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Roman sues Sunday Times


Scott
Eton Blue at the Chelsea Megastore

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for defamation

Sun 18 Jan 2009 Defamation proceedings will be commenced tomorrow (Monday) in London by Roman Abramovich against the publishers of The Sunday Times. This follows the publication by them of false claims that he wants to sell his interest in Chelsea FC. Mr Abramovich has already made quite clear, through the directors of Chelsea, that he has no intention of doing so and that neither he nor anyone upon his behalf has been pursuing any such course of action.

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That's great news. If there's one thing I cannot stand it's the press fabricating stories, especially when it's with a view to destabilising our club. Hopefully it won't come to court and the ST will be forced to make a grovelling public apology (hidden away in the bottom corner on p19), and the money RA saves can be spent more wisely than on legal fees i.e. on improving the squad.

I can't see how he can sue them over their allegations when all the while he's planning to pull out of Chelsea. Then again, I'm old enough to remember Johnathan Aitken's fiasco when he took on the Guardian about his dodgy links with al Fayed (hope I've got that right!).

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Roman usually stays quiet so the fact that he has come out of the mist for newspaper rumour (and come on, there have been a lot of fabricated stories about), means he is probably personally offended by this.

Don't worry, lads and lassies, our Tovarisht isn't going anywhere. I think we may be more than a plaything for him.

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The new story at The Times site:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle5543108.ece

Chelsea publish their results for the year ending June 2007 next month and they are expected to include a clause demonstrating the owner’s commitment.

Not sure what this clause could be, but who exactly(no mention of a source) expects the report to include such a clause and why would a financial report include a clause like that anyway? :rolleyes:

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instead of going to court to prove he's still committed to the club, he should give phil some money to buy some players in the tarnsfer window!

This is brilliant move by Roman IMO!! Just think about it! Not only is he going to recover some money he lost in the recession, this could go towards the buying of a new player.

We should all thank The Sunday Times writer (probably a liverpool or manc fan) for this!

:rolleyes: :lol: :lol:

Edited by ivorycoast
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This was a vicious rumor. It could have only have been creating havoc to our club. Sowing seeds of doubt to the players both at Chelsea and outside about Chelsea's long term future. Lowering morale. He needed to do this. WTG, Roman.

I mean you think about it, it undoes all that Scolari has been saying about trimming his squad and not needing new players. It makes Scolari look like a patsy covering up for a club that's collapsing.

Edited by ChelseaYankee
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Our Russian bear has been baited once too often and the recent writ, which if I remember rightly was slapped across the perpetually glum face of the Times reporter Matt Hughes, has proved to be an insufficient warning to a Sunday Times Business Editor glorying in the name of John Waples. These scribes should really have known better than tangle with a big beast in a jungle they know little about - football in the case of Waples and, come to think of it, football in the case of Hughes too. To be fair, which neither appear to have tried too hard to be whether writing their respective stories on a CFC sale or having a go at player morale under Scolari, I suppose I’d better back up my slight on their characters and expertise by producing a few cold hard facts. Then again, why should I when they don’t feel the need themselves? After all, my ‘sources’ are as good as theirs any day, especially when I don’t have to reveal them - they’re bloody good and completely authentic in that situation, I can tell you!

No, what I think I’ll do instead is present a little potted history of the events of the last week as evidence of the mealy mouthed small mindedness that provides the backdrop to this litigation. All of it is linked to Roman either directly or via the preferred Media tool of choice, his football club, and, talking of linkage, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the one that is drawing The Times, The Sunday Times and Sky together, so I wont even bother naming names. Let’s start by going back to this time last week and the aftermath of our defeat at Old Trafford…

Martin Samuel, having jumped ship to plumb new depths at the Daily Mail, told us supporters a few home truths after the game and, good journalist that he is, there wasn’t that much we could disagree with. Sky, outbid for FA Cup coverage that would have got them under our skin (much as ITV do) and into Southend’s ground, had to wait until the pre-weekend press conference to smell our fear of defeat and in the meantime contented themselves with the usual post match sucking up to Sir Alex that is provide by Geoff Shreeves - it’s even reached the stage now where Fergie, at the end of the banality, turns briskly away with a ’Thanks very much, Geoff, well done’ - jeez he’s even able to be patronizing now without anyone at Sky taking a blind bit of notice!

Meanwhile, in total contrast, Big Phil is grilled to within an inch of his shelf life throughout a week that sees us come from a goal down to beat Southend comprehensively, although Matt Hughes, for the umpteenth time and seemingly as with life in general, found it impossible to enthuse. The vultures gather again on Saturday and hell hath no fury like so called journalists scorned and denied their carrion by late goals and a dramatic finish. Doubtless, had ManU or ’Pool produced the comeback, it would have been greeted with floods of praise rather than the muted post match dumbing down that predictably dominated the pages of the Sunday Times in particular, but more of that later. Credit to Phil Thompson (yes, really) for going bananas live and in front of a camera as Frank scored the winner, although he had been goaded unmercifully into it by Charlie Nicolas greeting United’s winning goal like a long lost brother only moments before.

This aberration aside, Sky had reverted to type by the time The Last Word hit the screens on Sunday evening and you couldn’t get closer to small minded perfection than that dished up by Richard Keys and Andy Gray, even if you tried over a month of Sundays. Dear me, you’re given a 30 minute program to do, you have the opportunity to tap into a fantastic storyline - guy makes 400th appearance for club, is made captain at the last minute, plays his socks off and gets the winning goal after being the driving force behind a sensational comeback that sees two goals go in with two minutes left of normal time - so, what do you do to make your teatime audience happy? You proceed to debase the whole Oscar winning ending by dissecting said winning goal for no other reason than to satisfy a self indulgent desire to be analytical to the point of disappearing up your own backside, that’s what you do.

Keys bizarre conclusion after a bizarre fifteen minutes, punctuated by those hollow ‘how should I know’ laughs from Andy Gray, was that ’Surely Frank will be generous enough to give the goal to Ballack, won’t he?’ No, Richard, he’ll go the whole hog and give it to Stevie G instead, that way he wont feel too out of it when the Premiership goal scoring tally is made at the end of the season. Not that Sky will let Mr Inspirational feel like he’s out of anything at the end of the season anyway, but just once it would have been nice to see the mantle pass to another, for one game at least, and in ideal circumstances to boot. Strange that Messrs Gray and Keys should not only miss this open goal of an opportunity, but deliberately try to deflect it? Not when you consider that he who calls the tune over in Isleworth also calls it at the Sunday Times and their weekend edition was just as revealing…

I didn’t need to open my copy on Sunday morning to know how the land was going to lie, probably in more ways than one. There was good old Johnny Waples on the front page telling me that ’Abramovich Wants To Sell Chelsea’ and, swiftly moving on to the sports supplement, there was a mega-picture of Berbatov splashed across three quarters of the broadsheet. Hastily turning inside, there was another of the Alice-banded One, draped across both pages this time, and squeezing the report on the Chelsea-Stoke game into the small segment at the bottom.

News of the defamation proceedings must have filtered through early, you might think, and you’d be right because further searching led to Rod Liddle’s column and the self confessed (many, many times, yawn) Millwall fan was having his weekly rant at all things Premiership. This usually takes the form of a swipe at the clubs and the players and the money, but on this occasion Rod turned his gun sight towards player loyalty for his club and blew all and sundry out of the water with his beliddling way with words. Here was a perfect opportunity to match Frank’s 400 loyalty points with all the money grabbers from Robinho to Bellamy, but, of course, he declined to do so.

Eventually I found my way to the back page and to Hugh McIlvanney, precision and pragmatism rolled into one normally, but, on the subject of Kaka’s possible move to Citeh, strangely below par. Chelsea are mentioned only the once and no, I wont let him get away with it…

‘It is relevant, too, that Robinho’s motives for pitching up in Manchester were so blatantly “let’s go to the highest bidder†mercenary that his words on arrival indicated he might still be wondering if he had actually signed for Chelsea’

Sorry Hugh, you cant have it both ways - if he’s mercenary to go to Citeh, but thinks he’s actually signed for us, that doesn’t make him mercenary, just thick. If you’re saying he’s mercenary whether he goes to Citeh or to us, then I don’t see the point being made and I’m inclined to think you might be being a bit thick. Anyway, to cut through the thickness, the title of the piece is ’Jewel Merits Regal Setting’ and I think we would both be missing points and being thick if we didn’t agree that, as of now, the Bridge is a far, far better setting for a player of Kaka’s ability than Eastlands, project or no project. Such a pity you could not have worked that out for yourself, although maybe you did and the ‘powers that be’ at editorial level cut it due to current circumstances beyond your control.

This brings us full circle to the full power of the law, which will be brought to bear on this case of defamation should it ever get that far. Settling out of court has no real mileage in it for Roman other than financially, which says it all really. The irony of the situation is that the broadsheets lawyers will want an unwavering Waples on this one and he must, for want of a better phrase, ’tell it like it is’, irrespective of whether or not he has done so already in print. History tell us that the sporting press and Media are not noted for ’telling it like it is’ too often (see above), but business is business and, unlike confrontations with sports news and views, you can’t be selective or blatantly biased in front of a judge.

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Just saw on Sky that a German group is thinking of bidding on Chelsea, and one of the people driving the bid is one of the guys behind the Man City bid!

They said they don't know if Chelsea is in fact for sale, but they might bid anyway. It seems this journalist really did cause a stir, what a c**t

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Independent covering their asses just in case

Roman Abramovich and Chelsea FC

Friday, 23 January 2009

In The Independent on Sunday on 18 January we reported on a story in that day's Sunday Times which suggested Roman Abramovich's representatives have been in talks over selling his interest in Chelsea FC, and also reported statements made by the club the day before confirming that Mr Abramovich was not looking to sell his interest and that he remained committed as ever. In publishing this story we did not of course mean to suggest that Mr Abramovich or Chelsea had lied or misled the public, a point we are happy to underline now.

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Independent covering their asses just in case

Roman Abramovich and Chelsea FC

Friday, 23 January 2009

In The Independent on Sunday on 18 January we reported on a story in that day's Sunday Times which suggested Roman Abramovich's representatives have been in talks over selling his interest in Chelsea FC, and also reported statements made by the club the day before confirming that Mr Abramovich was not looking to sell his interest and that he remained committed as ever. In publishing this story we did not of course mean to suggest that Mr Abramovich or Chelsea had lied or misled the public, a point we are happy to underline now.

:lol: brilliant. i can hear the sound of arses pinching from here....

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