Kiss off: John Terry's show of supposed loyalty is
misplaced
The phrase ‘loyalty payment’ has always struck me as
something of a contradiction. Loyalty has to be earned. It is not
bought. But let’s just accept that this rule does not apply in
modern football. Here loyalty is bought and sold like fruit — by
the pound. And if any player possesses a club loyalty card he will
keep it where it belongs, in his wallet next to the
cash.
That isn’t a problem as long as everybody is honest. It just
grates when players prattle on about their allegiance and devotion
when their true commitment is usually to Coutts and Co.
Apparently, John Terry’s ties to Chelsea have
been severely tested over the past couple of weeks by a wage offer
of £1million a month from Manchester
City.
This temptingly wild salary has been playing on his conscience
to such an extent he has been waiting to find out whether or not
Chelsea will give him a handsome pay rise to turn it down. This
counter-offer was being described as a ‘loyalty payment’, when a
more fitting term would surely be ‘disloyalty payment’.
Terry is perfectly entitled to earn whatever he can from the
game, but he would go up in my estimation if he spared us the
inevitable twaddle about loyalty, given that he had three years
remaining on an already enormous Chelsea contract. This is not an
instance where the cliche that he is merely getting ‘what he is
worth’ according to ‘market forces’ can be trotted out.
You don’t need a meerkat to know that when City offered Terry
£250,000 a week to kick a ball about, with a further £50m in
transfer fees to Chelsea, it was an offer designed to obliterate
the constraints of the market.
The Arab sheiks now running City can operate way beyond the
parameters of any idea of ‘worth’, because the word has no meaning
to them. They dangle extravagant sums of money in front of players
because they realise that the chance to play for City isn’t enough
of a lure in itself as yet, and they must pay hugely over the odds
to tempt them in.
For now it’s about greed, not glory, although that, too, may be
bought in time. It’s all very reminiscent of Chelsea in the days
before Roman Abramovich discovered how to translate the Russian for
‘budget’ into English. Now the hunter has become the hunted.
Other clubs simply refuse to play the high-stakes game, or
surrender at the first opportunity.
Arsenal sold
Emmanuel Adebayor to City because they could not refuse the cash
and did not consider him to be worth £150,000 a week. After seeing
some of the lackadaisical performances he put in for the club last
season, they’re right.
Laughably, Adebayor then tried to play his own loyalty card by
claiming he had really wanted to stay at the Emirates, but the
jeers of the fans had driven him into the arms of a contract worth
almost £8million a year in Manchester. What a wrench that must have
been.
The oddest thing about all of this bartering is that it is so
uninspiring. The season is fast approaching, but for the first time
in years it feels as if there is a better party happening
elsewhere, only we’re not invited.
I’ve just returned from Spain and the place is in a frenzy of
excitement. As Stewart Downing and Peter Crouch swap shirts here to
sighs of apathy and we struggle to summon up a flicker of interest
in the employment prospects of David Bentley, a glittering
La Liga prepares to
welcome Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema to Real
Madrid.
Des Kelly
