Chelsea Are Doomed By City’s Billions - But United Will Be Alright
September 2, 2008
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Imagine for a moment the Arabian clown who has just catapulted himself into the English public’s consciousness were in fact being serious with his most recent statement.
That recent statement being:
“Ronaldo has said he wants to play for the biggest club in the world, so we will see in January if he is serious….Real Madrid were estimating his value at $160m (£90m) but for a player like that, to actually get him, will cost a lot more; I would think $240m (£135m). But why not? We are going to be the biggest club in the world, bigger than both Real Madrid and Manchester United.”
Incredible - in every sense of the word, would you not agree?
Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, of the Abu Dhabi United Group, has characterised his own approach to business as something akin to the behaviour of a juggernaut or runaway rhinoceros - no matter what’s in his way he just goes and bashes down everything until he gets what he wants.
He likes to think of himself as single-minded.
However, after the initial jaw-dropping awe that surrounded the group’s proposed takeover, some are beginning to wonder whether he’s more simple-minded than single-minded.
The bid for Ronaldo is clearly fanciful and unlikely but importantly it signals the madness that is hovering on the horizon. Unless everything blows up in the next few months and the whole business is revealed as an elaborate and expensive practical joke, City are now the richest football team on the planet and mean to spend, spend, spend….
Money rules the not-so-beautiful game these days, that much is obvious.
The international band of mercenaries that we all lavish our hard-earned pittances on, are almost universally unscrupulous greedy buggers. Which is normal - most of them, even the British ones, hail from poor, working-class backgrounds. When you are relatively uneducated, treated like a God and probably weren’t even born in an era when the game still retained some small vestiges of honour and a sense of proportion, it is very tempting to follow the pound/euro signs wherever they lead you.
Nevertheless, as the execrable Peter Kenyon and the frankly just plain odd Roman Abramovich will attest, reaching the peak of the global game is not simply a matter of money or that straight-forward.
Abramovich, and his now trifling-looking billions, has seen his team fall away after their vastly successful first two seasons. With the arrival of City’s new owners into the fray it is hilarious to think that Chelsea could rapidly revert to its perennial also-ran status, its whole modus operandi obsolete - newly incapable of tempting the best players to Stamford Bridge because of the riches on offer at (Middle-) Eastlands.
To wit - the Robinho transfer.
No matter how much Chelsea try to con us otherwise they will have been absolutely furious and gutted to have missed out on the Brazilian striker.
Peter Kenyon is left with not so much egg as an omelette on his face after bullishly insisting for most of last week that the deal was all but done and only lacked the conclusion of a few formalities. To have been a fly on the wall as the penny dropped at Stamford Bridge that they had been outbid on a player for the first time in around 5 years - priceless.
The Robinho episode and the ensuing PR disaster for Chelsea threw up the bitter observation from their chief executive that they were not prepared to meet the extortionate asking price.
It’s an observation Kenyon will have to accustom himself to trotting out with bi-ennial regularity if the City Arabs have their way.
Whereas United have the cachet of being a genuinely big, historically rich, globally-renowned club and can accordingly still attract the best quality of players on the back of that alone, Chelsea are arguably now simply also rans with a game-plan for ‘global domination’ that lies in tatters as the real big hitters enter the market.
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16 Responses to “Chelsea Are Doomed By City’s Billions - But United Will Be Alright”
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dream on - you’re f*cked
United fans are running scared. Haha. If Chelsea are doomed then United are def doomed. In the same boat. Last time I checked “genuinely big, historically rich, globally-renowned club” wasnt a currency.
You keep telling yourselves you’ll be alright and you might just believe it… You’re shitting yourselves that city are going to overtake you and you know it.
In all honesty everyone will be okay, because Utd have a different policy in targeting a player. Our game plan much like Arsenal who are copying the “youth” blueprint from us is based on one which is a long term acquisition, not a short term fix. Love to see City trump Chelsea from now on : ) Just sit back and watch the fun unfold, oh and the comment where City would be after Ronaldo makes perfect sense. It’s a good thing that they have come on the scene because now they control the figures, not Madrid nor Chelsea therefore if Ronaldo has a price and Utd want to sell it will be one that Madrid cannot match and thus Ronaldo stays : )
Well done City, keep up the good work : )
right - and it’s that genuinely big, historically rich, globally-renowned club status that lured Ronaldinho to your doorsteps 5 years ago when you were begging for him. oh wait - forgot. And it’s that same status that caused your own Ronaldo to hold a press conference where he declared he would never leave the club as it had been his life-long dream to play there. oh wait - he announced he wanted to leave, and inevitably will within the next 12 months.
and if you think that the Man Utd “mystique” will overpower Man City’s money, don’t forget Arjen Robben, Jon Obi Mikel, and Petr Cech, all players that your club desperately tried to sign only to be outbid by Chelsea. Mystique was worth f**k all back then, and it will be worth f**k all in the future.
The thing is that the only thing that makes people chose Man Utd over the London clubs is Utd’s history as Manchester is a very ugly town. Man City doesn’t have that history so they’ll struggle in attracting quality players.
The problem City are going to have is that few big name players will join them (they were lucky with Robinho - he was desperate to move) how ever much they pay because City are not in the Champions League. They need to break into that as a first step but they can’t do it by buying up all the worlds best players. They are going to have to content themselves with accumulating a lot of not quite top quality players (think Houlier’s Liverpool) to break into the top four. Then they can begin to attract the big names. It will take time and I wonder, given his crazy comments, whether their new owner will have the patience.
As an aside, how good is Robinho? He’s a Brazillian whose name ends in “o” that’s usually enough for all reson to go out of the window. But its rumoured that Madrid aren’t convinced he has the physique for European football, and that would be a particular problem for the Premiership.
Dr sulaiman should know that not all clubs are like real madrid who can sell their first team bcos of money.Lets wait till the end of this season before city can talk of eufa/ champions league. No best player will want 2 play eufa cup. I’m only sorry for hughes cos this man will be worse than thaksin or abramovich.
Arsenal should watch their back and try maintain a spot among the top 4.
What a crap article.
Yeah, your great club with well over 700m of debt will be alright.
Your owners had to borrow another 70m last year just to cover the interest payment and that’s with you being Champions.
Dread to think what will happen if you go a season or two without winning anything and what with that credit crunch. Squeaky bum time indeed.
Utd fans are right to be worried.
Yeeaah Great Article!
People who say that utd should worry of their future, dont know shit.
The same thing happened when Chelski came on.
Ohh Utd would loose everything, but what happened boys, the REDS
bounced back. And for those who writes that United are in debt, think again
smartheads, United were the richest and biggest club in the world when Glazers wanted the club. So they are in debt not United, sell the club, and you know what, United would still be the best and richest club. Let City do their thing, United will always bounce back.
Remember, history can not be bought
wow.citeh fans…u gotta love em.unlike a certain club from west london,manchester united became the richest and biggest club by WINNING MANY TROPHIES year after year,not by having some billionaire owner.you dont become the biggest club overnight.so keep on dreaming.u guys cant even get into the top 6 of the EPL let alone qualify for the champions league.so keep letting the arabian clown keep winding you guys up,bcuz citeh will be the laughing stock of the century…oh yeah,they already are.LOL
City should take note of what happened to Real Madrid and their Galacticos, the most barren spell in half a century : http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/sep/03/manchestercity.premierleague
This scabby, bitter little club with it’s trillions will be like trying to run a 1970s skoda on rocket fuel. Just buying the 18 best players in the world and throwing them all together does not make a world-berating team in itself. All these “just you wait, United” comments from the loser-city fans make me laugh. Talk is cheap, as they. Do it, before you can brag about it, you bunch of inbred wannabes
The “cachet of being a genuinely big, historically rich, globally-renowned club ” has done little for Liverpool in terms of being able to attract the creme de la creme over the past decade or more. Why should it be any different for Utd?
Rich, You forgot about Alan Shearer because Fergo certainly hasn’t.
if worse comes to worst, glazers will sell united to the highest bidder… then the business will go on as usual, MAN UTD winning more trophies while citeh trying to covet the top spot.. it won’t happen overnight u dimwit… MAN UTD WILL NEVER DIE under all those cash of yours!!