Ten Years of The Roman Empire
Tuesday 1st July 2003 was a day which changed football forever, not
just at Chelsea FC, but globally. Only those taking a close interest in
business affairs, especially those of post-Communist Russia, would have
heard of the 36 year old billionaire Roman Abramovich, who had made his
money from oil and aluminium, and had reputedly sold his stake in
Russian state airline Aeroflot shortly before taking over at Stamford Bridge, a deal which the BBC reported may have helped fund the purchase.
The deal was negotiated in secrecy. Until the announcement of the
takeover was announced late on the night of 1st July, very few amongst
the Stamford Bridge faithful would have had any idea that Ken Bates was
preparing to bow out of Chelsea. There had been rumours that the next
payment of the Eurobond due in July would present a problem, but
publicly, at any rate, the club insisted it was business as usual. The
close season of 2002 had seen nothing in the way of big signings, with
manager Claudio Ranieri finding himself having to rely on the youngster
Carlton Cole via the youth system, and the unremarkable Enrique de Lucas
from Real Valladolid, via a loan spell at PSG, to bolster talent
purchased the previous year such as Eidur Gudjohnsen, Jimmy Floyd
Hasselbaink, and the young Frank Lampard, whom many supporters felt had
failed to justify his whopping £11 million price tag in his first
season.
Overnight, all the uncertainty was blown away. In addition to
purchasing 50% of Chelsea Village shares (meaning that an offer could be
made to shareholders for the remaining 50%), Abramovich wiped out the
club debt, allegedly at £80 million, and, in an interview with Jeff Randall, the then business editor of the BBC,
Ken Bates confirmed that the Russian had ‘earmarked an additional £60
Million for the club’, not only in player investment, but also for a new
training ground, promises that rapidly came to pass. Randall cynically
wrote ‘If the cash materialises, it should just about buy the fans’
goodwill for a season’, a serious under-estimation of the impact that
Abramovich would have at Chelsea.
A Brief History of Time
During the summer of 2003, big name player followed big name player
into Stamford Bridge. From the Premier Leage came Damien Duff, Joe Cole,
Wayne Bridge and Juan Sebastian Veron. From further afield came Hernan
Crespo and Adrian Mutu. However, the big names weren’t enough. Chelsea
finished second to the so-called ‘Invincibles’ from Arsenal, and
spectacularly failed in the Champions League
when bizarre tactics and team selection by Ranieri resulted in a 3-1
away defeat in the first-leg semi final against Monaco, followed by a
2-2 draw at home in the second leg. Ranieri dubbed himself a ‘dead man
walking’ and it came a surprise to no-one when he was dismissed on 31st
May and replaced by the young, charismatic Portuguese manager, Jose
Mourinho, whose Porto team had beaten Monaco in the Champions League
final.
Another summer of investment yielded spectacular results, with a
first trophy in February when Chelsea beat Liverpool in the League Cup
final in Cardiff, followed by the longed-for Premier League title
wrapped up by the end of April. Mourinho’s second season produced
another league title, and in 2007, the club won their first FA Cup for 7
years, beating Manchester United
1-0 after extra time in the first cup final to be played at the new
Wembley. Then the wheels came off. Mourinho left the club ‘by mutual
consent’ just weeks into the 2007-2008 season, and was replaced by
director of football, Avram Grant. Grant was never very close to the
hearts of Chelsea fans, and although he took the club to a first
Champions League final, resulting in a heart-breaking penalty shoot-out
defeat in the Moscow rain to Manchester United, he was replaced at the
end of the season by the Brazilian, ‘Big’ Phil Scolari. Scolari failed
to fit in at Stamford Bridge, and in another short-term appointment, the
great Dutch manager Guus Hiddinck ensured more silverware with another
FA Cup win. Stability looked on the cards following the appointment of
the popular Italian, Carlo Ancelotti, who delivered the Double in his
first season. However, in one of the most spectacularly callous acts of
the Abramovich era, he was sacked in a corridor at Goodison Park on the
last day on the 2010-2011 season.
The appointment of Andre Villas Boas appeared to signal a fresh
approach with a mandate to move on ageing senior players. However, he
quickly lost the dressing room and was replaced mid-season by a true
Stamford Bridge legend, Roberto di Matteo,
who had been brought in as Villas Boas’ assistant. A fairy-tale end to
the 2011-2012 season saw Chelsea win not only the FA Cup, but the Holy
Grail of the Champions League. The popular Italian was awarded a two
year contract, but this proved worthless in real terms as he became the
victim of another heartless sacking. His replacement, Rafael Benitez,
aka The Interim One, was one of the most unpopular appointments of the
Abramovich years, resulting in supporter protests which came to a head
after the 5th Round FA Cup tie at Middlesbrough on 27th February, when
Benitez went into meltdown. In spite of Chelsea ending the season in 2nd
place in the Premier League and as UEFA Cup winners, many fans were
relieved to see the season end, and with it Benitez’s tenure.
You Got The Love
In spite of the intial sceptism of the press, the Abramovich era has
yielded a generally warm relationship between the owner and the fans.
Indeed, the early years saw uncritical adoration, with the Russian’s
name sang at virtually every game, home and away. However, hairline
fractures have developed in recent years. After
the sacking of Jose Mourinho in 2007, a group of supporters wrote to
Abramovich voicing their concerns. Days after, he went and sat in The
Shed. The latter was received warmly, giving supporters the feeling that he was a man of his people
The next fissure was in 2011, with the ill-fated proposal of the club
to purchase the lease of the Stamford Bridge pitch and turnstiles from
Chelsea Pitch Owners. This was undoubtedly the biggest upheaval the club
has faced in recent years. A small group of shareholders remain to be
convinced that, in the absence of any viable plan to relocate the club
and a repeated failure to exhaust all possibilities to expand Stamford
Bridge, the bid was anything other than a land grab. It is not an
exaggeration to say that the Chelsea Pitch Owners issue set fan against
fan (even among those who had supported the club for years, let alone
those who have nailed their colours to the mast since 2003), and
although the club have stated that they have no new proposal to make at
this time, it is likely that CPO will continue to be a major talking
point at the club for the foreseeable future.
What has been interesting is the eagerness of many supporters not to
openly blame Roman Abramovich when things do go wrong. The appointment
of Benitez, and the CPO debacle have largely been laid at the door of
the lieutenants, rather than the general. However, the re-appointment of
Jose Mourinho seems to have been hailed as a great decision by
Abramovich. The recent appointment to the club’s executive board of his
personal assistant, Marina Granoskaia, may indicate that Abramovich
wishes to keep a slightly tighter rein on day to day events at Stamford
Bridge.
What Will You Do When Roman Gets Bored?
In the long, long distant past, when Twitter hadn’t even been
invented, one of the earliest ways in which football fans used to bicker
with each other was through the BBC’s 606 forums. 606 was probably at
its zenith around 2003/2004, and the Abramovich takeover was endlessly
discussed not only by Chelsea fans, but by other supporters. Such
debates would generally include the helpful suggestion ‘What will you do
when Roman gets bored?’ – a kind of footballing Godwin’s Law. The good
news is he hasn’t. Yet. However, there is no doubt
that he isn’t seen at the Bridge as often as he was in the early days.
He’s on to his second family now. Christmas and New Year are usually
spent in St Barts, with his New Year Party at the latter occasioning
much attention from downmarket newspapers due to its opulence and his
habit of inviting musical megastars to be the house band. He is
spending as much on art as he is transfers (let’s face it, a Lucian
Freud or a French Impressionist is never going to lose its value). If
Roman Abramovich did ever decide to sell Chelsea, there isn’t much
chance that there will be a repeat of the club falling into the hands of
property developers. A potential next owner will probably emanate from
the Middle East. And there’s something else that ownership of Chelsea
has done for Roman Abramovich. It’s given him a kudos that he wouldn’t
have got from other deals. It’s given him an international patina of
respectability (much as the ownership of Birmingham City did for David
Sullivan and the Gold Brothers, albeit on a much smaller scale). On the
other hand, the Abramovich billions have moved the perception of
Chelsea, outside the UK at any rate, from being a minor European player
to superclub. Ten successive years of Champions League qualifications,
serial late stage participants, Champions League winners and one of only
a handful of clubs to have won all three European trophies has seen to
that.
When he took over the club, Roman Abramovich said “I’m realising my
dream of owning a top football club. Some will doubt my motives, others
will think I’m crazy.” Hopefully he’ll stay crazy for a while longer.
source: http://thechels.net/2013/06/ten-years-of-the-roman-empire/
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