» » Planet Football, where greed is good and debt irrelevant
Edit

Planet Football, where greed is good and debt irrelevant

| New Straits Times, Feb 21, 2009 | by Patrick Collins

THREE million, seven hundred and forty-seven. Three million, seven hundred and forty-eight. Three million ..." Luiz Felipe Scolari is counting his compensation for spending seven months as manager of Chelsea.
The work is slow and arduous but he is almost halfway to his target.
Meanwhile, across town, Chelsea's chief executive, Peter Kenyon, is diligently spinning the latest set of company accounts.
Turnover up ... huge progress ... hoping to break even by June 2010.
Oh, by the way, Chelsea lost STG65.7m (RM328m) in the year ending June 2008.
This is represented as a major triumph, since they lost STG74m (RM370m) in the previous year, which was a big improvement on the STG80.2m (RM400m) lost the year before, and heaps better than the STG140m (RM700m) lost in 2004-05.
And another thing, they would have done even better last year if they hadn't been hit by "exceptional items".
Kenyon is referring to the STG23.1m (RM116m) paid out in compensation to two previous managers, Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant, and five coaches.
Since Chelsea have had four managers in 17 months, "exceptional" is an interesting choice of adjective.
Now, I admit that high finance is not this column's strongest suit. The jargon always seems deliberately obfuscatory, while one nought tends to look very much like another. And yet my instincts tell me that all is not as well as they say.

0 Response to "Planet Football, where greed is good and debt irrelevant"

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)