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Chelsea make Abramovich cry
17/05/2007 13:52 - (SA)
Beijing - Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is more devoted to the club than ever and is often moved to tears when they lose, according to chairperson Bruce Buck.
A cut in the amount of money to spend on players and reports of a rift with manager Jose Mourinho have fuelled speculation in the English media that the billionaire Russian has fallen out of love with the club he bought in 2003. Not true, says Buck.
"If anything, he has more devotion to the club," the softly spoken American lawyer, who has worked with Abramovich for about 10 years, said.
"He's very interested in the football, it's hard to describe. When we lose a difficult match, he's sulking and there are tears in his eyes.
"He's a real Chelsea fan. He's not developing this club to sell it off or anything like that."
Backed by more than 400 million pounds of Abramovich's money Chelsea won the English Premiership two years in a row under Portuguese Mourinho but this year ceded the crown to Manchester United, sparking reports of internal disputes at the club.
Buck said there was a little frustration that reports so often professed to give an insight into the thoughts of the media-shy Abramovich on matters such as his relationship with Mourinho and opinions on Germany midfielder Michael Ballack.
"Some of the stories you read, like 'today he feels this way about Jose Mourinho, tomorrow he feels this way about Jose Mourinho or Ballack'," he said. "How do people know this? In that sense it's a little unfair.
"The daily stories about what's in his mind, of course no one knows, so they're kind of silly stories."
Equally frustrating are the whirl of stories about whether Mourinho, whose contract runs until 2010, will still be at the club next season.
"It's frustrating, because there's only so many ways you can answer that question," Buck said.
"If someone asks me that question, I go back to most recent public announcement on it because if I rephrase it, then they try to read something into the rephrasing."
The Chelsea board have targeted getting the club into a profitable state by 2010 and Buck said they still wanted to increase the capacity of their stadium beyond the current 42 055.
"We'd like to expand Stamford Bridge... we'd like to get it to 50 000 plus," he said. "But the ground is hemmed in on three sides so we have to be a bit creative. But we're working on it and we haven't given up.
"If we can't do it at Stamford Bridge we'll look at other options... but we really want to stay in West London."
Chelsea play Manchester United in the FA Cup final on Saturday and defeat would make this a "disappointing" season after giving up the league title and being knocked out of the Champions League, Buck said.
The Champions League semi-final exit was particularly galling as it is a big target for the club, he added.
"Is it a target to the exclusion of other things? Absolutely not," said Buck. "This is something we get from Jose Mourinho, his approach is just to win the next match and while we're in a competition we want to win it."
- Reuters
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