The project
His chosen venue this winter for the annual gingering-up exercise, as it has been before, was the Soccerex Conference in Dubai, attended by more than 3,000 of football’s top movers, shakers and corporate sponsors.
“When football meets the economy, and football meets media, then it is Soccerex,” says FIFA president Sepp Blatter. And it’s the natural habitat for an old brand-meister like Kenyon as decision-makers from more than 75 countries groove along in beachfront parties to music from Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley.
Kenyon took the rostrum for the opening session of Soccerex 2006 accompanied by the marketing manager of Barcelona and the chairman of South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs. The subject — “The Global Club”.
He set out the Abramovich agenda with a series of claims that enraged rivals, and in particular Manchester United, when he enlarged upon his views just a few days before November’s match at Old Trafford. United’s former CEO said:
By 2014 Chelsea will be recognised internationally as the number one football club;
That the Chelsea ‘brand’ is “more dynamic and more relevant” than that of his old employers at Old Trafford;
If ground expansion can’t be achieved at Stamford Bridge — where the club have had a fractious relationship with the planning authority Hammersmith and Fulham Council and local residents over the years — then the club will relocate.
Earls Court remains a prime possibility. Until Arsenal opened the Emirates Stadium this summer Chelsea were the possessors of London’s biggest soccer stadium and they are unwilling to see a 20,000 per game spectator shortfall against their bitter rivals, 34,000 per game against Manchester United, and whatever increased capacity arises from Liverpool’s proposed relocation to Stanley Park.
It was, said Kenyon, “a ballsy vision”. Opponents and critics were happier to describe it as balls, pointing out that a team which has yet to win one European Cup has a long way to go before it can contemplate toppling Real Madrid, United, and Barcelona in the world domination stakes. They pointed out that the one area in which Chelsea were forging ahead was the accrual of losses — nearly £200m in the past financial year.
Roman Abramovich’s advisers like to categorise this expenditure as “start-up” costs, and make the bold claim they will break even by 2009. Revenue has increased dramatically over the past three years thanks to expansive new sponsorship deals with Samsung and Adidas. Back-to-back Premierships have helped, and if a third can be achieved Chelsea will enter the 2007-08 season, with its richest TV deal in Premiership history, as acknowledged leaders of the English game.
There is further potential upside with a favourable draw in the Champions League which should see Chelsea reach the quarter-finals in April, three matches away from the May’s Athens final, the city where their team, led by Peter Osgood, won their first European trophy in 1970 by defeating Real Madrid.
No London club has ever lifted Europe’s biggest prize, and Chelsea went through the unnerving experience last spring of seeing their bitter London rivals, Arsenal, go to within 10 minutes of triumph, a result which would have severely set back their ambitions to be London’s number one team. You can’t be the dominant team in Europe unless you have secured your own city first. And an Athens victory might even lead to a change of nomenclature with the team metamorphosing into “Chelsea London FC” — the title by which they are already known in Germany and eastern Europe.
International events also favour Chelsea. The club’s main target for expansion is China — a version of the club’s website has just become available in Mandarin — and their relationship with the Beijing 2008 Olympics committee is already close. The Chinese Olympic team will prepare at the club’s state-of-the-art training facilities in the Surrey countryside.
Their other target market is Africa, and it’s certainly helpful that with three years to go to the World Cup Chelsea have two of the continent’s finest three players — Michael Essien and Didier Drogba — at the core of their team. The third is Samuel Eto’o, and it would be typical of Chelsea to have him on the Stamford Bridge roster by the time the first ball is kicked in Johannesburg’s 104,000 capacity Soccer City in 2010. By then Eto’o will be 29, and at the peak of his powers.
Two years later London will host the Olympics, and in the initiative to bring the Games to London Chelsea were the first Premiership club to throw their weight, and the support of their players, behind the capital’s nomination.
All Chelsea’s players are contracted to help the club with its image building, and a principal reason they fell out with William Gallas was his apparent reluctance to take his share of the workload, or indeed any workload. That Mourinho did not want to lose the outstanding French international was quite clear, and a back five comprising Cech, Gallas, Carvalho, Terry and Ashley Cole could have laid some claim to being the best in the world. But in this case the club view prevailed.
If the opportunities to progress over the next eight years are there in abundance, is all well on the field?
On the face of it, yes. In the first half of the season Chelsea have been involved in six compelling encounters broadcast to a worldwide audience — the two thunderous matches against Barcelona, the draws with Arsenal and Manchester United, the 2-1 defeat to Tottenham, and that astonishing comeback against Everton marked by three of the goals of the season.
But the injury to Petr Cech at Reading showed how dramatically the stakes can change. It’s difficult to believe that Chelsea would have dropped points to Tottenham and Arsenal with the powerful Czech goalkeeper.
Then there are concerns about the combustibility of Mourinho. There were signs last season that he was tiring of his goldfish bowl existence and lack of credit, and he told the press: “There is no worse job than Chelsea.” A Champions League victory in May and a third Premiership might just persuade the Portuguese that he has fulfilled his bargain in England and that it is time to conquer Serie A and seek a third European triumph . . . before becoming manager of Portugal in 2010 or 2014.
Certainly Chelsea have been accelerating contract negotiations with key players as a hedge against the loss of their innovative coach. Drogba signed a four-year extension last month, and discussions have already opened with Michael Essien to put him on the same footing as Lampard, Terry, Ballack and Shevchenko.
There are questions, also, about Mourinho’s relationship with Frank Arnesen, the “development director” prised from Tottenham for 7m last season. The two are rarely seen together publicly, and while Chelsea’s youth programme is at its strongest for several decades there is no sign, as yet, of the youngsters being brought into contention for the main squad.
Chelsea, like a shark, have to move forward. The side lacks cover at centre-half and is weak at right back, unless Essien is moved there for the rest of the season. Manchester City’s Micah Richards appears a prototypical Mourinho player — young, physical, versatile and English. More cover at striker may also be brought in, unless Shevchenko quickly gets over his attack of the yips. It is difficult to believe that the transfer window will close without reinforcements.
The club is headed for its third Premiership and is favourite for the Champions League. Abramovich has his favourite player [Shevchenko] in a team which is headed by the England captain. There are four other international captains in the side and the world’s best holding midfielder. International partnerships and sponsorships are expanding. Even claims that his arrival would make English football uncompetitive appear far-fetched with a rush of overseas investors, four Premiership teams in the knockout stages of the Champions League for the first time ever and a close title race.
Meanwhile, in Britain’s Four-Four-Two magazine this month a Manchester United supporter writes that Chelsea are “just a Chechen sniper’s bullet from disaster”.
It is true that Abramovich is close to the top of the “high profile” risk list for British security. And last month Chelsea announced that the Russian had established a 750m bond to protect the club in the event of something unforeseen happening to him. And the expectation is that when Abramovich does move on that it will be his soccer-mad son, Arkady, who takes over.
There is a proverb in Russia which goes: “Appetit prikhodit vo vremya yedy” — the appetite comes with the eating.
As we enter 2007 it appears that the Russians are hungry for more.
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