Abramovich And The Price Of Petrol

Bayern Munich might have been a force in Europe for a spell in the 70’s but it took them until 2001 to add their fourth Champions League trophy and since then it’s all gone quiet on the European front with the Germans failing to even qualify in the 2006/7 season. They have however been pretty much the dominant force in the Bundesliga throughout that time.

Chelsea, on the other hand, have yet to win the Champions League and although we’ve been around the top four for a fair few years now, with the exception of our title winning seasons in 2004/5 and 2005/6, I’d hardly call us prolific.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t seem to have stopped Bayern general manager, Uli Hoeness from taking a pop at us. Because whilst it was all well and good when it was them bossing the European game, apparently Bayern can’t cope with today’s competition. Hoeness suggests “Thanks to the huge investments many clubs make, there are no longer any serial European Cup winners similar to Ajax and Bayern in the Seventies. The old hierarchy has been abolished.  A better-balanced competition sounds tempting, but I don’t know whether the investments have been good for football.”

But he’s not done there, because in his belief that it’s purely Abramovich’s money that’s allowed us to intrude on the elite hierarchy he preferred, Hoeness suggests “What can we do?  We simply have to defeat teams like Chelsea on the field of play. That would give us great satisfaction.” Which as far as I’m concerned, is fair enough – bring it on I say – except, he then goes on to say that’s not a realistic target because “We (Bayern) could reach the quarter-finals in the Champions League, and then come up against Barcelona, Real Madrid or Chelsea. Then all of a sudden we’re knocked out.” Erm, isn’t that the whole point of the knock-out stages? Oh and for the record Mr Hoeness, we were in the quarter-finals before Roman’s arrival you know.

Anyway, not satisfied with blaming us for all that’s wrong in European football today, Hoeness completely loses the plot, launching into a bizarre attack on the Chelsea owner, “I get annoyed every week when I go to fill my car up with petrol. The oil Mafia is taking money out of my pocket to invest it in footballers. To my mind this stinks to high heaven, and this applies to Mr Abramovich among others. He is certainly no friend of mine.  This Mafia controls the entire world, and manipulates the price of oil.  I won’t stand for it any longer.”

One can only assume he’ll be switching to diesel then?

Chelsea Welcome Their New No.9

Chelsea have welcomed the pre-season form shown by Franco Di Santo by giving him the number 9 shirt for the coming campaign.  The 19 year old, who’s shown he’s got bags of potential has clearly impressed the boss, who may well have decided that even at this early stage, it’s time the young Argentinean was given the vote of confidence.

Scolari has already expressed a desire to “develop young players” at the club and with Di Santo not only playing a big part during pre-season but being presented with the shirt on his return, he looks certain to feature for the first team during the coming season.

As long as he gets more wear out of it than its former owner that is!