Hard as it is to conceive, there was a time when Roman Abramovich’s money
could not buy him love at Chelsea. Towards the end of the 2003-04 season,
Chelsea were pushing Arsenal’s Invincibles hard for the title and had
eliminated them from the Champions League.
The coach was the likeable Claudio Ranieri, charming and eccentric in that he
never queried referees’ decisions and bore all that life threw at him
without complaint. In this case, life threw £122 million of players bought
by Abramovich in two insane summer months. An organisational genius would
have found it hard to mould a winning team in that time — it was said that
when told of the £6 m illion purchase of Glen Johnson, the full back, from
West Ham United, Ranieri could not immediately place the player — yet
somehow he managed it.
For much of the season, Chelsea’s points total would have led the table in any
other year. Ranieri was unfortunate to come up against the most relentless
campaign of modern times, Arsenal’s unbeaten 38 games.
Despite this, it was being made clear in private briefings given by senior
figures in Abramovich’s regime that this was Ranieri’s last season in
charge. There was a shortlist of five replacements — not a Special One in
sight at that time, by the way — and even if Ranieri lifted the European
Cup, it would make no difference. The supporters, recognising Ranieri’s
decency under pressure, backed him all the way.
Having as good as saved the club from extinction and spent a preposterous sum
on players, Abramovich’s cold treatment of his manager made him a maligned
figure. Kia Joorabchian, Eli Papouchado and those who would seek control at
Upton Park take note. For Ranieri, read Alan Pardew; except all the evidence
so far suggests that West Ham’s sugar daddies do not have José Mourinho,
Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack or back-to-back titles waiting in the wings
to sweeten the pill.
Abramovich got lucky. Ranieri lost the fans by going out in chaotic
circumstances of his own making to an ordinary AS Monaco team in the
Champions League semi-finals and the original roll of candidates proved
unattainable — the names leaked to the newspapers were Sven-Göran Eriksson,
Carlo Ancelotti, Arsène Wenger, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Fabio Capello — so the
owner turned instead to a charismatic overachiever at FC Porto whose unique
vision backed by seemingly inexhaustible resources is now well on its way to
making Chelsea the strongest team in Europe. West Ham’s suitors, by
contrast, are haggling over the down payment on Dean Ashton while dining
with the most busted flush on Chelsea’s wish-list from three years ago,
having saddled the club with two unfit Argentina players who have played no
part in the small recovery of the past two weeks.
The belief is, if they get control, that they will also remove Pardew, a man
whose cache in the wilds of East London and Essex has never been higher,
after a victory over Arsenal made all the finer by his willingness to go 12
rounds with Wenger on the touchline. This was the man who put Tottenham
Hotspur in their place on the final day of last season. If he can do for
Chelsea’s title challenge a week on Saturday, he may get a statue next to
that of Bobby Moore.
The moral to this story: buyer beware. Abramovich had the resources, and the
manager, to make the locals quickly forget his treatment of Ranieri. There
is no evidence that Joorabchian, even with his property tycoon backer, is in
the same league. Put simply, he could be angling to remove an extremely
popular manager and replace him with: what?
Eriksson: the master of the back-to-the-future tactics that made Serie A an
exercise in torpidity?
Alan Curbishley: a fine coach but little different to Pardew in that his
pedigree is for doing a good job at a small club?
The fear is that what the new owners truly require is someone malleable, a
manager who, presented with Carlos Tévez and Javier Mascherano, could then
be as good as given instruction to play them every week. What Mourinho
taught Abramovich is that, for a football team to work, the manager must
call the shots. Unless Joorabchian understands that, his tenure at Upton
Park will be disastrous.
Yes, it is possible that Pardew has made a mistake in his handling of Tévez
and Mascherano. From the start there was the suspicion that the players had
been landed on him and his sporadic use of them tells its own story. What
should have been a positive move for the club has been transformed into a
harmful sideshow in which the new players have unsettled the team without
really being allowed to be part of it.
The existing West Ham players should also take some responsibility. The
correct response to the arrival of an Argentina player operating in your
position is to raise your game, not sulk for two months while the club
plunge towards relegation, as Nigel Reo-Coker, the captain, did. With
hindsight, the best response for Pardew would have been black or white.
Either tell the chairman that Mascherano and Tévez are not required and that
he will buy his own players, thank you very much, or tell Reo-Coker and the
other miseries that the day they are good enough to play for Argentina he
will throw a big party for them at East Ham town hall and until that time
these two youngsters will play until they are fit enough for the Premiership
and the rest will have to lump it.
This uneasy compromise — in one week, out the next — is what has eaten away at
West Ham’s form and confidence. Only with Tévez and Mascherano injured and
out of the equation has the revival began.
If this was intended to be Joorabchian’s house-warming gift, it has
disappointed. It has also proved that managing is best left to managers,
Joorabchian’s concept of what is good for the team differing wildly from the
reality.
The moral issues that seemed so important at the time — the idea of West Ham
becoming a clearing house for South American players, leased to them by a
football fund — were also hot air. There is no reason why the signing, even
temporary, of Tévez and Mascherano could not have been a success, provided
that they were players the manager wanted and knew how to use.
There was never a guarantee that the pair would be moved at the end of the
season, anyway, but even if they were, the temporary transfer is part of
modern football business and those who resisted the concept have long since
raised the white flag. Teams built on loan moves, agents controlling
contracts, Belgian clubs who act as a shop window for African footballers,
the financial arrangements that propped up Peter Ridsdale’s Leeds United —
none of it is particularly healthy, but it is the way the game has gone and
until the authorities choose more rigorous regulation, it is unreasonable to
expect one club to be the paradigm of virtue while the rest get their hands
dirty in search of success.
The greater worry about West Ham’s future is more localised, mainly that if
Joorabchian gains control, the needs of the manager will play second fiddle
to the demands of the owner. This was barely acceptable at Chelsea from a
man investing close to £250 million in the club. With West Ham’s potential
buyers believed to be quibbling about the £5.5 million owing on transfers,
the scales of public opinion are beginning to tip heavily against the bid.
When Abramovich bought Chelsea, the club were believed to be within days of
defaulting on a bank loan of £70 million and to push the deal through he
gave Ken Bates, the chairman at the time, £17 million. He could have played
hard-ball, let Bates twist, tried to force the price down. Yet being a rich
man in a hurry, he paid what it took to get the job done.
It seemed to happen in the blink of an eye; one moment Chelsea were on the
brink of oblivion, the next they were the richest club in the world. Compare
that with the saga of the West Ham takeover: Joorabchian’s protracted search
for a backer; the emergence of Papouchado; weeks of due diligence; the rival
bid from Eggert Magnusson, an Icelandic millionaire, which has struggled to
get airborne and is finally being entertained; and now a stand-off.
Papouchado is concerned by the post year-end commitments contained in the
company books — £5,543,000 in unpaid transfer fees, potentially rising to
£13,643,000 with contract clauses. Then there is concern over the senior
debt facility with Barclays Bank — £2.2 million annually for 11 years, with
£1.7 million interest. Barclays may wish the new owners to repay a sum of £
24.1 million in full immediately.
It is only natural that Papouchado wants to know whether his debt commitment
in his first year at Upton Park is £7 million or £37 million, but that even
the first sum appears to be causing delay suggests that there will be no
Abramovich-style reconstruction.
Ultimately, though, Abramovich’s saving grace was not his money, but his
manager. The wilful Mourinho taught him the only way to run a successful
football business and that is a lesson West Ham’s prospective owners still
have to learn. Whatever they agree to invest in the club, it must remain
Pardew’s team. Fail to obey that simple rule and all their riches won’t buy
them love, or a friend east of Tower Bridge.
