Abramovich and Manchester Arabia
Now, last week I was accused by two Chelsea fans of never giving Chelsea a break. They may be right, if criticizing Chelsea twice in 16 months counts. It is no secret that I really don’t like Chelsea, I don’t like the way they bought themselves titles, cups and their current position in the big four. It’s wrong for football and should not be allowed. I don’t like Man City either.
After Autoglass had a dig at me last week, I stewed on whether to comment on a story I read on Friday. After a brief ponder I decided that I just had to vent and if Chelsea fans don’t like it then they can hit ‘print’, roll up the page and shove it up there arses. This story needs to be commented on, it is just unbelievable.
Roman Abramovich has publically backed UEFA president Michel Platini in demanding financial fair play. The Russian is a little sore at how much Man City have spent this summer… What? Did I read that right?
Platini wants all teams to break even, and spend within their means to be able to qualify for European football. Good idea I say. The spending is outrageous, the transfer market is over inflated, raising the prices across all divisions, shafting smaller clubs. Footballers earn crazy wages that clubs cannot cover. Fantasy football owners are the winners while real fans and clubs without rich owners, the losers. Levelling the playing field is the first decent idea Platini has had since being handed the UEFA reigns. Putting glory back in the hands of coaching and hard work.
But for Abramovich to speak up and call Man City out is just outrageous hypocrisy. This is from the man who started this whole merry go round in the first place when he waltzed into the EPL and opened his check book. Inflated transfers, spending that DID NOT cover the debt, Chelsea were the main offender of exactly what Platini wants to stop. Roman has spent over FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR MILLION POUNDS on transfer fees alone since taking over in 2003. 434 million! Nearly half a billion on transfers alone! How does this man have the balls to accuse Manchester Arabia of over spending, and to complain how unfair it is to UEFA! Roman Abramovich paid 50 million in transfer and wages to a 30 year old Andre Shevchenko. That’s 5.5 million quid for every one of the flops 9 goals. Remember Damien Duff? 17 million. Veron? 15 million. Crespo? nearly 17 million. Kezman? Here is the list , enjoy.
“It’s mainly the owners that asked us to do something. Roman Abramovich, Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan and Massimo Moratti at Inter, I have met with Abramovich, who is a football person and passionate about the game. He said that we must do something about this.”- UEFA head honcho Michel Platini.
Brass balls! Roman has a pair for sure.
Now that Roman is skint and has just 1.8 billion left (down from around 12 billion) after taking a huge hit during the current global recession, he wants to level the playing field. How rich. Especially as ‘breaking even’ to Chelsea was impossible until Roman turned 600 million of the clubs debt into equity! This current move by the Russian is very clever indeed as his spending is done now and he is well aware of the threat Man City and other teams ripe for a takeover (Liverpool?) pose to Chelsea. Still smart or not, he is the biggest hypocrite in football.
Manchester Arabia have so far spent 150 million on transfers under their Arab owners, that’s 284 million less than Chelsea under Abramovich.
Roman can KMRIA.
cool. doesn’t make me not like Chelsea anymore though. What if Norwich was bought by some Greek shipping guru? Are you somehow then not loyal. Roman is a rich arse, what else to say. Go Blues.
I agree with our Anonymous friend. Roman’s twin brother buys Norwich and Mr Ned would be the happiest lad around.
I would be unhappy Annon. At all the spending. After being City mad since 5, I would not forget it all and embrace the cash. It would be horrible. Like cheating. I hate to see teams get so far behind because of what Cheslea and Man City are doing. Colaship teams have no chance of establishing themselves in teh EPL these days. Look at teh yoyo teams of Bongo, West Brom etc.
I think you both miss Ned’s point. The point is that Roman has no business in this conversation about overspending. Discussing Ned’s over-emoting were Norwich to be flush with transfer cash is simply a red herring. Abramovich played a large role in creating the culture of overspending (he certainly isn’t without his co-conspirators, for sure), and, as such, his inability to participate in it any longer does not entitle him to begin to bitch about it.
@Yiddo. I really would not. It would gut me. Ethically I would be torn, I believe in teams living within their means. This time last year a billionaire called Peter Cullum was sniffing around Norwich and in email chains with friends I said the same at the time. Having an owner who invests 20 mil to help the clubs debts and buy some players is one thing. Spending half a billion on players to play fantasy football is another. David Gold and David Sullivan of Bongo may buy us soon. They would probably invest 20 mil and that would be fantastic. Help us get back to where we were before mismanagment but I dont want a billionaires cash. It would ruin my club, the community feel of it. I’d be gutted.
And that’s what a get for being long-winded and a poor typist.
FWIW, Ned, I’m glad Bongo can’t compete. The less the Prem sees of that bunch of hacking bastards, the better.
/still bitter over the Modric injury
//is petty and sad.
@Phil. Spot on. He started the whole thing. Seen how many clubs have gone into administration since 2003? How many have struggled to pay increased wages and transfer fees to competer based on their gates?
@Phil, you are just bitter at the moment. They are hacking bastards, but you know what i meant. The main point above is that Roman should close his mouth on this topic. It’s disgusting and outrageous that he is backing this now. Now he has written of Chelsea’s debt and finished spending.
@ NEd: The wage packets are a great point. Staring at the transfer fees is one sort of horror show, but the amount he was shelling in wage packets is what really made the playing field uneven. Tapping up is a whole lot easier when you can double a wage packet without batting an eye.
@ Ned: Yeah, I know what you meant. And I am still bitter. I’m sure I’ll get over it, but I’ll waste a lot of bile on Bongo for a while.
@Phil, Cheslea transferred 600 mil of debt into equity, and I am pretty sure that without the CL payout they would deffo no way be able to cover the wages, they don’t even sell out games.
I see that it’s two sides of the same coin, Ned, but no one ever talks about the effect the wage packet has on turning the players’ heads. Waving a bunch of cash for a transfer fee at a BoD is one thing; some will stick to principles and tell the buyer to go away. But once a players head is turned by the promise of a doubled, or tripled, wage packet, it becomes much harder for that BoD to say no.
Don’t forget, the players (and their agents) oftentimes get a cut of the transfer fee as well. So, I’m sure a jawdropping cash influx from their cut of the transfer fee doesn’t hurt in turning heads either.
True, TFA. I hadn’t considered that.
Phil the Modric injury has me absolutely gutted. That being said I can honestly say Boyer’s tackle was fair and not cynical. He is still a c*** but there was not much in the challenge. Also, maybe Gio gets a run out? I dont know what Harry will do but we have a squad for a reason. Its really tough though as Luka was the catalyst for all that has been good.
@TFA. The agents fee is on top. Look up agents fees. Norwich paid an outrageous amount on agents fees last year.
Don’t know where to look but Wikipedia notes that the agent fees are a proportion of the transfer fee. Wikipedia is not always accurate (I know, shocking), so point me in the right direction.
this article reeks of jealousy and xenophobia. are you saying that only debt-free clubs that have not spent significant amounts of money on transfers can speak out against high transfer fees & debt? abromovich is not being hypocritical. suggesting that abromovich somehow created the current climate shows a ridiculous ignorance of history. clubs have been inflating transfer fees and debt-financing since the dawn of professional football. perhaps you should take look at the history of juventus or real madrid to start with, son. abromovich should be applauded for trying to recitfy a very-old problem that he could have chosen to ignore, if not exploit.
i’m sure you weren’t complaining when mr. barclay donated the money for a roof for the station end of the canaries stadium, but then again he wasn’t an evil foreigner with evil foreign money so it must be different.
@TFA. If there is no transfer fee agents need paying.
http://www.norwich.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=167348
Football league Agents fees report …
http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/PublicationsDetail/0,,10794~1761359,00.html
i’m well aware of your point on the hypocrisy of Roman’s comments, that just hits you in the face, but he is not solely responsible for the state of things. it is interesting though b/c some owners are willing pay big while others with the cash don’t. Who’s the lad that owns QPR? He has more than Roman yet they are what mid-table championship. with no perceived ambition towards mega transfers.
Apparently, Blues fans are fond of the ad hominem circumstantial.
You can try and whitewash Roman’s participation in the climate overspending however you wish, but the fact is he participated. Yes, salaries have risen. Clubs that participate in CL play often have more to spend. But a sudden influx of cash to a mid-table club creates an imbalance among the peers of said club. And it prevents clubs from retaining players they have worked to develop. What happened with Chelsea in 2002-2003 has nothing to do with the rise of salaries; it has nothing to do with history. In fact, it flies in the face of history. And this has nothing to with xenophobia or dogwhistle racism, and everything to do with the fact that Roman’s hypocrisy in this matter is undeniable, especially considering the main reasons he now finds himself strapped for cash are his previous extravagances.
@ Anonymous:
I don’t disagree that Roman isn’t solely responsible. ManU, Real Madrid, Inter, and AC Milan all have their part to play, as well, but the manner in which Roman spent from 2003-2006 pretty much precludes him from griping about what Citeh is doing.
Dear Lynard, I am not jealous at all. I would be distrout if my club was taken over by a billionaire. Gutted.
One: I am well aware of history, please compare Juve’s spending to Chelsea’s since 03. Then come back and we can all have a good giggle. Real Madrid are indeed as bad but I don’t see their owner complaining to UEFA.
Two: Roman’s spending from 2003 onwwards has inflated the transfer market and only some one with blue blinkers over their eyes would say different.
Three: Please don’t embarrass yourself by comparing the 100k cost of a roof repair to Chelsea’s spending of half a billion on players transfers alone. The whole Norwich and Peterborough double tier stand cost 2.8 million to build and we live within the means the gate money will allow. I would welcome investment at Carrow Road as long as it allowed us to live within our means to pay it back.
You could buy our club, including the money owed to Delia Smith for one Andre Shevchenko.
Roman ‘needs to be applauded?’ You must be high. He has run out of cash and now wants to stop teams from doing what he did.
@Annon. QPR are indeed owned by very righ people, but they are not playing fantasy football, they want the club to be able to pay for itself. They have invested and spent on players but they spent less last year on transfers than Ipswich and their wage bill was less than Wolves (10mil).
@Lynard. Oh and the Norwich and Peterbrough stand was built using 2 million grant money.
@Lynard, also the Bernabeu sells out over 80,000 a week. Chelsea FC don’t sell out EPL and CL games for 42,000. There are more people at the Stadium of light and at Newcastle. There were tickets available last week for the game with Burnley and they gave seats away for the CL tie with Rosenborg last year. Without Roman turning the debt owed into equity Chelsea would not be able to sustain itself.
This is an interesting article from 2006. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-406097/Chelsea-face-spending-cap-attempt-rein-Roman.html
i suspect if you weren’t jealous you wouldn’t resort to petty and patently false statements such as chelsea buying their place into the top 4 (or did we miss some secret payments between 1997-2003 when they were top 4 three out of six years and top 6 the others)
regardless, you’re missing the point. transfers have been “inflated” since the concept of professional football began. and to point the finger at chelsea is to ignore 100 years of history. i don’t really understand how chelsea paying 30 mil for shevchenko is objectively any worse than juventus paying 100k in 1957 for enrique sivori (financed by a wealthy patron in the form of FIAT, i might add). transfers will go up every year, and that would’ve happened with or without abromovich buying chelsea. the fact is, he is now trying to reverse this trend and you are attacking him for it. i would hardly consider someone with 2 billion (as a very conservative estimate) “out of cash”, by the way.
lastly, the point i was trying to illustrate about the roof of the barclay stand (NOT the norwich & peterborough stand) is that it was donated as a gift by a patron in the 1930′s. relatively speaking, at the time it was a huge investment, and i’m sure norwich supporters were not “gutted” by their patron’s generosity. please explain why it’s ok for evelyn barclay to trade a bag of cash for his name on one a stand, yet somehow morally wrong for abromovich to buy players and build a new training ground and youth academy for chelsea.
also, chelsea averaged 41,588 per game last year, which is higher than sunderland actually (in a stadium with almost 7000 less seats). of course there will be more people at the bernebeu & st james park, considering they both have a much higher capacity as well. If you haven’t noticed there’s not much room to expand around stamford bridge, and i’m sure you would criticize Chelsea if they decided to build a bigger stadium elsewhere.
Because Roman Abramovich is a terrible human being.
Lynyrd: I am attacking him for being a hypocrite and he is reversing it because he has to after losing a lot of money. 1.8 billion from 12 billion is a HUGE hit and he is no longer willing to bank roll Chelsea’s transfers to stay in the top 4.
As for Capt Barclay, again you cannot compare a small donation to fix a roof, to Romans funding on players, it’s not the same. Delia Smith has pumped in 12 million in to Norwich City, 2 mil a year to keep it going, that is not comparable 434 million on players alone in 6 years. There is investment and there is fantasy football, acquiring players at any cost to achieve success and driving up the market.
I have no problem with investing and acquiring debt if its sustainable by income. In Chelsea’s case it is not. It’s just buying cups and trophies to placate the fantasy of a rich man.
I think you missed the point here mate. Regardless of how I feel about money in football, whether it be Chelsea or Real Madrid, the point of the above is that Roman is a hypocrite for criticizing and complaining about the spending of Manchester Arabia. He did the same on a bigger level and now he is driven to change the way things are done because he knows he cannot afford to spend another 434 million over 6 years. It’s smart but it is hypocrisy and that was my point. Man has balls.
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This weekend there were 40,906 at Chelsea. Sunderland v Chelsea was 41,179. But these numbers are irreleveant to my point in the post above.
Your opinion should only count if you are a supporter of a club in the top two leagues. A Norfolk fan criticising the way Chelsea FC and Man City are run is like a 3 year old criticising how the President does his job. Don’t you want to see world class palyers like Drogba and Adebayor play the game? Who cares if WBA can’t close the gap. Tough luck. Right now we have six teams who look outstaning to start the season. Going to be a great battle and I suggest you enjoy it rather than wanting the top teams in English football to play down to the level of your s**tty team. Parity blows.