Off The Record: Chelsea + Gallas = Arrogant, Immature and Ridiculous.

The biggest story involving Chelsea so far this month has been the Chelsea v Gallas battle (or rather, round 2 of the saga).

It is a combination of idiotic and childish behavior from William Gallas combined with stupid, arrogant and heavy-handed statements from Chelsea. A shameful matter altogether, one that displays the lack of class on both sides.

Why Chelsea persist in picking a bone with Gallas and on a more general level, taking the bait everytime someone talks dirty to them is a question that should be posed directly at Abramovich and Kenyon.

Are you two this stupid as to persist in actions that worsen the position of your club? The Ken Bates situation could have been handled much better but no, Chelsea decided to go ahead and preach moral authority and arrogant heavy-handedness.

Same thing has happened with Gallas – both sides are in the wrong, and both sides could have tried to improve matters at several occasions but pride and … well, there’s no other way to put it, sheer stupidity won out at the end.

News coverage:

• Gallas starts it off with a swipe at Mourinho and Chelsea
• The actual Chelsea FC statement – all this talk about disrespect (and how they helped him win two titles when his only other title has been in the French Second Division) is really falling on deaf ears, so why are Chelsea consistently trying to play a card that makes them look stupid?
• Gallas accuses Chelsea of lacking class – irony personified
• The Sun takes Chelsea’s side here.
• Fans take it out on Gallas – biased, but somewhat true.

This one deserves special mention – Arseblog must have pissed in his pants with joy when Chelsea released their statement, and he does his level best to contain his happiness in his latest post.

However, despite his bias against Chelsea the man must be commended for pointing us to this source – an article by Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan in the Observer in which he mentions Chelsea’s “top PR man”, Simon Greenberg, in this story:

In the face of this stuff, the desperation and arrogance of the editors, you have to keep your cool. The closest I’ve come to losing it with a journalist was in 2002, after London’s Evening Standard, who’d always had great access and cooperation from us, started producing a string of barbed, personal piss takes.

I decided that if they wanted to write this stuff, fine, but they weren’t going to do it on our premises, so I withdrew their accreditation. The sports editor’s reaction was this: instead of calling me, he phoned our shirt sponsor to suggest they reduced payments to us because they’d be getting less exposure in the Standard. Then he warned me that banning Standard journalists would have a negative effect on Palace’s results. I asked him what the hell he was talking about, and he implied that if I obstructed his journalists and restricted his press access, the type of coverage they’d be giving us would have a negative effect on morale.

So where is this guy now? Four years on, he’s the top PR man at Chelsea, a club with a reputation for obstructing journalists and restricting press access. PR Week says ‘Simon Greenberg is about to embark on a major charm offensive’ in football, to boost Chelsea’s image. Stand back, and watch him go.

Root of all problems? Who takes responsibility for cockups like these?

And if you thought the Ashley Cole saga was over, prepare yourself for round 2. Chelsea will have to ‘approve’ the book so that any ‘negative mentions of the club are removed, but with Arsenal fair game in this crap shoot the only result you can expect is a very messy one.