july 14th
The Vieira stuff rumbles on, with The Mirror and Martin Lipton seemingly intent on doing most of Florentino Perez’s dirty work for him. They claim, without any kind of quote from either party, that during Euro 2004 Paddy asked Zinedine Zidane to help him move to Madrid.
It’s nice to know that Zidane is not only one of the best players in the world, he’s now an agent. The Mirror also says about Zidane “That probably explains why Zidane has suddenly began enthusing about Vieira to Real fans on his website, hailing the Senegal-born star as “The best midfielder I know”.
Yes, suddenly. You know, all of a sudden. Meaning ‘recently’, right? No. Those quotes from Zidane’s website are old, old news. In fact, I think they might stem from this time last year when Real were doing their best to sign Vieira then, too.
Meanwhile Perez has said “There are no players that are not for sale. The only problem is the money. He added: “This business works by winning trophies and by signing a ‘galactico’ each season. I am going to continue the policy of bringing one in every year.”
He can also continue the policy of being underhand, devious and dishonest. He is in charge of a club with a mountainous debt, that has been bailed out by the Spanish government with a dodgy land deal yet still has a deficit of more than €300m. He is now using the press here, and The Mirror in particular, as his own personal Marca, the journalistic mouthpiece of Real Madrid here in Spain. If Real want a player they use Marca to let their interest be known and to unsettle the player and his club. He obviously wants Vieira, but instead of going about it the normal way, talking to the club to try and reach some kind of agreement, he’s chosen a path which will only have one response from the club, and Arsenal Chairman Peter Hill-Wood more or less told Perez to go fuck himself yesterday.
Perez has decided the only way he can get Vieira is to unsettle the player, promise him this, that and the other, and hope that the player will then become so unhappy at Arsenal that he’ll request a transfer and the club won’t want to keep a player that doesn’t want to play for them. Vieira’s agent has been quoted in press saying all the right things about how Madrid need to go through proper channels and talk to Arsenal, but how much of that is just words? All in all it’s tremendously cunty behaviour from Madrid, but then at this stage who expects anything different from them? They’re fast becoming, if they’re not already, the club that fans from all over the world love to hate.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate for a moment though, if there was ever a ‘good’ time for Arsenal to sell Vieira, wouldn’t it be now? Not from a playing point of view obviously, but the fact that he’s at an age where he still commands a large fee, he’s got 3 years left on his contract and from his point of view he knows Madrid won’t really want him in a couple of years time. Arsenal get a big fee, he leaves knowing he didn’t do a Bosman and that he’s given the club 7 or 8 seasons of excellent service? Could be begrudge him that if he did decide he wants to leave? And could Arsenal survive without him? Of course we could.
Anyway, my personal opinion is that Madrid want the best midfielder in the world. It’s normal. Arsenal have the best midfielder in the world, he’s under contract, and Wenger, Dein, Hill-Wood et al would rather sell Vieira to Spurs for 50p than let him go to Madrid they way they’ve behaved. I suppose now it’s all down to the player himself.
If he really wants to go, then what can we do? Pocket £30m+ and buy somebody new. That’s what. I don’t think we’ll need to though.
