Roman Abramovich has poured money into Stamford Bridge and his roubles seem to have duly delivered the championship. But is buying success best for the game? Here are two different views on the matter.
Will Buckley doesn’t mind the money
Now that the championship has effectively been settled, there are those who are coming over all huffy and cavilling that Roman Abramovich is simply unacceptable. The charge against Abramovich is simply made, and simplistic. He has oodles of boodle — ergo, he must be a crook.
This is reductive rather than deductive. He is guilty of being who he is rather than of any specific crimes he may have committed along the way.
Further, the very notion of there being some threshold of acceptability to be passed before you can own a football club is somewhat novel. Traditionally, clubs have been owned by either public schoolboys or spivs, or spivvy public schoolboys. There was no money to be made from football so it was something you did either out of duty or for publicity.
However, once the game became profitable the middle managers moved in to snare their share. It is they who brought with them the whiff of probity in a bid to gull us that they were honest brokers turning an honest buck. Abramovich is a throwback to the age of the chairman as fan, to a time when the owner went out to matches rather than sitting in Ireland waiting for Malcolm Glazer to buy them out.
In the comics of the 1970s, the mega-rich chairman was a constant story line. The idea that your club might be saved by a local millionaire was a beguiling one. Strangely, the concept of an accountant or public-relations executive arriving to place the club’s finances on a level footing never caught on. Mike’s Millions works; Leonard’s Ledger doesn’t.
Finally, acceptable or not, Abramovich’s appearance was inevitable. His arrival is a symptom, not a cause, of the canker at the root of the modern game.
When the Premiership was created it was done so on strictly capitalist grounds. The object was to ensure the already wealthy could put further distance between themselves and the increasingly poor.
There was no consideration given to egalitarian concerns. No discussion of salary caps or equal distribution of TV revenues or other ways of making the league more competitive. The rich, as they do, used their power and influence to sustain their exclusive position. You had to be seriously rich to be able to break into their cabal.
Abramovich did. Those who find his presence offensive should turn their ire against the stipulations that made the Premiership party so attractive to gatecrashers rather than the gatecrasher himself.
At least, and unusually among the uninvited, Abramovich has brought something to the party. His money has in large part rescued West Ham from a very parlous position. More generally his appointment of Jose Mourinho has gingered up what was becoming a very repetitive dialogue between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger. These two have been behaving like a couple in the last throes of a divorce.
The appearance of Mourinho, in the role of mistress, consoling one of the warring parties over a bottle of fine wine while trying to tempt away the other’s prize asset, has added a new dimension to proceedings. There are three people in the marriage now.
Without Mourinho it is doubtful this debate would be taking place. It is he who has transformed Chelsea. It is he, by buying young players with a desire to succeed rather than star players keen to take a sabbatical, who has driven the club to its current position.
The pivotal moment in Chelsea’s success was Sven-Goran Eriksson turning them down. Under Sven and associates, Abramovich would have been gently convinced of the benefits of employing overrated and overpaid has-beens.
Their mantra is: ”He must be good, we paid £30-million for him.” Mourinho doesn’t need such a flimsy fallback position to buttress his own judgement. ”He is good because I say he is and, what’s more, I will make him better” is his way of doing things. It is one that must have appealed to Abramovich who lacks for nothing, least of all self-belief.
Nor are Chelsea the only beneficiaries of the alliance between Mourinho and Abramovich. If England are going to overcome the handicap of Eriksson and progress beyond a quarterfinal much of the preparation will have been done at Stamford Bridge.
John Terry and Frank Lampard are the two most improved players in the country. Were Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole to join them next season, then the quartet would have a whole year together, under Mourinho’s guidance, in which to gel. They would represent the bed-rock of the team.
Meanwhile, Arsenal may not provide a single player and Manchester United only Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney — both of whom cost more than anyone Chelsea have purchased. Russian helps England win World Cup over Germany. Forty years on, the story may remain the same.
Ian Ridley presents the case against
If you are a fan of football, you cannot help but be impressed by what Jose Mourinho and his talented team have already achieved. And you cannot help, too, being disgusted by the way Chelsea as a club conduct their business. Good for the game? Good to watch, mostly; bad for what little morality football has left.
It is always hard to separate club from team. Usually the two go together, the team a product of the way the club are run, the mood established in what the Americans call the front office.
To be fair to Chelsea, you have to try. For years, under Ken Bates’s chairmanship and a variety of managers, they played some decent football, won the odd cup, but lacked the winning mentality.
Claudio Ranieri came close, but was unfortunate to run into Arsenal’s Invincibles. His tactical mistakes in Monaco in a Champions League semifinal confirmed his departure. Thus did Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon bring in Mourinho, a born winner who has forged an exceptional team, no matter the money at his disposal.
Mourinho has fostered a tight camaraderie and esprit de corps. They can grind out a win at Blackburn or delight Stamford Bridge when occasion allows. There, that’s got that out of the way.
While the end may be attractive, the means to it has been as ugly as a Wayne Rooney reaction to a referee’s ticking off. First there was the death by a thousand cuts of Ranieri, and Kenyon’s meeting with Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Now we have Kenyon and Mourinho allegedly meeting Ashley Cole in a London hotel to tap up the Arsenal left-back. You have to say ”allegedly” to keep the lawyers happy. In the absence of a simple denial, and with a couple of compelling eye-witness accounts, the evidence looks damning.
Kenyon had the chance to deny it on a radio programme last week but instead stuck to a policy of not talking about player speculation. That is understandable, but this was not about transfer gossip. Did you meet him, yes or no?
Mourinho did break with club policy and say that he was in Milan on the day in question, talking to Inter’s Brazilian striker Adriano. He was being waspish, however. It all smells, even so.
Arsenal and Manchester United, a representative of every club in the country come to that, have probably tapped up a player in some way and at some time. Chelsea, though, have been brazen in flouting rules of recruitment over the past year, an arrogance that comes with money informing their attitudes.
Fine us. Fine by us. At least, and at last, the Premier League says it will look into the matter. Any financial sanction would clearly not trouble Chelsea unduly but the docking of points would. There seems to be some glee at the prospect of the title race being open again should that happen but it is a sad response. If found guilty, Chelsea should be docked points because of a punishment fitting a crime and because it would be the only language they understand.
I do not begrudge Chelsea their money. Clubs have been buying success ever since the first Lancashire mill owner decided he just had to have it. I don’t even decry Kenyon’s signing-on fee and salary last year totalling £3,5-million if that is what Abramovich wants to pay him.
Nor does a loss last year of £87,8-million particularly matter to anyone but themselves, with it being underwritten. They have a five-year business plan, they say, and needed to invest in the short term for long-term gain. Kenyon also insists that funding is in place, even if Abramovich should depart. Perhaps.
But if Abramovich does not continue to enjoy the indulgence of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, thanks to which his whole fortune has been accumulated, the best Chelsea fans can hope for is a legacy of facilities and structure, against one of debt and inherited expenses.
Beyond those who simply want a title and memories, and hang the abuse and the cost, there are those more discerning with concerns. Chelsea are clearly inflating the market with transfer fees — good player, Didier Drogba, but £24-million? — but it has always happened.
Some other clubs are indeed benefiting. Arsenal, in need of some surgery soon, may be even grateful in the summer for a large fee for Cole. One club has always paid the biggest wages; Blackburn was that club just more than a decade ago. No point in Manchester United complaining, either.
What should concern is the spreading of the Abramovich influence. Chelsea seem to have the pick of CSKA Moscow, in which his company Sibneft invests heavily. A record transfer fee has just been paid in South America, too, with the Argentine prodigy Carlos Tevez moving from Boca Juniors to debt-ridden Corinthians of Brazil for an unheard-of £10,5-million.
The word is that Abramovich could be involved, the player being honed to his peak ready for his arrival at Chelsea. At the least, the game’s authorities should investigate.
The team, the money … both can be explained and justified, certainly by the club. What should be explained, and certainly not justified, is Kenyon and Co’s flouting of rules and the dismissiveness with which they do it, emboldened by the perception that money brings power. It can buy class on the field. Chelsea need some off it. — Â