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Has Abramovich sold the farm?
The Age
Saturday February 5, 2011
Chelsea's owner has gambled big on Fernando Torres. AS OWNERS go, Chelsea's Roman Abramovich is pretty inscrutable. To date, he has granted one interview to a Western media outlet, and that was seven years ago. In most of his public appearances, he just smiles.If you're lucky, you'll see him react positively or negatively to something on the pitch at a Chelsea game, in a somewhat stiff, awkward manner, like a weird uncle who doesn't really get sport but wants to join in the fun. As a result, he's a sphinx-like figure, on which you can pin almost any theory or interpretation. When the self-made billionaire he started out running contraband goods in the old Soviet Union and went on to become the fourth-richest man in the world first rolled into the Premier League, there seemed no limit to his profligacy, with Chelsea racking up record losses year on year (but winning back-to-back titles as a result). Then, some three years ago, he became all about fiscal responsibility, announcing ambitious plans to break even "in a few years".Some suggested he got bored with his plaything, shifting his attention to helping Russia's bid for the 2018 World Cup. No doubt, UEFA's Financial Fair Play Regulations played a part as well. From the 2014-15 season, clubs with cumulative losses of more than 45 million ($61.1 million) in the previous three years will be banned from playing in the Champions League. Chelsea's most recent accounts show an annual loss approaching 100 million.In the space of a few days, all that changed, as the club spent some 87 million on just two players, Liverpool striker Fernando Torres (pictured) and Benfica defender David Luiz. The Torres deal was particularly stunning: he had professed his love for Liverpool, citing everyone from The Beatles to the Liver Birds and yet, almost overnight, he changed his tune, embracing Chelsea as "one of the biggest clubs in the world". Liverpool fans, who can point to 18 league titles and five Champions Leagues (to Chelsea's three and zero) beg to differ and when the two teams clash early on Monday morning (Melbourne time), they'll be sure to let Torres know just what they think of that assessment.Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger questioned the logic of splashing so much cash when the club unlike his own was making huge annual losses. So too do a lot of Chelsea fans. A year ago Torres, who turns 27 next month, was arguably the best centre-forward in the world; today, after eight sub-par months (including the World Cup where he was crowned world champion largely as a passenger on the uber-talented Spanish team) he's more of a conundrum, with people wondering whether his loss of form is a blip or whether his peak has come and gone.We don't know whether or not Torres will provide a return on the club's investment. But we do know that he'll have to be pretty close to perfect to do so. If he sees out his 5-year contract, he will have cost the club in excess of 100 million between wages and transfer fee.He'll also be one of those assets who'll depreciate quickly and will likely have little resale value: strikers like Torres, who tend to rely on pace, usually become a lot less productive once they hit 30. Put another (very rough) way, for the Torres deal to make sense, Chelsea will need to make an additional 20 million a season. Granted, it's possible. Just not very likely.Logic would have suggested picking up somebody younger (and cheaper), like Atletico Madrid's Sergio Aguero or possibly Brazilian starlet Neymar. Which is why the English media has had a field day, questioning Abramovich's sanity and salivating at the prospect of some serious schadenfreude when it all goes horribly wrong.That may yet happen. But the knee-jerk response Abramovich is a mad, power-hungry fool with more money than sense, surrounded by a gaggle of pathetic yes-men, who is ruining the football club because he's following his own ego rather than the game's conventional wisdom may be somewhat misguided.Abramovich is 44, a bit young for premature senility. In his business career he has owned among other things doll factories, airlines and oil companies. It's unlikely that his knowledge of petroleum products, aviation or plastic Barbie knock-offs is profound, and yet he excelled in all those fields. As one of his advisers said this week: "This is a business. You don't always need to be an expert to succeed in business. You just need to understand a balance sheet and have a head for value."Chelsea fans watch in trepidation. Did their owner just irretrievably screw up their medium-term future and condemn the club to return to the level at which it spent most of its existence, yo-yoing up and down between English football's top two divisions? Or did he, like other great business minds, defy the experts as if he was football's answer to Warren Buffett?Time will tell. In the meantime, the sight of Torres lining up and possibly scoring against Liverpool and its manager, resident legend Kenny Dalglish, in the early hours of Monday morning, is enough to make mouths water. Live today, for tomorrow may never come.
© 2011 The Age