Originally Posted by
Jimmy Floyd
I've been reading around a lot the last couple of days and reflecting as to why my instincts on this are so far, far different from the majority of Chelsea fan opinion, at least online and I can only assume more widely.
My view is basically that we had this coming to us, and if you want to run with the blood money, and if you want to enjoy the fruits of the blood money, you have to know that at some point it's going to catch up with you. I don't see that as complicated at all, so I was really left scratching my head for a time as to why I wasn't seeing this view anywhere at a time when RA's mate is flattening Ukraine.
What I've decided is that it comes down to people and priorities, and for some reason, a very large proportion of contemporary football fans are in it for one thing which is to see their team win tomorrow. Not next week, not in two years - tomorrow. If you like, fans are like kind of anxious children, desperate for the shot of affirmation that a positive result will bring them. As such their relationship with their club has become incredibly juvenile: it's not something rooted in a community or collective belonging or anything like that, like we all try to believe it is. It is simply an extension of the fracturing and isolation of life in the 21st century. These fans have told themselves a story that Abramovich is a Great Thing, like it's a teddy bear they can cling to at night. When reality hits, they lash out, because it strikes at the heart of their deepest insecurities to know that because of this, Chelsea might not win tomorrow.
It's an incredibly similar process (in reverse) to how the same proportion of Newcastle fans have approached their Saudi ownership. They need to tell themselves a certain story, and the absurd justifications - mainly whatabouts, but also in many cases genuine twisting of the truth - are like a shield from reality, a necessary narrative that will protect them from the fear that they might have to stop lying to themselves. Newcastle fans will have their judgement day too, as will any fanbase that submits themselves to control by these sorts of people and tells themselves these bedtime stories. That applies to every filthy owner in history, whether it's Tapie, or blood-sucking American venture capital, or murderers, or those who want to go into a super league.
The part I don't get is how, in all these fans, there isn't even the basis of a social conscience that can even hope to compete with the main priority of your football team winning tomorrow. Is it because society's institutions have been broken down so much that football team affiliation is the only affiliation people have, to the point where it becomes life or death stuff?
If Saudis buy Chelsea, for example, I will be out on day one, because there is a specific reason why I couldn't look myself in the mirror even wanting them to win. That red line was not crossed with Russians, so I'm not painting myself to be some pious saint. But I know I have a particular line around particular issues. Do these other people not have a line? What if Putin himself took over? Would they sing his name too? Lots of them would.
Is it just because I have a steady job and a warm bed and other interests and so I don't need Chelsea to win tomorrow? I don't think so. I am as anxious and insecure as anyone I know. I just have some fucking perspective, and that seems to come at a very high price these days.
Sorry, I just had to write it all down somewhere.
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I would say apart from FSG, that is the biggest problem yank owners experience: incompetent underlings here, especially when it comes to continental business (also see Nicholas Pepe's move to Arsenal).
