Jon Marthaler's soccer short takes: Most powerful clubs, MLS schedule release

• Soccerex, a company that runs soccer business events, released its top-100 list of clubs with the most financial power. Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, as fronts for Middle Eastern oil money, have essentially unlimited financial power and thus check in at No. 1 and 3 on the list. The surprise, though, is Arsenal, which sits at No. 2 despite being famously unwilling to spend money on new players. The report concluded that Arsenal has the most assets of any team in the world and holds just $11 million in debt. By comparison, Chelsea has an astonishing $1.1 billion in debt.

• Major League Soccer released its full schedule this week, and once again the league will play through most of the FIFA-mandated international breaks, only taking a (very short) break for the opening rounds of the World Cup. Just like every year, I confess I can't understand why the league wants to schedule games when top players are required to be on call for their national teams and be forced to miss MLS games. It's needless and it makes the league worse — in soccer parlance, it's an own goal.