march 24th
The main story comes this morning with the news that FA have charged Ashley Cole and Chelsea for their little get together in January.
Chelsea have been charged under rule K3 meaning Arsenal didn’t give permission to Chelsea to meet Cole.
Cole has been charged under rule K5 meaning Arsenal didn’t give Cole permission to meet Chelsea.
Jose Mourinho has been charged under rule Q which deals with the conduct of Premiership managers while Peter Kenyon has been charged under rule K9 meaning he’s Roman Abramovich’s bitch. Jokes aside it means that the panel have decided that Cole was well aware of who he was going to meet and didn’t buy his ‘I was surprised when they walked in – I thought I was meeting an Italian team’ defence which always seemed a bit madey-up.
Cole’s agent, Jonathan Barnett, has not been charged with anything at all because he ‘does not fall within the jurisdiction of the FA Premier League for the purposes of this matter.’
Now, while I would not condone the behaviour of Ashley at any stage it seems entirely ridiculous that his agent, who more than anyone has shunted his client in the direction of this meeting, gets away Scot free, or so it would seem. Barnett’s only concern in respect of Ashley Cole is financial. I know, for a fact, that Ashley Cole was offered an extremely healthy contract. Forget what you read about £5,000 increases or the amount offered being £5,000 less than was offered verbally. Cole was offered a contract which would have more than doubled his current salary and he, no doubt at the behest of his agent, still turned it down. They then went to meet Chelsea, got snared rapid, and Barnett has been using the press ever since to spin stories about how Arsenal went back on their word, how it was all Chelsea’s fault this meeting took place and so on.
While I have little time for Chelsea and how they’ve behaved throughout this whole affair I have far less for greedy agents who with a few choice words and some consistent prompting can make an Arsenal player, who is also an Arsenal fan, practically destroy everything he’s worked for at the club. We all know Ashley is a fan. We’ve seen the pictures of him as a kid holding up the Championship trophy. We know he’s been at the club since he was tiny, tinier than he is now, and it was always his dream to play for the club. Would he, when it comes to making a footballing decision, ever think about leaving Arsenal to go to a London rival? I don’t think so. Could he be swayed to make a non-football decision? A financial decision? I think so. Whose head wouldn’t be turned by offers of £110,000 a week, especially when your agent is the devil on your shoulder telling you to go for it.
Now, the club know Ashley is a fan. They know the high regard he’s held in by the fans. Does it make sense, especially in a time when home grown players are so few and far between, that the board would offer a player who has so obviously improved and become one of the best in the world in his position, a miserly increase like Barnett claimed? No. It doesn’t. People are quick to accuse the board of being tight-fisted but we’ve heard nothing from them about what Ashley Cole was offered. Contracts are deemed to be private and confidential until they’re signed. What we have had is a load of spin from Barnett talking about Arsenal offering less than was verbally agreed, David Dein sending back a fax with a figure on it and the words ‘not negotiable’ scrawled across the bottom. This is the same David Dein who has negotiated with players like Vieira, Henry, Campbell, Pires, Bergkamp and other top players at Arsenal. Does it make sense that he’d do what Barnett said he did? No, it doesn’t. We’ve had silence, quite rightly, from Arsenal about Cole’s contract but nothing but spin and obfuscation from Ashley Cole’s agent. Sadly people will believe what they read and when they don’t read anything to counter it it becomes fact. The fact is Cole was offered an excellent contract. It wasn’t derisory. It wasn’t less than they expected. It just wasn’t as much as Chelsea were offering.
An agent’s job is not just to make as much money as possible for his client. It’s to ensure his client is happy in his job, his ambitions fulfilled and is sufficiently recompensed for his work. It’s not to make money for himself. The new contract Cole was offered by Arsenal certainly reflected his standing in the club and in the game today and would have put him on a par with some of the top earners at Arsenal but a greedy agent can think ‘10% of £x per week from Arsenal is not worth as much as £xxx,000 per week from Chelsea (back-dated, don’t forget) plus 10% of the £X,000,000 signing on fee’. So how do we expect agents to give their clients the best advice in terms of their career when they’re thinking of the best way to line their pockets? Anyway, the chances of Cole moving to Chelsea are now slim to none and his position at Arsenal has got to be under serious question after yesterday’s revelations.
And that’s my little anti-agent rant over with. There were more reports yesterday about José Antonio Reyes and Real Madrid with Marca suggesting Reyes’ agent had met with Florentino Perez etc etc. I read the piece in the paper and I didn’t see the quotes attributed to Reyes about ‘keeping doors open’ and so on while Reyes’ agent has dismissed the story as ‘all lies.’
UPDATE: Today’s edition of Marca carries this front page. The quotes from José translate as: “I have told Arsenal that I’m not happy and I can’t adapt” and “I hope that after these declarations Florentino with strengthen his efforts to sign me.”
I’ve just found the story on the website and they say Arsenal have decided to put Reyes up for sale. Again, Michael Owen is mentioned as part of a potential deal but I’d be very surprised to see that happen. Now, while I’ll take a lot of what the Spanish press says with a pinch of salt if they’re directly quoting Reyes and using a picture on the front page then there’s probably something to it. I spoke last week about various factors are contributing to José’s current difficulties in England and more and more it looks like a return to Spain is the best option for all concerned.
Right, random number genator did its thing and I have three winners of the Football Manager 2005 prize packs, which includes a game, a t-shirt and a mini leather football. The winners are, *drum roll*, Simon Potter (England), Omid (Sweden) and Roy Pilott (New Zealand). Well done to all of you, I’ll be in touch to get your addresses and so forth. Thank you all for your entries and to some of you for your entertaining messages therein!
