Is Abramovich stepping away from football

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Is Abramovich stepping away from football It was Roman Abramovich’s investment in Chelsea that has allowed for the club to become one of the best in the country. He took over ownership of the club in 2003 and has a serious passion for the game. Some have noticed though that he is not attending as many of the matches as he used to and some fans are seeing this as him losing interest.

Chairman of the Chelsea is Bruce Buck and he says this is anything but true. In a recent interview for a book by Ian Ridley called There’s a Golden Sky, he says that Abramovich has an incredibly deep knowledge of the sport and that is passion for it is as alive as ever.

Buck said, “Abramovich’s knowledge and passion for the game has only increased. He is so informed about the game it is incredible. There is probably not a player in the world that he couldn’t give you up to date statistics for. I would say that since taking over the club he has only become more interested in the game. He still watches the Chelsea games, just he can’t always do it in person, but wherever he is in the world, you can be sure he is tuning in.”

In the book Buck is also reminiscing about when Abramovich wanted to get involved with the Premier League, “He asked UBS to look at which clubs where the best ones to invest into. He considered Manchester United and Aston Villa, but they did not seem so financially viable. In the end it was down to two Tottenham or Chelsea. For whatever reason Tottenham were not willing to meet, so Chelsea, who needed the capital were the club Abramovich chose. Our fans have sure been pleased with the results.”

Scottish players and drug tests

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Scottish players and drug tests Garry O’Connor, the international footballer, has had problems with passing drugs tests in the past. He has recently come back to play for his first team, Hibernian, in the Scottish Premier League. In the past he has been banned from the sport for failing drugs tests and despite claims that he is clean, he is waiting for the results of a court case against him.

The Football Association has long had the right to keep the names of players who have failed drugs tests for using only recreational rather than enhancing substances, confidential. Indeed, O’Connor was permitted to serve his first ban in secret. The Association has long claimed that players have the right to face their addictions in their private lives and not have public shame forced upon them.

There is however an alternative side to the argument that claims that if players were to be named when they used recreational drugs it would act as a strong incentive not to do them in the first place. Football players can go onto become role models for young people and they should not have secret drug addictions. That said, it does not seem from the information that has been compiled by Sporting Intelligence, that there is a major drug problem in UK football – most players are testing clean.

Some people have criticised the sport for being too focused on the recreational side of the equation, saying that investigating players for the use of performance enhancing substances is far more important. It could be said that recreational substances are private to an individual but the use of performance substances can influence the sport. Some have even said there should be no testing at all and that the controversy around the use of recreational drugs just detracts from the real issue of performance enhancing drugs.

Wada, the drug testing authority, has said they have a general dissatisfaction with the way that testing is conducted in the sport. In a statement they have said, “The sport doesn’t think that it has a problem because the number of failed tests is low. This suggests to us that a more detailed investigation into doping should be conducted as people are known to be able to cheat drugs tests.”

The government maintain that there should be a zero tolerance policy on drugs and Sebastian Coe has said that, “The idea that there should be lesser penalties for recreational drugs is morally bankrupt.”

Football offensive behaviour law may not be legal

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Football offensive behaviour law may not be legal Members of the Scottish Parliament have been cautioned by a notable academic that changing the law with the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill could make the legal process look foolish. Tom Devine is a professor from the University of Edinburgh has described the bill as far too wide, saying that it could say that simple political statements were sectarian crimes.

Devine has commented, “The problem is people are not going to be sure what is a political belief and what is an offensive statement. If these bill is made law than it will bring this area of the law into disrepute. I also wonder why this Bill has been extended to such a great extent, so that it now covers many other things, rather than the sectarianism that it was originally made for.”

The potential law has been expanded to cover any offence that is driven by race, colour, sexual orientation or disability, among others. Devine has said, “There are important issues that need to be covered, but this law will just make everything far too ambiguous. We need to wait for there to be real evidence for making such a law, only that way will it be effective. There has only been one study conducted, back in 2004 and that was no where near deep enough.”

Cardinal Keith O’Brien  has said in the past that the reason for the religious violence in Scotland is because the state is against Catholics, Professor Devine has said the passing of this law will only confirm this belief. Research from the 2004 report suggested that Catholics were many times more likely to be subject to a sectarian attack. He also urged the Scottish government to wait for the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland to complete a more conclusive study, which has been collecting data since 2003.

New Book Challenges Wenger’s Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

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New Book Challenges Wenger's Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

New Book Challenges Wenger's Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

ARSÈNAL – THE MAKING OF A MODERN SUPERCLUB

By Alex Fynn & Kevin Whitcher

Published by Vision Sports Publishing, Out Now!

RRP £8.99, ISBN 978 1 9076 3731 5

Which Way Now for Arsenal?……… This New Book Challenges Wenger’s Strategy and questions the future of Arsène AND the club

Due to the disappointing start that Arsenal have made to the new season, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for the release of this new book. Co-written by Alex Fynn and Kevin Witcher, this book asks questions regarding the future together of Arsène Wenger and the club. They also aim to ask and answer all those awkward questions that all gunner fans will want to know.

In the revised and fully update version of the book, these are just a few of the questions they have asked:

1)            Is Arsenal still a ‘big’ club?

2)            What needs to change to keep Arsenal at football’s top table? What’s stopping them attracting the type of world-class star that once graced the ‘Invincibles’ side of the 2003/2004 season?

3)            Is Arsène Wenger the right man to take Arsenal forward?

4)            Where does Wenger’s reliance on youth – which has consistently failed to deliver silverware over the last 6 years – stem from? Is it actually harming the club more than it is benefitting it?

5)            What does the club’s conspicuously reclusive Board really think of the current situation on the pitch?

6)            Who are the key figures lurking in the shadows at the Emirates? How much say do they have in Wenger’s transfer dealings?

7)            In light of recent departures, how much money does Arsenal really have at its disposal for strengthening the club’s current threadbare squad?

8)            What would it take for Wenger and Arsenal to ever part company?

9)            Despite their well-documented on-field problems, why is Arsenal still – potentially – in a better position than their great rivals, Manchester United?

Both of the authors are renowned experts on football and have an inside track on all the latest goings on at Arsenal, in a nutshell, what they don’t know about this club simply isn’t worth knowing.

This latest edition of the seminal biography of Arsenal, which was a bestseller, has 5 new chapters which take in all the events of the past 2 seasons, and is based on the unprecedented access which the author’s were granted. These include exclusive interviews with both current and former players, key members of the board and the man himself,  Arsène Wenger.

The book looks in great detail at the way that the club was transformed into a global super team under the leadership of Arsène Wenger, and challenges the French coach to change some of his tried and trusted methods in order that Arsenal keep their place amongst the elite both in the premiership and in Europe.

The Observer has described this book as “fascinating”, and the Guardian thinks it is “shrewd and well informed”. Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Superclub, has had positive comments from all who have reviewed it, and ‘When Saturday Comes’, the respected football magazine commented that “at last, there was a football book with reflected the age and the modern game”.

12 Spanish clubs want more TV cash

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12 Spanish clubs want more TV cash The chiefs of 12 Spanish clubs in the first division got together on Thursday to fight for more revenue from the TV rights system which they say greatly favours Real Madrid and Barcelona. The president of Sevilla, Jose Maria del Nido, led the charge against the two giants of the Spanish game, and invited all the clubs except Real and Barca to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium.

The clubs’ plan is to ponder what they call the unfair, unequal and outrageous system that is currently in place to distribute financial rights from TV broadcasts, something that is unique in the leagues of Europe. Del Nido said in a statement that the current distribution favours Real and Barca year after year, to the detriment of the other teams. He adds that more money meant better players and had a knock on effect for endorsements and sponsors.

Barcelona and Real Madrid each receive about 140m euros a year from television rights, whilst the smaller clubs like Malaga, Real sociedad and Levante receive only 12m. Del Nido, renowned for his outspokenness, pulled no punches when he blasted the Spanish league as being the biggest pile of rubbish not just in Europe, but in the whole world. He added that it was a third world league where two clubs took everyone else’s money.

The other teams present at the meeting along with Sevilla were Atletico Madrid, Atletico Bilbao, Espanyol, Real Betis, Malaga, Granada, Racing Santander, Osasuna, Villareal, Real Zaragoza and Valencia. Four other clubs, Sporting Gijon, Getafe, Real Sociedad and Rayo Vallecano were not at the meeting but completely backed the campaign, according to the Sevilla statement that Del Nido released.