GAVIN HAMILTON
Editor of World Soccer, writes for worldsoccer.com.
BLINKERED VISION
16/05/08
The general tone of the UK media’s coverage of the UEFA Cup Final has been that plucky/brave/exhausted Rangers ran out of steam against a Zenit St Petersburg side that had enjoyed the benefit of a rest from Russian league action last weekend.
The implication from the sympathetic coverage was that Rangers could have won – if only they had not had to play so many games this season. There’s been very little mention of the superior technique and tactics of the Russian champions.
I’ve never been fan of player ratings; they tend to be one individual’s subjective assessment. The Daily Telegraph’s rating make for peculiar reading. Rangers players received an average of 6.09 while Zenit players were only marginally higher at 6.27.
Even more peculiarly, Carlos Cuellar – admittedly Rangers’ best player by a country mile – received 8, while Andrei Arshavin, the man whose precision passes set up both goals and by far and away the best player on the pitch, received only 6.
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After overcoming numerous administrative hurdles, I am about to finalise my visa for Moscow for next week’s Champions League Final.
Although UEFA has announced a visa amnesty for those with match tickets, there will still be thousands of ticketless supporters attempting to get to
Moscow just to be in the same city.
If the problems I have encountered with the Russian authorities are anything to go by, there will be many English fans being turned away upon arrival in Russia because they do not have the correct paperwork.
What price those accepting their plight with good grace and turning around? The Russian police are not known for their understanding in such situations and I fear that the build-up to the game may be marred by incidents on the Russian border.
TIME FOR CHANGE?
12/05/08
Another Premier League season over and does anybody realistically expect any team from outside the top four to be challenging for a Champions League spot next season? Didn’t think so.
It’s not an issue that is likely to bother Chelsea manager Avram Grant but his comments last week about a Premier League play-off got me thinking.
The likes of Everton, Tottenham, Aston Villa will be mentioned as possible contenders to break into the top four next season. But none are likely to make it under the current format. UEFA Cup qualification – and the subsequent crumbs from the Champions League table – awaits for the lucky ones. But what if the top two Premier League teams qualified automatically for the Champions League, and the next four teams entered an end-of-season play-off?
For the past three seasons, the Dutch first division has featured end-of-season play-offs for the Champions League and UEFA Cup spots. The system hasn’t started a revolution; champions PSV Eindhoven have qualified automatically for the Champions League as of right, with Ajax winning the four-team play-off to take the second Champions League spot. But the system has given smaller teams like AZ and Heerenveen a chance of breaking into the big time.
The likes of Arsenal and Liverpool are unlikely to favour such a system, given the comfort zone that they currrently inhabit, but it would add extra spice to the end of the season title race, and genuinely open up the competition to new challengers.
And there’s an additional argument for such a play-off system which will probably resonate more strongly with Premier League chairmen. If they really want a money-spinning 39th game (and 40th and 41st), look no further.
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DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR
08/05/08
Kevin Keegan has reportedly been called in for talks with Newcastle owner Mike Ashley to explain comments that he made after Monday’s defeat to Chelsea.
Keegan had admitted that Newcastle were “a million miles” away from competing with the Premier League’s top four. That was not in the script when Ashley bought the club last year, but at least Keegan displayed a previously unknown capacity for realism.
For such an infectiously enthusiastic personality as Keegan to be doubting whether he can engineer an uplift in Newcastle’s fortunes is a stark indication of how far the Premier League has stagnated.
Ashley has spent a lot of money and naturally wants a return for such a huge outlay, but he is in danger of outdoing Man City owner Thaksin Shinawatra in the unrealistic expectation stakes. At least the Newcastle owner is only reflecting the views of his club’s fans, even if those expectations are unobtainable.
If Shinawatra thinks Phil Scolari - a man who has never coached a European club - can improve on Eriksson’s record at Man City, then he is even more deluded than Ashley.
Part of the problem is the age-old one that we give coaches and managers too much credit when their teams perform well, and we blame them too much when things go wrong. Individuals such as Eriksson thus become the unfortunate lightning rods for the frustrations of their owners.
At Barcelona, the blame is shared around. There is no way back for Frank Rijkaard after last night’s humiliation in Madrid, but his departure has been on the cards for some time. Pep Guardiola, currently coach of Barca’s B team, is the favourite to replace Rijkaard next season, but sporting director Txiki Begiristain is the man who will conduct most of this summer’s transfer deals (of which there will be many involving Barcelona).
Across Europe, many of this season’s most successful teams will be changing coaches this summer. Internazionale and Roberto Mancini are on the brink of parting company, despite Mancini steering Inter to the championship success that had previously eluded them. Lyon are set to sack Alain Perrin despite a record seventh successive French league title, while Sef Vergoossen will be replace by Huub Stevens at Dutch champions PSV. In Germany Ottmar Hiztfeld will leave Bayern Munich to take charge of the Swiss national side having delivered the Bundesliga title during his short second stay at the club.
So maybe, just maybe, coaches are not as important than the likes of Ashley and Shinawatra think they are.
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DEBT COLLECTORS
06/05/08
For many years, according to accountants and other such people who now run football, Manchester United were considered to be the world's richest club. Only in the last three years have United been overtaken by Real Madrid in the various "Rich Lists" and "Money Leagues".
Such calculations have been based on one sole criteria – a club's total annual revenue. I've argued for many years that such a measure does provide an accurate analysis of a club's wealth in football terms. It's very difficult compare clubs in Spain such as Real Madrid and Barcelona, who don't have to generate a financial profit for their shareholders because the shareholders are the club's fans, with clubs such as Manchester United, whose owners are seeking to take money out of the club.
The issue has been further complicated in recent years by the emergence of Roman Abramovich's Chelsea, whose annual revenues have been augmented by their Russian owner's plentiful petro-dollar fortune. Chelsea, though they have considerably lower revenues than United or Real Madrid through traditional channels such as TV deals and merchandising contracts, have enjoyed much greater spending power in the transfer market. And that is down to Mr Abramovich.
Another complication has been added with a story reported by World Soccer contributor David Conn in today's Guardian. In the year to the end of June 2007, the total amount owed by United to creditors was a staggering £764million. That figure includes £56m owed by the club to other clubs in transfer fee instalments.
The Glazer family are to struggling to re-finance the debt they took on to buy United. They still owe £152million to hedge fund at a rate of interest of 14.25 per cent. In these current credit crunched times, the Glazers cannot find anyone else willing to take on the debt at a more reasonable interest rate.
In the meantime, United stand on the threshold of an historic Double. If they pull it off by beating Wigan next weekend and Chelsea in Moscow on May 21, they will rightly be hailed as the best club side in the world. But behind the scenes, the Glazers are struggling to stay afloat.
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MARCH ON MOSCOW
02/05/08
The countdown to the first all-English Champions League Final has started and now the fun really begins.
I’ve argued here before that the Champions League Final should be played at the same venue every year. Paris, where the first Final, was staged in 1956, would be the obvious place.
Aside from the organisational chaos that will inevitably result when 60,000 English fans descend on a far-flung city, I object purely on environmental grounds. It’s absurd that so many people will fly to Moscow and back in the space of a few days.
Rotation of the Final around different cities causes the same organisational problems every year. There can never be a proper dress rehearsal for such a one-off event, so there will always be problems – as we got in Athens last year. And it is the fans who pay the price, not the sponsors and UEFA executive members, whose five-star, business-class travel arrangements will again run like clockwork.
However, I don’t buy the argument that the Champions League Final should be played in western Europe simply because that is where the finalists increasingly hail from. The nature of UEFA’s membership structure means that the European Finals will continue to be rotated among the members.
As long as the four richest nations – England, Germany, Italy and Spain – continue to bank the lion’s share of Champions League revenues, then European Final hosting rights are one of the few ways that UEFA can “re-distribute” anything back to other members. And even then it is middle-ranking nations like Russia, Greece and Turkey who are benefiting, not the poorest countries of Eastern Europe.
UEFA is unlikely to change the system in the foreseeable future. The whole process of allocating Final hosting rights has become a miniature version of the Olympic and World Cup bidding process. As such, it is a very effective way for UEFA president Michel Platini to reward his supporters.
Platini likes to talk of a European football “family” but the thousands of fans who are currently struggling to find the money to make it to Moscow will not feel too inclined to believe him.
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