When Roman Abramovich was ushered into a VIP box at Stamford Bridge in 2003, the meeting lasted only 15 minutes. That’s how long it took for arguably the most important deal in the history of English football to unfold.
The Russian billionaire’s desire to buy Chelsea was matched by the desire of the erstwhile Blues ownership to sell up. Nothing was stopping the deal, so there was no need for a hold-up.
Chelsea suddenly became a new entity.
A similar change transformed Manchester City from the gaffe-prone Typical City to part of the moneyed elite at the top of the Premier League. Overnight, it was like winning the lottery. Clearly there are similarities between the two. But there are also differences in how they wield their power.
When Roman Abramovich was making his money in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he knew the value of soft diplomacy, and buying a football club in England didn’t just afford him power or simply something to do with his money. It would allow him to create a structure which would see him become part of the furniture. It meant he wielded more power than he might otherwise have done, not because Chelsea was powerful, but become removing him from that position would be more difficult now that he was a household name.
Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners exert a similar kind of soft power, but in a different way. Like Qatari and other Emirati powers, the City owners are attempting to make sure the name of their country is known all over Europe, by buying into cherished institutions. Not only are PSG ultimately owned by an arm of the Qatari state, but so too are other big European landmark buildings and institutions. The idea is to become so interwoven with established culture that the country will not be forgotten about, even when oil resources run out in the future.
There are obvious similarities in how Chelsea and City have conquered the Premier League over the last few years: both are part of the nouveau riche who have challenged the established order, drawing criticism and bile from fans of some other clubs. But because of the instant nature of the accrual of wealth that both have experienced, they also both seem to understand the long-term. These are teams for whom success isn’t just present on the pitch.
Both have some of the best academies in the country, consistently producing youth teams that win competitions and blow everyone away. Both are also serial offenders when it comes to blocking those players’ path to the first team. That, in turn, lends itself to the situation that Chelsea will experience this weekend, when they face Kevin de Bruyne, one of the best players in the Premier League, who, if Chelsea had taken the chance, could be wearing a darker shade of blue.
City are potentially about to experience a similar thing. This summer, Jadon Sancho left the club and went to Borussia Dortmund for a fee that could look like pocket change if he turns out to be the player many people think he will be, City included. The club did almost everything they could to keep him, everything except guarantee him regular first team football in Pep Guardiola’s strong squad.
In the end, the young English talent joined Dortmund because City weren’t keen on selling to another club in England. That in itself tells you quite a bit about the esteem the Etihad Stadium club has for Sancho.
Chelsea know that feeling all too well. The gap between playing for the youth teams and the first team is vast, and other than loan spells – which aren’t always conducive to aiding a player’s development, despite the feeling that a loan spell is something of a rite of passage – there really is no halfway house.
It’s easier to spot a talent and hoard that skill in your youth team than it is to potentially sacrifice results in order to blood young players. It’s by no means a problem limited to Chelsea and City, and is a much wider problem across the league, but in the next few years you get the feeling that Guardiola’s side will see the kind of exciting young talent slip through their fingers much in the same way that Chelsea have done recently.
But what that means in the short term is that the experience and higher level of more established players win out, and in a way that’s good for the spectacle. We all love to see young players given their chance, and the storyline around the sport is enhanced when that happens. But it’s true that a lack of experience can lead to silly mistakes, nerves and sometimes bad football: something we’re unlikely to see too much of on Saturday evening.
Both City and Chelsea had their entire worlds turned upside down when they were bought over, and both are changing the face of English football, too.