Friday, November 23, 2012

Chelsea and the art of non-footballing fame

To regular football watchers it is defnitely not surprising that the alleged racism complaint against Mr Clattenburg has come to nought. It was supposed to be. The entire incident smacked of a classic cry-baby attitude which some of the clubs are resorting to these days.
To call Mr Clattenburg is a racist in my opinion was a good diversionary tactic to take some heat away from their first home loss to United in the last 10 years. But whereas earlier someone like Jose Moursinho would close ranks, create a siege mentality and win the game, the new Chelsea " Project" relied on the totally wrong strategy.
As an United fan, I would not say it was a good match or that we won because we played much better. It was a grind in the cauldron of Stamford Bridge and well we were just the team with the better stronger mentality that day. But to say that United won cause the referee was biased or racist or anything is totally preposterous. Chelsea as a team lost tactically on the pitch and then to complicate matters complained about racism on the part of the referee. A complaint which has based on the interpretation of a non-native English speaking footballer who thought the referee had been using racist language to demean his colleague ( who incidentally was closer to the referee, in fact was spoken to by the referee and in the closed confines of the referee room, not during open play).
Chelsea Project has cost their owner almost a Billion Dollars and after 6 managerial changes and 1 interim manager in the form of Guss Hiddink has managed only 1 Champions League and 2 leagues wins in the last 10 years. That is decent by any stretch of imagination but not enough to satisfy the ego of their Oligarch owner who is perhaps used to things getting done in a jiffy back in his native Russia. His dream project has not managed to deliver the goods in terms of a flurry of trophies nor has managed to create an effective academy system which can challenge United for the top slot every year. While United and Arsenal run like a old but well-oiled Automatic watch, the Chelsea project seems to be like a flashy battery-operated chronograph, efficient initally but prone to getting jaded around the edges soon.
The glory-seeking Owner and his overtly hands-on approach has just not worked for Chelsea and now they have painted themselves into a corner with this unneccesary case. Losing at home to your bitter rivals is no excuse for coming up such a preposterous allegation expecially at a time the entire soccer fraternity has been under the microscope and even the smallest of the details are available on camera. By trying out a totally school-boyish crying wolf tactic, Chelsea has made sure they remain in the bad books of each and every match official in the future. Its a sad day for football when someone like Mr Clattenburg who seems to officiate matches with quite a bit of passion and fairness is wrongly accused of  heinous racist behaviour. If it were a tactic, Chelsea has just made a massive strategic blunder. A blunder which will reverberate around football stadium at home and abroad for quite some time to come.

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