Paranoid fans play the loyalty card when it suits them Richard Williams Wednesday September 10, 2003 The Guardian
Before Manchester United's supporters expel any more hot air on the subject of loyalty and defecting employees, they might pause to consider the means by which their own club has ensured its supremacy over the rest of English football in recent years. In essence, the departure of Peter Kenyon for Chelsea is no different from Tommy Taylor leaving Barnsley, Albert Quixall leaving Sheffield Wednesday, Martin Buchan leaving Aberdeen, Gordon Hill leaving Millwall, Jimmy Greenhoff leaving Stoke City, Lou Macari leaving Celtic, Roy Keane leaving Nottingham Forest, Ruud van Nistelrooy leaving PSV or Cristiano Ronaldo leaving Sporting Lisbon, each of them heading in the direction of Old Trafford. All these players - and you or I could probably name several dozen more - left their clubs in order to better themselves. Not one, I venture to suggest, took a cut in wages in order to avail himself of the privilege of playing for Manchester United. For some of them the money may even have been the primary motive, although once there most would surely have fallen in love with the atmosphere surrounding an extraordinary institution. As to United's own record of showing loyalty, the simple fact is that a top football club cannot afford it. Here is another very partial list, this time of some of the players United have let go in the 10 years since, under Alex Ferguson, they started winning the league again: Russell Beardsmore, Chris Casper, Ben Thornley, John Curtis, Terry Cooke, Michael Stewart, Mark Wilson and Ronnie Wallwork. Each of these - and once again many more could be identified - could certainly be said to have benefited from a superb education in the arts of football, but when the time came to decide whether or not they could make a commensurate contribution to the first team, sentiment was not allowed to intrude upon the decision to move them out. And as for Kenyon, since when did football supporters work themselves up into paroxysms of righteous sentiment about blokes in grey suits with briefcases full of spreadsheets? Even, as in this case, one who declared his lifelong affection for a club before shoving off to a rival outfit for twice the basic and heaven only knows how much in bonuses should Chelsea win the league or the European Cup. All football fans are thin-skinned when it comes to their own club, and the case of Manchester United is particularly interesting because it tells us that no amount of success, sustained for no matter how long a period, can inoculate a club and its supporters against a paranoid fear that it will all come crashing down tomorrow. So there can be no reasoning just now with those who recall only that Kenyon paid over the odds for Rio Ferdinand and failed to land Ronaldinho. They will smell conspiracy in the sale of Juan Sebastian Verón to Chelsea at a whopping loss and in the alleged recent involvement of Sven-Göran Eriksson in possible managerial comings and goings at both clubs. What is really exercising United's fans, of course, is the fear of what Kenyon's exit may represent. Leeds United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal and Liverpool have all had a go at provoking "regime change" - sorry, a shift in power - at the top of the Premiership, and each has failed to dislodge United. Now it is Chelsea's turn, and it is looking very much as though Roman Abramovich will stop at nothing to achieve the success he requires. The recruitment of Kenyon tells the world - and tells Manchester United very specifically - that he knows there is more to the job than buying a freescoring Argentinian centre-forward and a complete new midfield. For outsiders - those who are neither Chelsea fans nor supporters of clubs likely to be threatened by the possibility of a Stamford Bridge hegemony - the whole Abramovich experiment exerts a terrible fascination. Is it really possible to buy success off the shelf at the very top end of English and European football? Given all these resources, can the likeable Claudio Ranieri find a winning blend? And now, given the arrival of Kenyon, can Chelsea really hope to challenge Manchester United's commercial dominance? We shall know soon enough. Moral outrage is wasted on the prospect of a foreign businessman trying to buy his way to the title. Football clubs have always operated according to the rules of the commercial jungle; the only difference between now and, say, 50 years ago is that the players receive a wage reflecting their popularity, just like the pop stars whose role they have more or less usurped. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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