Good article

[charlie clown]

today's Grauniad - is actually about Chelsea but the anti-Chelsea section of the article (below) is mainly a comparison to Liverpool and how badly Chelski come off on that comparison. Good to read:

 

No - Dr Rogan Taylor; Director, Football Industry Group

 

I don't think about Chelsea being in the same competition any more really. This is different from the recent domination by Arsenal and Manchester United - or Liverpool before them - because their success was more about astuteness, youth investment and coaching skills than money. This Chelsea project has cost over half a billion euros already and that kind of money puts them in a league of their own.

 

We're used to the idea of rich clubs holding sway in the past, like Real Madrid, Barcelona, the Milan clubs at different times, but this is wealth of an entirely different order. Chelsea can afford to waste ?40m on a player and just leave him on the bench. They can buy forwards with the potential of Shaun Wright-Phillips, who could get into any other Premiership side, and just leave him shining pine. They can take off ?50m worth of strikers and replace them with ?60m of strikers. It's ridiculous.

 

And you can't get away from the source of the money. A significant chunk of the wealth of a whole - now largely poverty-stricken - nation has been sunk into a foreign football team and that sticks in the throat. It's even harder to swallow because Chelsea are at heart a "dilettante" club. In the late 60s they were said to spend half-time under hairdryers and that just about summed them up.

 

In terms of achievement and fan base, they're on the periphery of the English game: two titles and three FA Cups in a hundred years. Last season's triumph was their first title for 50 years, and I heard they only managed to sell around 22,000 DVDs celebrating their season. Liverpool's equivalent DVD sold something close to half a million copies last summer. Even if you halve that for the "Istanbul effect", Liverpool are still 10 times bigger. Either not many Chelsea fans think a first title in 50 years is important, or there aren't really that many of them around. The truth is they're a club with a core support of around 18,000 fans, posing as a "big" club. In passion or dedication, they don't even approach the numbers of United or City fans, Newcastle, Liverpool or Everton for that matter.

 

This is not to say that Chelsea aren't a good team; they clearly are. And getting players to play as a team is a real achievement - even with (or possibly despite) the silly money available. But to expect us to ignore the sheer size of the investment is unrealistic. I can't watch them any more because they don't inhabit the same world as their so-called competitors.

 

Before Roman Abramovich turned up, football was finally getting sensible. The clubs had taken a deep breath and were starting to budget more appropriately. But then the billionaire drives the game back towards loony transfer fees and daft wages, destabilising a good attempt to put football back on track. Clubs should stay sensible and let Chelsea go. What does it matter? It doesn't really mean anything significant, and all things must pass, anyway.

 

A recent When Saturday Comes editorial asked what are the three hardest words to say in the English language. The answer? "Come on Chelsea". I couldn't agree more.

 

The Football Industry Group conducts academic research into the social, economic and political aspects of football.

 

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