While the Football League tries to keep its members afloat by recouping TV rights money from ITV Digital's owners Carlton Communications and Granada, the Office of Fair Trading has rapped Manchester United for fixing the price of football kits.
The world's richest football club was named along with 11 other organisations, including Umbro, the Football Association and several clothing retailers, saying that they entered agreements to keep the prices of football kits high. If found guilty, the OFT has the power to fine them up to 10% of their annual turnover -- totalling millions of pounds.
After its rebrand (which, they keep telling us, isn't a rebrand), the National Lottery is switching the names of the draw machines.
Camelot isn't really taking the long-term view, however. It is dumping Arthurian names such as Lancelot and Merlin, with names such as Kylie, Dido and Gareth reportedly in the running as the replacements.
Kmart, the US retailing giant, has had better years. After filing for bankruptcy protection, the US media reported this week that it is now being investigated by the FBI about a $30m (拢20.5m) loan made to one of its executives just before it filed for Chapter 11 protection in January.
It is alleged that the firm was funnelling money before filing to reduce its assets. After initially reporting losses of $244m, it is now saying it lost $2.42bn. The news came in the same week that its latest advertisement, featuring domestic goddess Martha Stewart and directed by Spike Lee, hits US TV screens.
What word springs to mind when you think of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut? Well, parent company Tricon Global Restaurants hopes that the word is "Yum!", as shareholders voted to adopted that as the new name. "Yum! better reflects our expanding portfolio of brands and the unique fun and recognition culture we are driving across our global company," chief executive officer David Novak said.
"It also represents our ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, and reinforces our customer mania passion [sic] to put a 'Yum' on our customers' faces all around the world." Yuck.
Still in the US -- the 'Star Wars' franchise is alive and well, as the reports filtered in that 2.6m working American adults could not wait until Saturday to see 'Attack of the Clones'. New York police took a break from zero tolerance to launch Operation Attack of the Clones, ensuring that multimillionaire director George Lucas doesn't lose out to video and DVD piracy.
And finally, back in the UK... Sainsbury's is one of many supermarkets that have spent a fortune developing organic ranges and rooting out genetically modified organisms from its produce.
Now, however, the supermarket chain has gone in for a bit of genetic engineering and historical correction.
In the summer, it is set to launch purple carrots to consumers. Why? Because purple is the colour carrots used to be, according to historians. They only became orange after patriotic Dutch farmers in the 16th century decided to grow orange ones, using yellow seeds from North Africa. Whether or not the purple carrot takes off, Sainsbury's will no doubt be ensuring that its customers in Northern Ireland have a choice of both.
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