In football, there are some clubs you admire, some clubs you are pretty indifferent to and then there’s the odd club you absolutely loathe, writes Cian Carroll.
It’s not hatred as such – more a distinct disliking for everything they stand for. Chelsea Football Club, more so in their modern guise, are pretty abhorrent. Few ever like to broach the subject for fear of reprisals or naïve claims of jealousy.
Racism
The distaste for the club is always there, though, generally bubbling beneath the surface until an incident such as the one in Paris on Tuesday evening rears its head and that repulsion volcanically explodes.
It’s irrational and silly to claim that Chelsea’s fans in their entirety are racist; of course they’re not. The majority are decent, family-orientated people who merely go to games to support their side. There is a dangerous minority, though, past and present, which have been submerged in some form of racist activity at games for a long time now and it is not going away.
How could the club possibly hope to eradicate such behaviour when it embraces and protect its own cherished club captain for the same behaviour? “F*ck off, you black c*nt” was the alleged remark John Terry was reported to have shouted at Anton Ferdinand. “Antone Ferdinand, you know what you are”, was the Chelsea fans’ responsive chant in the aftermath of the incident. Charming stuff, you’ll agree.
Then, only weeks later, there was the image of Gavin Kirkham at Stamford Bridge, posed in a regrettable stance, monkey-chanting at Danny Welbeck; not to mention the astonishing hypocrisy of alleging that referee, Mark Clattenburg, had himself called John Obi Mikel a ‘monkey’, only to be proved quite horribly wrong.
Roman's Millions
These kinds of issues are a dime a dozen over the years and while it’s bad enough on its own, it’s not just the issue of racism. You can deplore Chelsea for a number less acute reasons: most pertinently the fact that before Roman Abramovich sauntered over with his billions, they were just your average, run-of-the-mill English football club and not the modern European juggernaut it’s become over the last decade.
In fact the Blues had won just nine major trophies in their entire history before the Russian playboy made his move. Since 2003, he has invested well over £2 billion on transfer fees and salaries and, during that tenure, has never once overseen a young English talent come through the youth ranks to prosper at Stamford Bridge: the ideal of most football clubs across the world.
In the modern football landscape of petroleum giants and oligarchs – where money is king and the fans are nothing but fodder – the reborn Chelsea were the first of its kind and because of that, they hold a special, reserved place in the cold, dead hearts of football fans trampled in a stampede of greed.
History Earned Not Bought
Chelsea Football Club is the one thing that Liverpool and Manchester United fans – the bitterest of rivals - can agree on. Usual polar opposites on the majority of issues, their mutual disdain of the London club is borne, not of jealous, but from contempt of how they have attained their success – financial doping through artificial means. Much like Manchester City, they are the epitome of what we refer to as a ‘plastic club’ – success and history bought, not earned.
Whilst one hopes the Chelsea board deal with these racist buffoons swiftly and efficiently, stamping down on what is becoming an increasing problem at their club, it will take another decade or two of correcting their illegitimacy before the Blues could ever be welcomed into the pantheon of great football clubs.
It’s not hatred as such – more a distinct disliking for everything they stand for. Chelsea Football Club, more so in their modern guise, are pretty abhorrent. Few ever like to broach the subject for fear of reprisals or naïve claims of jealousy.
Racism
The distaste for the club is always there, though, generally bubbling beneath the surface until an incident such as the one in Paris on Tuesday evening rears its head and that repulsion volcanically explodes.
It’s irrational and silly to claim that Chelsea’s fans in their entirety are racist; of course they’re not. The majority are decent, family-orientated people who merely go to games to support their side. There is a dangerous minority, though, past and present, which have been submerged in some form of racist activity at games for a long time now and it is not going away.
How could the club possibly hope to eradicate such behaviour when it embraces and protect its own cherished club captain for the same behaviour? “F*ck off, you black c*nt” was the alleged remark John Terry was reported to have shouted at Anton Ferdinand. “Antone Ferdinand, you know what you are”, was the Chelsea fans’ responsive chant in the aftermath of the incident. Charming stuff, you’ll agree.
Then, only weeks later, there was the image of Gavin Kirkham at Stamford Bridge, posed in a regrettable stance, monkey-chanting at Danny Welbeck; not to mention the astonishing hypocrisy of alleging that referee, Mark Clattenburg, had himself called John Obi Mikel a ‘monkey’, only to be proved quite horribly wrong.
Roman's Millions
These kinds of issues are a dime a dozen over the years and while it’s bad enough on its own, it’s not just the issue of racism. You can deplore Chelsea for a number less acute reasons: most pertinently the fact that before Roman Abramovich sauntered over with his billions, they were just your average, run-of-the-mill English football club and not the modern European juggernaut it’s become over the last decade.
In fact the Blues had won just nine major trophies in their entire history before the Russian playboy made his move. Since 2003, he has invested well over £2 billion on transfer fees and salaries and, during that tenure, has never once overseen a young English talent come through the youth ranks to prosper at Stamford Bridge: the ideal of most football clubs across the world.
In the modern football landscape of petroleum giants and oligarchs – where money is king and the fans are nothing but fodder – the reborn Chelsea were the first of its kind and because of that, they hold a special, reserved place in the cold, dead hearts of football fans trampled in a stampede of greed.
History Earned Not Bought
Chelsea Football Club is the one thing that Liverpool and Manchester United fans – the bitterest of rivals - can agree on. Usual polar opposites on the majority of issues, their mutual disdain of the London club is borne, not of jealous, but from contempt of how they have attained their success – financial doping through artificial means. Much like Manchester City, they are the epitome of what we refer to as a ‘plastic club’ – success and history bought, not earned.
Whilst one hopes the Chelsea board deal with these racist buffoons swiftly and efficiently, stamping down on what is becoming an increasing problem at their club, it will take another decade or two of correcting their illegitimacy before the Blues could ever be welcomed into the pantheon of great football clubs.