http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2342262/Roman-Abramovich-bought-Chelsea-10-years-ago--ruin-English-football.html

I know it's the Daily Fail with huge anti-Chelsea sentiment, but nonetheless an interesting read. The arrival of Sheikh Mansour at City has taken the heat off us a bit and spread the vitriol around. Criticism is not as bad as it used to be, I can remember many chairmen speaking out against Roman and people talking about us in the same manner they do AS Monaco now, as we became the epicentre of all that was wrong in the English game.

Some interesting quotes from the article from David Dein:

"Though football is never going to be a level playing field, it’s not healthy for the competition to be weighted in one club’s favour. Manchester United and Arsenal had the advantage prior to Roman coming, but primarily due to organic growth with larger fan bases."

Organic growth with larger fanbases? Is he referring to the money Sky and UEFA pumped in to make them a more consistent and marketable product overseas? Thus allowing their fanbase to expand. The duopoly at the top was formed due to UEFA money and those two clubs earning in excess of £30m more than everybody else on top of sponsorship and other financial incentives that come with CL football.

10 years ago, we would have been looking forward to United and Arsenal coming 1st and 2nd respectively, with 3rd place 10-15 points off the pace. Now any one of three of four teams could win the PL. if that's ruined English Football then I'm proud we have done so. The way I see it we brought publicity, investment & world class players to the league, which had a knock on effect for everybody else. All of a sudden the Premier League was the place to be as opposed to La Liga & Serie A that had previously encapsulated the upper echelon of footballer. The article also fails to acknowledge the reason why prices were inflated was due to clubs being made aware of our wealth under the new owner. Agents would say Chelsea were interested, and valuation would sometimes double, we have always had to pay over the odds for players.

The media have a burning desire to keep the status quo at the top hence why the positives of Chelsea (and City) are always overlooked, but the negatives are magnified.

I think it's also worth noting that unlike in regular economics, there is actually a trickle down effect to some extent at least. We have to buy our players from somewhere and they have to buy replacements from somewhere else. If mega rich people are looking to invest £1bn each then you can't really complain about that. The money adds more into the game. Teams like Southampton and Crewe get rewarded more for their excellent youth teams continually producing excellent players as either the rich teams look to buy them or the teams the rich teams buy from look for replacements.

 

What is ruining football is third party ownership, but that's another story.

Football is ruined? That's news to me.

"Chelsea changed English football" or "Chelsea upset the status quo in English football" would be more accurate headlines. It's a shame that so many people automatically consider any kind of evolution to be negative.

Edited June 16, 201313 yr by bluedave

When Roman brought Joe cole and then Glen Johnson the pikey board admitted it kept the clubs head above water so that's one positive (sort of) also it broke up the moan and arse dominance, it was almost getting like the Scottish prem. The English prem has grown since Roman bunged his cap into the middle!

As Premier League football became the product (sad word to use) it is, with a world-wide profile, it was always going to attract investment (though, tbh, I never envisaged Middle Eastern Sheikhs being involved). The foreign investment has made the league more open; Man U apart, last season was tight and, as other posters have said, the title race is no longer just between the same two teams.

With Ffp on the horizon (if it works) there are bigger issues for the English game to worry about like the lack of English players in the Epl, ticket prices, our continuing inability to compete effectively internationally, etc.

Edited June 16, 201313 yr by Thfc

We did ruin English football.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Arsenal. 

What a load of b*****ks if we were all going to rely on organic growth the premier league would be a mess like the Scottish premier league. That's going well isnt it?

Oh look, it's this again.

After MH's investment we were in the Deloitte top 10 money league every season bar 02/03, with revenues exceeding every other English club bar United. We were even as high as 3rd at one point (1999/00 season) with only Real and Man U ahead of us. We had the largest average attendance of all London clubs the season before RA came. The Champions League is a gateway to the overseas market. We could not "grow organically" because we were unable to consistently finish in the CL spots so we missed out on the extra publicity/revenue that Arsenal and United both had due to their ridiculously wealthy shareholders.

Boohoo.

Reckon the money football pumps into this country would be anywhere near what it is today without these types of investments?

I think it's also worth noting that unlike in regular economics, there is actually a trickle down effect to some extent at least. We have to buy our players from somewhere and they have to buy replacements from somewhere else. If mega rich people are looking to invest £1bn each then you can't really complain about that. The money adds more into the game. Teams like Southampton and Crewe get rewarded more for their excellent youth teams continually producing excellent players as either the rich teams look to buy them or the teams the rich teams buy from look for replacements.

 

What is ruining football is third party ownership, but that's another story.

 

 

Very true. Essentially, you have non-football money pumping up the football economy. The downside is since that money stays in the sport, there will always be inflation of wages and prices.

However, the growing spectre of agent power and third-party ownership of players is a different kettle of fish. When clubs like Monaco buy third-party owned players, that money is then siphoned back out of the game to non-footballing interests.

You don't have to look hard to see the detrimental effect these arrangements are having in South American football. Oscar, Neymar, Bernard, James Rodrigues etc all moved for massive fees but very little of that cash is given back to their clubs to invest back into the game.

Edited June 16, 201313 yr by SydneyChelsea

When Roman brought Joe cole and then Glen Johnson the pikey board admitted it kept the clubs head above water so that's one positive (sort of) also it broke up the moan and arse dominance, it was almost getting like the Scottish prem. The English prem has grown since Roman bunged his cap into the middle!

Now im really pissed off with RA......

No one bitched this much when Real was doing the same thing in the early 2000's.

No one bitched this much when Real was doing the same thing in the early 2000's.

Ah, but they did it honourably And organically , by selling there training ground to the local government at a massively inflated price then being allowed to continue using it for free. Nothing dodgy at all.

I guess Wigan ruined the football league system when they spent heavily between 2001-2005 to get from league 1 to the premiership.

Blackburn ruined the premier league with their heavy spending in the early 90s.

Man United ruined english football by having a higher net spend than the combined net spend of Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, Villa and Spurs from 1988-92.

Nottingham Forest ruined European football when they spent £1 million on Trevor Francis to help them win the European Cup in 1979. 

Napoli ruined Italian football when they spent $10 million on Maradona.

Juventus ruined the dynamics of European football when they bought John Charles for £65,000 from Leeds United.



Did these teams ruin European football? Did they heck. They helped to create romanticized football stories that live long in the memory.

Wigan have gone down as the darlings of the premier league's history and rightly so. But they got their through heavy spending. Nothing wrong with that, but without great spending, they would never have graced the top tier.

Blackburn story is just wonderful and allows every club to dream that one day they could be the small town club that wins the top division.

Man United's spend in the late 80's allowed them to have the footing to finally push Liverpool 'off their perch'.
 

Forest purchase of Francis led them to back to back European cup success. A simply incredible achievement for a club the size and stature of Forest.

Napoli's signing of Maradona allowed the unfancied, deprived and disadvantaged team and region of Napoli/Naples to upset the northern apple cart of Italian football and allowed for a sense of pride and uprising for southern Italians.

The signing of John Charles helped Juve to cement their place as the dominant force in Italian football and helped raise the profile of the league leading to European Cup wins for both Milan sides in the early 60's.
 

The power of power in football continually changes hands. One day our money will be gone and there will be a new super rich team, with little prior success. They will win things over the established forces like City and Chelsea and it will be said that they have ruined football. Let's not be bitter and celebrate that it is not just Man United winning the league every year with the champions league completely monopolised. Since it's rebranding to the Champions League in 1992, no team has successfully defended the trophy. That to me suggests, that in terms of competition, football is improving.

Ah, but they did it honourably And organically , by selling there training ground to the local government at a massively inflated price then being allowed to continue using it for free. Nothing dodgy at all.

Seems fine to me. It's these interest free loans people like RA are giving out that are the real problem. The last thing we need is owners investing in football clubs due to their love of the game. It's ruining football!

It comes as no surprise that someone associated with Arsenal is crying. The last ten years have seen them go from a famous club to a joke. 

 

 

 

Our money didnt have anything to do with this.

David Dein... If he'd had his way we'd now be groundsharing at Loftus Road or Selhurst Park and Stamford Bridge would be a block of luxury flats. He was also a member of the FA panel which sanctioned Wimbledon's move to Milton Keynes and declared that AFC Wimbledon being formed was "not in the best interests of football". Not exactly in a position to be pontificating about Roman and the good of English football. Who cares what he thinks about Chelsea?

Edited June 17, 201313 yr by Englishman

Marco Ambrosio!! I completely forgot he existed!

David Dein... If he'd had his way we'd now be groundsharing at Loftus Road or Selhurst Park and Stamford Bridge would be a block of luxury flats. He was also a member of the FA panel which sanctioned Wimbledon's move to Milton Keynes and declared that AFC Wimbledon being formed was "not in the best interests of football". Not exactly in a position to be pontificating about Roman and the good of English football. Who cares what he thinks about Chelsea?

Also the same guy who was negotiating Ashley Cole's contract whilst at Arsenal and later handing out the ridiculously harsh suspended points penalty for the Cole "tapping up" affair.

no clubs runs english football. it is all down to the weakness of the fa that has ruined english football.

Arsenal were the first team in the PL to field an all foreign player team, the story of ruining English home grown started with Wenger. Gutter media are just trying to hide this little fact with there bias and sell papers but the truth has a way of being properly remembered.

Wasn`t it us in 99/00 away to Southampton?

Prob way more accurate to say the FA and PFA ruined English football. The FA by creating the lack of direction and sense of unfulfilled potential that brought about, along with other factors, the creation of the EPL, and the PFA for being concerned with the welfare (earnings) of players even when that conflicted with the wider welfare of the game. Once the EPL was founded, English football was always going to change as, in terms of profile, revenue and advertising, it was too big an opportunity for investors to ignore. 'Cos of that,foreign money was always going to come into the game. Chelsea and MUFC are at one end of the Spectrum and the stupid cluckers at Blackburn, at the other.