December 2007

Premier action

You can read all you like about it, but sometimes you just have to see it to believe it. Total Sport sent Adam Daff with Etihad to see his first Premiership game and the house that Abramovich has built.

For an island separated from Europe, Britain has seen more than its fair share of action since Greek navigator Pytheas explored the area around 325 BC. Things didn’t really spicey until the Romans arrived in 43AD. These learned characters in red capes built roads and installed some semblance of order in a place that had been landed on, plundered and divided by scores of tribes and people from all over Europe.

Some 350 years later King Arthur, some say (although many believe he never existed), headed the push to drive out the Romans and paved the way for kingdom to be built in Britain in its own right. What happened next is, well, difficult to follow. Things got interesting again, however, after the end of the War of the Roses when Henry Tudor took charge around 1485. Henry VII as he became known brought peace – he also had a son who would bring a whole lot more than that.

Humans were evolving – people started to realize that feudal nobilities weren’t doing much, they needed decisions and order and sovereigns could do that. Enter Henry VIII. He is perhaps the most ruthless king that ever ruled the shaky isles. He was also somewhat of a lady’s man (but that’s a different story).

Henry the Eighth is best known for creating the Church of England (for Protestants or Anglicans) when the Roman Catholic Church was faltering, declaring himself head of the church and giving himself a “divine” right to rule. An educated bureaucracy then helped Henry convince his subjects the system was a good idea. He also invested heavily in building a Navy, which would one day become the most powerful the world had ever seen.

Cue Queen Elizabeth I, King George, Lord Nelson (who stopped Napoleon), the American War of Independence, World War One and Two against a very restless neighbour and the eventual allied victory in 1945 – like I said, Britain and its inhabitants have seen a lot of action.

It’s been tribe on tribe for a long, long time. And while the sword fights, jousting and knights on round tables have all long gone there is one place where you can still see British tribalism at its best – in the English Premier League.

Unlike most other national sporting competitions, the PL, or just “the premiership” if you’re speaking to anyone who knows anything about football, has global appeal. The Premiership is a huge deal these days and is perhaps one of the few arenas where you can still see some serious UK tribalism – except these days it’s more about good fun, than land or damsels in distress.

The papers in England tell the world every day that the English Premiership is the best football competition in the world, and unlike a lot of the hype these papers push, this is largely true.

The Premiership had arguably its lowest point in the 1980s. Stadiums were crumbling, hooliganism was rife and all English clubs were banned from European competition following the Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels where 39 people were killed after Liverpool and Juventus fans clashed during the final of the European Cup (or Champions League).

The Football League First Division, as it had been called since its inception in 1888, was well behind leagues such as Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga in attendances and revenues, and several top English players had moved abroad.

In the 1990s, however, things started to turn when the Football League ordered all-seat stadiums built and pay-television was also becoming far more important. In 1986 the Football League received £6.3million for a two-year agreement, but when that deal was renewed in 1988, the price rose to £44m over four years.

In 1992 the First Division clubs resigned from the FL en masse and the FA Premier League was formed. That meant a break-up of the 104-year-old Football League that had operated with four divisions; the Premier League would operate with a single division and the Football League with three. The most recent change happened this year when the FA Premier League was changed to just the Premier League.

The new premiership was also bolstered by the change in the UK’s economy which went from a manufacturing-based economy to, essentially, one giant museum or service-sector that specializes in tourism and banking. And the Premier League is becoming a bigger part of this tourism-based economy, especially when you consider what airlines like Etihad are now doing from Abu Dhabi.

Etihad, which has been awarded or voted “best in class” in a variety of tourism and service categories every year it has existed, has just become Chelsea’s “official” airline. It’s a big partnership for Etihad because as far as commodities in Premier League go, Chelsea is arguably the Premiership’s No.1 product.

Chelsea certainly has come a way since the 80s when the Chelsea “Headhunters” were the most publicized thing to come out of the south-west London club. The Headhunters were renowned as some of the most ridiculous hooligans in English football. They were exposed primarily when a BBC reporter infiltrated and shot a documentary on them. That programme led to arrests and several convictions and also a full length feature film on football violence called The Football Factory, directed by Nick Love.

Chelsea is now one of the world’s wealthiest and most glamorous clubs and for that you can blame one man – Roman Abramovich. There were, of course, hundreds of men and women who kept Chelsea bubbling along when there was little or no money left in the 80s and early 90s. Abramovich, however, changed the landscape altogether for the Blues when he bought them in 2003, hired coach Jose Mourinho and immediately poured some £440 million into the club as well as assuming the £80m debt.

Abramovich’s takeover set the precedent for a host of other takeovers by sports tycoons in the Premiership. Manchester United was the first to follow suit when the Glazer family from the US bought a majority share. George Gillett and Tom Hicks then joined forces to buy Liverpool for around 219 million pounds. Hicks is a billionaire who already owned the Texas Rangers baseball team and the Dallas Stars ice hockey team, while Gillett owns ice hockey rivals Montreal Canadiens.

Manchester City was the last club to join the lucky few. Former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra bought the club representing the blue side of Manchester and appointed former England coach Sven Goran Eriksson to lead the team. The outsted PM paid $162.6 million and has a vision of setting up coaching clinics across Asia and bringing in more eastern-based talent to the Premiership.

Having owners like Shinawatra in the league not only boosts the profile of the competition, but it’s invaluable for the clubs. It means the clubs have the money to buy the best players or, more importantly, to employ the best agents to find promising young talent who then come through and star for the club (like David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary and Phil Neville did for Manchester United), or can be sold for a premium.

But of all the takeovers so far they pale when you consider what Abramovich did at Chelsea. The club he chose began in 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher’s Hook), opposite the present-day main entrance to Stamford Bridge ground on Fulham Road. They were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.

Chelsea had a lot of success in the late 50s and 60s but were struggling when Abramovich took over. They quickly went from being a club that finished in the top 10, to a title contender in Europe and in the Premiership. In 2005, Chelsea’s centenary year, they won the Premiership in a record-breaking season (most clean sheets, fewest goals conceded, most victories, most points earned), League Cup winners with a 3–2 win over Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium and reached the Champions League semi-finals.

In 2006 they were again League Champions, equalling their own Premiership record of 29 wins set the previous season. They also became only the fifth team to win back-to-back championships since the WWII. Last season they finished second in the premier league to Manchester United but ended the season by beating them 1-0 in the FA Cup final, the first at the new Wembley Stadium.

The commercial partnerships that have come for Chelsea post-Abramovich are as long and distinguished as the club’s history, it’s also now one of the best-supported clubs in the United Kingdom, with an estimated four million fans. But Etihad’s deal is perhaps the strongest sign of the club’s global appeal.

Head of Etihad Holidays Tony Gauci said customers could soon purchase holiday packages to the UK that include tickets to the game.

“The UK is obviously an important destination for us at all times, but especially during summer in the Gulf and with this deal we’ve now got one of the biggest brands and clubs in world sport to work with,” said Gauci.

To mark the new sponsorship deal, Etihad flew several journalists to see Chelsea play Everton at Stamford Bridge, which has a 42,000 capacity and is one of the biggest stadiums in the league. It was a huge game because Everton were eighth at the time, with Chelsea in fourth behind Manchester United and Arsenal – the only two sides who were undefeated. Chelsea needed a win to progress up the table, while Everton were desperate to make an impression against one of the best sides in the premiership and drive for a place in the UEFA Cup (top five finish in the PL).

Didier Drogba, the Cote d’Ivoire striker, scored for the Blues, and generally starred as he has done for the past two seasons. But as it can happen, Drogba’s genius in front of goal was matched once by a dose of insanity when he inexplicably tripped in the first half with an open goal, which would have ultimately sealed the victory.

Chelsea captain and England international Frank Lampard also had a strong game and was dreadfully unlucky to have a strong shot bounce off the feet of team mate Joe Cole. Shaun Wright-Phillips is another player that’s always entertaining to watch. Perhaps it’s because he’s always a foot shorter than whoever he’s marking, but he’s also nearly always the quickest man on the field. His speed is matched only by the power in his long-range shots – blinding.

Against such a star-studded line-up Everton struggled to string a series of attacking raids together, but English fullback Joleon Lescott, who has been stricken with injury, did brilliantly to restrict Chelsea from scoring during his return.

Everton’s Australian midfielder, Tim Cahill, might not have been the best player on the day but he certainly managed the most incredible move. With only a minute left Cahill latched onto a cross in front of goal, controlled it with one foot then sent it into the back of the net with an overhead bicycle kick. Visiting supporters went berserk - vintage Cahill, vintage Premiership action and drama. It was certainly the kind of action that justifies the Premiership’s television advertising, which claims it’s “the most watched drama series in the UK.”

The game finished 1-1 but in a lot of ways the score didn’t matter – it was more about the experience. Tucked away behind a myriad of old buildings we’d just seen another great match between two rivals in a battle for one of the biggest prizes in world sport. For more information about Chelsea FC, or Etihad Holidays to the area look up www.etihad.ae or www.etihadholidays.com.