For EPl /Chelse fans and those concerned about the future

[Peter R]

of the EPL in general.

I have been following a discussion about Chelsea in particular and EPL in general that some friends have been having via email. I thought I would copy some of the material here for the forum's information. The developments in the EPL may not be quite clear to some of us not based in the UK.

Here is the first comment by G.
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As Al has said I am well ****************ed about what has happened at Chelsea. It is bad for us, football and the players.

But I am really sorry to say but I think that what is happening to Chelsea is going to happen eventually to a number of other clubs with foreign owners. Take for example Liverpool. Has everyone really fully understood the history of the owners? Hicks has a history of purchasing a team and trying to spend money to make it very competitive after which ticket prices go through the roof. It seems from press articles that after he purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998 the team made the play-offs in both of the next two years losing only to the Yankees. Straight afterwards he jacked up the ticket prices and the result has been a drop in supporters and only one winning season for the Rangers since then. No one appears to regard the Rangers as a main baseball team any longer.

But it gets worse. In 1995 Hicks purchased the Dallas Stars hockey team (a team that I follow). You will remember that four years later the Stars won the Stanley Cup and looked as though they were going to carry on winning it for years to come. They lost in the finals of the cup the following year but then sunk without trace. Indeed, the Stars have not escaped the first round of the hockey league since then. During that time Hicks's behaviour led to a lock-out leading to a reduced salary cap for players of more than 50%. However, he passed on only 10% of this to the complaining fans. It is all about money!

So what does Hicks have planned for Liverpool? My guess - he will get the new stadium built, proclaim Liverpool as a major new force in world football and jack up ticket prices through the roof. One place where that kind of thing will not go down is Liverpool.

But what about poor Chelsea? As you know, not much. For all those who are reading this email here is my prediction: the team fails to qualify for Europe this season; Avram Grant resigns as soon as the club goes out of the Champions League perhaps at the group stages but probably in the first knock-out round; Lampard and Drogba gone by the end of the season at the latest; others also trying to leave; a spent force in Ronaldinho arriving, mayhem with the club unable to control all the stars, and John Terry left trying to hold the whole thing together. Once all that has been done, then see what happens with the new owners at Liverpool, and then in due course Manchester United and so on.

God help football.

Later

[Peter R]

Second comment.....

Gents,

Let me first tell those of you who have not seen R's personal emails to me that he is trying to wind me up by calling names like Avraham and the like. These emails are all being copied and kept to show to my friend who is one of the right hand men to the Mayor of Moscow. Do some research on that chap R. and discover what you need to know before you next accuse me or Chelsea of being part of the Russian mafia. This is not to say I don't have my doubts about the club's owner but that's not the real problem.

Moving to the serious stuff, the problem is the man's personality, and the personality of people like him, and the effect it will have on football. I don't for one minute disagree with Warren that this kind of behaviour won't, at least for the foreseeable future, have an effect on the marketability of football. But in the longer run I can see a serious problem developing. The fact that owners like Abramovich can come into a club so quickly, rip out the guts of the management structure, install a brand new management structure and then rip that out again, poses serious questions as to the loyalty of fans towards the club. So far as I am aware, we have never seen an example in English football of a team built around a manager like Mourinho who can then be so quickly removed with the apparent risk that the team will dismantle itself in rapid time. What are fans supposed to think? Who are they really supposed to love if their hearts are going to get broken so easily. It is one thing to lose a star centre-forward every now and then. But to lose the talismanic manager and, if my predictions are right, two to three of the most important stars of the team within the next several months, will inevitably run the risk that fans will become less well bonded to whoever is playing and managing. Suppose, for example, that Ronaldiniho comes into the club. Sure, lots of people will get immediately excited but many others - including me - will wonder how long he will stay at the club before the next major problem comes along with an immature and irrational owner like Abramovich.

Please everyone be assured that he was the cause of Mourinho leaving. It has got nothing to do with dressing room divisions. It is true that Terry was hacked off by Mourinho questioning his health, but that is because Terry regards himself as head boy and rather expects to be treated a little differently in respect of things like that.

The reason Mourinho left is, as I have said, because Abramovich (the little boy that he is) decided that he could no longer hack unexciting performances such as those that we saw against Blackburn, Aston Villa and then Rosenborg. He spoke to Shevchenko who told him a pack of rubbish about Mourinho losing the dressing room and no one wanting to play fantasy football for him. One other player (yet to be identified but my suspicion is Ballack who had been agitating along these lines for some time) apparently confirmed this view to Abramovich. That was enough for Abramovich who collected his advisers who, having tired of constant rows between Abramovich and Mourinho, stopped trying to persuade him not to sack the manager. Mourinho was called in and asked to leave if he was not going to produce fantasy football within five minutes. Mourinho said that this was ridiculous and that he would therefore leave. This led to a quick appreciation that if Mourinho left of his own accord he would lose any severance pay (many millions, of course). This led to the "mutual agreement" under which Mourinho kept £12.7 million of what might have been a somewhat higher sum.

End of chat. Therein through some utterly stupid management, and failure to deal with egos, we have destroyed what could have been a great team and a story that would be told in 50 years from now.

Whether or not the economic agenda of some owners is forcing them to repeat what we have seen with the Hicks and the Glaziers in the US is somewhat secondary to the main point I am trying to make which is that this behaviour at the largest clubs in the country, if it continues, is threatening to destroy the bond with the fans which is the lifeblood of the game even though the TV companies and the moneymen don't currently realise that.

Peter asked what's the solution. With all the people trying to invest in football I suspect there may be an answer which would not deprive the industry of investment, and indeed might sensibly limit the amount of investment going into it. I would have thought that the authorities could demand that owners must have absolutely no involvement in the management of team affairs, so as to preserve the football experience which currently nurtures the game itself. In some countries we already have some newspapers, for example, where undertakings are given that owners will not interfere in editorial discretion. The principle is therefore established. It is used throughout government and companies, and their advisers are very used to it. It can therefore be adopted in football.

R, I am reasonably confident that we may well see Abramovich selling the club to someone else before too long. How say you bet me that if he is still there in two years I will wear the Liverpool scarf in my seat at Chelsea (if I still have it) but that if by then Abramovich has gone you will agree to wear a Chelsea scarf (and nothing else supporting Liverpool) when you then next visit Liverpool. Time to put your scarf where your mouth is.

Later,

[Peter R]

Third comment....

Gents,

Stamford Bridge was a worrying place on Saturday. You find a small active crew of traditional socially attached supporters who are trying to run a campaign against the sacking of Mourinho and calling for his return etc but they are heavily outnumbered by a legion of what some of you have called the fickle football supporters of the new age. To me, these people are the toxic residue of poisoning by too much money. The whole saga at Chelsea makes you keep thinking. There is no doubt that Usmanov is looking to take over Arsenal - why else would he take his stake close to the threshold that would trigger an automatic bid for the entire business? Once he succeeds, the top four clubs will all be in foreign ownership. That will mean that half of the Premier League Clubs will be foreign owned. Reports suggest that at least nine of the remaining 10 are already being targeted by foreign entrepreneurs. These people are unquestionably in it for the money (and to a lesser extent in some cases, the egos).

If you have been watching what has been happening in England recently we have been having a resuscitation of anti-European style campaigns. The leading tabloid newspaper is running a successful campaign for a referendum to draw back the powers of Europe. What I am unable to understand is why we are so pre-occupied with Europe when what is happening in football is arguably going to have a greater impact on the lives of ordinary working people in this country. The amounts being paid for these large clubs cannot be justified without hiking their revenue generating activities to pay back the debt involved. How is this possibly going to assist football unless it becomes a remote control game rather than something which draws the fans from the communities on Saturday afternoons? The ridiculous prices now being paid for the clubs will take this even further - with the consequence I suspect that we really find an elite band of European clubs breaking away from UEFA to further fragment the structure of football in this part of the world. They will need to do this in order to hike up their revenues for the reasons I have mentioned, but will the clubs of that type really have anything to do with the values of the game and what has made it grow in the first place? I strongly suspect not. But as Cary has said, this will not kill interest in the game (think of how many people are prepared to buy the latest Sony Playstation model, which is really I suspect elite football is heading in terms of audiences).

But, what will happen, according to some very sensible commentators on the subject, is that fewer and fewer ordinary people will care. As I say, football will become built on money and marketing and not on social roots - it will become exhibitionism without social purpose or responsibility. I am beginning to wonder whether the best thing would be to allow the Americans, Russians and the rest of them to take our elite clubs into a plastic electronic world created to make as much money as possible, and then invite ordinary fans to rebuild their allegiances with a game that reasserts some traditional football values. If any of you have been watching what has been happening to Wimbledon AFC, since the official Wimbledon Football Club moved to Milton Keynes, then you will see that it is possible. It is not beyond fantasy that Wimbledon AFC will be in the football league in four years from now. That is roughly when I predict the elite clubs will begin to implode under their burdens of debt, since clearly all of them cannot become, as Abramovich wanted, "European champions twice in the next 10 years". Perhaps then we will finally realise that some limits have to be negotiated to what is happening to investment in, and exploitation of, football. We clearly cannot rely on our football authorities to do something to restrain the effects of foreign owners - as I previously proposed - until at least then.

In the meantime, keep buying those shares in the top premier league clubs.

Later,

[Lazie]

One thing is certain, there is no question about who is in charge at the Empire. People vex wid Fergie for getting rid of Beckham, Ruud, Stam to name a few.

First thing, Glazers affi refer to the gaffer as Sir!

[Peter R]

You feel that him really in charge? When it comes to a money decision even Sir Alex have to watch him back.

pr

[Lazie]

You feel that him really in charge? When it comes to a money decision even Sir Alex have to watch him back.

pr

In all club structure, the man that manage the money is different from the manager. Point is, if Sheva was being a snitch as he is being accused of by the Chel$ea fans, Fergie woulda send him to Siberia before him done spell him name.

[Gamma]

i feel seh avram grant is mossad....

[OJ]

Honestly dont think this applies to Chelsea. roman is a fan with cash and he cant separate the fan in him from the owner. So he hires a manager who is a very good organiser and who can get results. However this manager has never gotten results palying attractive football because his dna or makeup is controlling and do not allow players to express themslves but play percentages. In doing so they are very succesful. Now Mr. Russian cash looks over at Arsenal and Manu and even Portsmouth and say how comes we cant play football like that. How comes we are so conservative, but is prize conductor Jose does not fit that mold so he brings in a spy who tell him it can be done and Jose walks. The issue here is not the profit margin but Romans lack of understanding that he should do what Rasheed Wallace once said. Just cut the dam cheque and shut up.

[OJ]

again the problem with the writes view is these are buisness men who make money. I dont think they are football fans but they know how to manage thier asset.

[OJ]

do you see the israel influence at the bridge. Ehiad major sponsor now.. russian and Isreal.. what a mafia

[Sir X]

Fergie Couldnt manage Chel$ki or Abramobitch , i am sure Mourinho could easily manage Man U .

In fact no one can manage Abramobitch, Mourinho Lucky im last dat long.