Kenyon: everybody hates a winner

PETER KENYON admits Chelsea want to be loved not hated – but fears their success will make this impossible.

Kenyon was chief executive of Man United and watched the club’s unpopularity soar when they dominated English football in the 90s.

Now, in the same role at Chelsea, he is getting a feeling of déjà vu but believes the ugly image comes with the territory of being top dogs.

Kenyon said: “There’s an element that we are where we are because we’re top. There are some parallels from United and I’ve seen some comments from United this week that spot the same parallel.

“From a commercial point of view, I’m not concerned. Equally, I’m not being flippant about where we want to be. We’re all human and we all like to be liked.”

The comments from United came from John O’Shea, who said: “It’s fair to say Chelsea have replaced United as the most hated team in England.”

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has encouraged the siege mentality by hinting that football’s authorities and referees are conspiring against him.

The club were hit with a second misconduct charge in just over a fortnight for failing to control their players at Fulham, on Sunday, and Kenyon echoed the thoughts of Mourinho. “We’ve got to deal with those issues as and when they come. All we want is an even playing field.”

He spoke after announcing Chelsea’s plan to allow disabled fans to watch games for free at Stamford Bridge next season. The initiative has been well received but, on the pitch, the champions are making few friends.

Chelsea players have received five red cards in 2006 and Alan Shearer claimed Shaun Wright-Phillips dived to get Robbie Elliott sent off this week.

Mourinho’s feud with Rafael Benitez also looks set to re-open. The Liverpool boss accused Arjen Robben of diving to get Jose Reina a red card last month and they have now been drawn together in the FA Cup semi-final. Kenyon said: “We get some undue criticism. I don’t think we play bad football. I think we get good results. It’s a competitive environment we live in.

“We’ve got some fantastic partners and some new partners are going to be joining us and I can honestly say that not once in the last six or 12 months has anybody said we’d do this if you had a different image.”

The debate around Chelsea’s image was triggered by the stormy Champions League tie against Barcelona, when the Catalans portrayed Mourinho as a monster and he was spat at by Barca fans.

Mourinho was then forced to debunk speculation that he was off to Inter Milan at the end of the season.

Kenyon said: “All this about whether Jose leaves or not is absolute rubbish. There’s not an ounce of truth in that. That was squashed by everybody and we’ve moved on. Barcelona was an eternity away.”