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The chairmen of European football clubs usually draw their conclusions on their team’s performances, final placing, achievements and disappointments during the month of May. Above all they will consider their balance-sheets in terms of anticipated hopes and predictions.
These businessmen will study whether they have spent well or whether their overpaid players are not worth the paper on which they had signed lucrative contracts. A large number of managers and coaches are replaced while a number of transfers will be affected, depending on the financial situation of the respective clubs and ambitions.
Success in football has a number of meanings. For some, it could well mean titles and honours; a place in next season’s money-spinning European Competitions suffices for others. Escaping relegation may also give satisfaction to those who are realistic enough that theirs is hardly a title challenging side.
A glance at the top divisions of the popular European championships clearly explain the above. Season 2003-2004 was great for unbeaten Arsenal and AC Milan as they ran away with their respective national championships. For Valencia, Porto and Werder Bremen it was simply a brilliant season. Valencia won the Spanish Liga and the UEFA Cup, Porto again clinched the Portughese title and are in the final of the Champions League on the eve of Euro 2004 to be staged in Portugal whereas Bremen
finished tops of the Bundisliga, after eleven years in the wilderness when they won their fourth league title.
The same cannot be said of Manchester United, Juventus, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, to mention just a few. By their own established standards they were paupers this season.
Financial problems take their toll
Lazio and Parma survived, Leeds United didn’t! Roma and Barcelona, with limited budgets did better than the previous season, while Chelsea, though having their best season in decades still did not add to their limited silverware, despite Roman Abramovic's billions. Roma and Barcelona may have to sell to survive. Roma in fact have already offloaded Samuel for 22m euros to Real Madrid; Emerson is expected to move north and even idol Francesco Totti may be sacrificed. Barca may lose Edgar Davids and maybe even Ronaldinho.
The Russian, despite learning a few lessons in his first season as chairman of a Premier League side will have no difficulty in offering a five-year contract worth 25 million euros to replace Claudio Ranieri, or to pay 30 million euros in cash for Milan’s Andrj Shevchenko, even though Galliani would not like to contemplate losing his Ukrainian top scorer.
Chelsea’s new mentor
Abramovic’s latest recruit, Eugene Tenenbaum who took over from Pini Zahavi as consultant to the Russian tycoon, and the club’s chief executive Peter Kenyon (who is on 2m euros net a year!) may only announce their choice after Wednesday’s final in Gelsenkirchen.
The club’s PR Stuart Higgins will simply announce the name but will not go into details of meetings with Dieder Deschamps’ agent Jean Werth on board the 90million euro, 108 metre super luxury yacht La Grand Bleu in Montecarlo some time last week. Or of the previous encounters with the English-speaking Jose Maria dos Mourinho Felix in Porto and in London. They will just name their man, and get on with his suggestions and target signings. They cannot afford to complicate matters especially after failing to lure Sven Goran Eriksson and David Beckham to Stamford Bridge.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning the fact that only a few footballers earn astronomical figures. Obviously players like Raul, Beckham, Zidane, Totti, Ronaldo and others are not complaining but in Italy alone, more than 50 percent of the Serie A players are on less than 250,000 euros a year. Only 20 percent ear more than one million euros a season.
Arrigo and Sciriha
In Malta the month of May saw Sliema Wanderers winning their first double in 39 years, much to the delight of MP Robert Arrigo who has led the Blues to number of honours during his time as President of the club. Sliema clinched their hundredth honour at the expense of Marsaxlokk, the team of Victor Sciriha, who must be congratulated for the manner he created an attractive and highly competitive side in a rather limited period of time. For yours truly, Sciriha performed more than one miracle in these last few seasons.
It was a May to remember for three Noble prize winners as justice was finally done and South Africa was chosen by a 24-strong FIFA Committee to organise the 2010 World Cup edition. The decision sent most of the 44.2 million inhabitants, led by Nelson Mandela, archbishop Tutu and President De Klerk together with the Oscar winning Charlize Theron into ecstatic happiness four years after the scandal of Charles Dempsey of the Oceanic federation who it will be recalled abstained at the final vote. On that day the Germans won their bid by a single vote margin when Dempsey disobeyed specific instructions by his confederation to vote for the Africans which would have meant a casting vote from Sepp Blatter who had also expressed his opinion in the South African’s favour.
A 14-10 vote in favour of South Africa and Morocco’s dream was shattered even though it was its fourth bid. This time even Alan Rothenberg of Los Angeles’ fame failed to swing the vote in their favour.
Gil’s demise
May saw the demise of the 71 year old former playboy, chairman and crook Jesus Gil y Gil the big bellied, big-hearted and even bigger mouthed former president of Atletico Madrid.
A well-known writer, described Jesus’ passing away as an opportunity for the man to avoid a prolonged jail sentence as six days previous to his death another case was brought against him.
The man, who in seventeen years sacked 39 managers and 141 signings, and who got rid of a youth side that included Raul ‘because there was no point and no money’ and who once presented his own magnificently tacky TV show, Las Noches de Tal y tal, in a Jacuzzi, surrounded by buxom beauties, a gelatinous karaoke singer, bad-mouther, bull fighter, topless speedboater, Ludo player always unbuttoned shirt wearer, Real Madrid baiter and horse kisser, is no more.
Jesus Gil y Gil was a notorious figure that football could have done without. The man who built an apartment complex in Segovia with no plans, no architect and no surveyor, and 56 died got a pardon from a friend in high places, a friend called General Francesco Franco.
In another of the hundreds of cases brought against him, the court heard how 390m euros of council cash were not officially accounted for during his term as Mayor. Gil was also found to have ‘misappropriated’ 30m euros of municipal funds in the famous Football Shirts Case, when Marbella sponsored Atletico Madrid.
Gil y Gil made his live radio wish that the Atletico plane should “crash and kill the team” on the way back from a particular poor performance against Las Palmas.
A close friend, an intelligent sports analyst who goes by the pen-name Babs would say, “he is gone now; God bless his soul.”
Despite the eulogies and messages of respect still pouring in, Gil- a crook who consistently escaped punishment - should not suddenly be deified.
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