We have a lot to speak about and to establish. I'm not saying player exchange because the level of Chelsea playersffor sure, they are not very keen to come and play in the MLS. This is something we have to develop. What we can say is next season we will be here again and next season we will play against them."

Aside from attracting celebrity visitors to training . . . actor Owen Wilson and former Sex Pistol Steve Jones were the pick of this week's crop at the UCLA campus . . .

it's difficult to grasp exactly what Chelsea are hoping to gain from a relationship with a club 6000 miles away whose season begins a few weeks before the Premiership ends.

Their accountants may reckon America as an untapped market but others have tried unsuccessfully to go down this road before.

For all the publicity United's commercial link-up with the New York Yankees a couple of years back engendered at the time, it appeared to yield only one serious benefit, an often bizarre block of MUTV programming on the Yankees' own channel late at night. A similar deal between Real and Disney hasn't exactly led to Americans eschewing their staple baseball, NFL and NBA apparel in favour of that distinctive white shirt either. Indeed, the biggest obstacle facing Chelsea and the others in cracking this market is that the most oftenspotted soccer jerseys here belong to clubs with preexisting immigrant followings and networks of supporters' clubs.

The likes of Celtic and Club America of Mexico City have a huge socio-cultural advantage over their more wealthier rivals. When the Glaswegians played Chelsea at Qwest Field in Seattle in 2004, the contrast in demographics was striking. Celtic fans were mostly adults nursing a lifelong passion, the Chelsea ranks seemed to consist of kids indulging some crazy new fad. Consequently, Celtic and the raft of top Mexican outfits who regularly play games in the US each season don't have to resort to desperate measures to drum up support.

Not for them the crass promotional device like the moment when Manchester United sent Tim Howard on to American morning television wearing a frankly embarrassing Mastercard sweater with the times and dates of their fixtures printed in large letters on the front. United needn't have worried because tickets for these fixtures usually sell well enough. With satellite access to live matches from England, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, Scotland and Brazil each weekend, American fans are always up for catching a reallife glimpse of the game's biggest stars.

Aside from sating the appetite of supporters, and boosting the profile of their own clubs through glamorous association, MLS has other agendas too. What may appear a bizarre diversion to some, Real Madrid's visit to Real Salt Lake in Utah next Wednesday is actually designed to help the home team in its efforts to persuade local government to finance a soccer-specific stadium for the franchise. Importing David Beckham for a couple of days is apparently regarded as a smart way of impressing politicians. Evidence perhaps of how far the game has yet to travel here.

WALSH'S FINAL JOURNEY BRINGS HIM HOME Billy Walsh was just 14 when his mother marched him across the city to Maine Road and demanded to meet the Manchester City manager, Wilf Wild.

Eight years after the family had swapped Dublin for Gorton, Mrs Walsh was anxious to know why the local team was ignoring the growing reputation of her son as a wing-half. Suitably impressed or frightened by the Irishwoman, City gave the lad a job as an of"ce boy and then watched him turn into a stalwart who started 350 "rst-team games between 1936 and 1951.

When they cremated 85 year old Walsh in the Queensland, Australia town of Noosa last Tuesday, he was wearing the jersey of his beloved City. The club had brought him back in 2004 for the parade of surviving legends at the "nal game in Maine Road and plans are already afoot for his ashes to be "own to England and buried near the entrance to the City of Manchester Stadium. Survived by his wife Ethel and four children, a posthumous trip spanning the globe is kind of appropriate because this Dubliner had a unique boast. He played international football for four different countries.

Capped by England schoolboys and brie"y embroiled in a teenage tug of war between City and Manchester United due to a registration mixup, he went on to represent both Northern Ireland and the Republic at senior level after World War II.

It was with the country of his birth however that Walsh enjoyed his "nest international hour.

Alongside the likes of Johnny Carey, Con Martin and Tommy Moroney, he was part of the side that claimed a little piece of history in 1949 as the "rst side to defeat the English on home soil.

"Billy Walsh was in one of his cheekiest moods, " went one report of his contribution in that 2-0 victory at Goodison Park, "going into tackles with real dash, coming out with the ball, dribbling through and passing with an accuracy that sent shivers through the English defence."

With a career truncated by the war, Walsh often worked as a miner to supplement his income and later moved into management with Chelmsford City and Grimsby Town. At Blundell Park, he'd succeeded Bill Shankly in the job but when things didn't pan out for him there he emigrated to New Zealand. In his adopted country, he somehow rekindled his international career with the allwhites in his early forties. One more little distinction.