BaZ87 said:
Then theres the age "soon-to-be 29" and 30 is 2 years difference
When "soon-to-be" means just 17 days, then I mean soon, so it's only one years difference. And if we're being nitpicky here, Ballack is 29 until September.
will Ballack still be a £100k a week player when he's 34? very unlikely, will Henry be a £100k a week player when he's 32? possibly.
Well thats' the point really isn't it. Chelsea obviously think he will be, so they're willing to pay him that much.
And finally Arsenal are only paying Henry £100k compared to 6 or 7 players at Chelsea.
But Arsenal have always been a club who have been notoriously tight with their finances. We've had a small stadium, and now have fairly lagre repayments to pay on the new one, so don't really have the spending power to pay big wages. But my point was that even we can push ourselves to pay large amounts when we think the player is worth it. Chelsea clearly think Ballack (have to say I thought you were talking about Shevchenko here) is worth it. Whether he's merely a squad player or not is nothing but empty debate until we've Chelsea have actually played a few games, because none of us are Jose Mourinho.
You don't seem to know how RA made his fortune do you?
No, I'll admit I don't, but I've known enough businessmen in my time to know that most of the succesful ones are anal to the point where
any loss is unacceptable to them.
And i also find it amazingly hard to believe that Chelsea will become a profit making organisation within 3 years. There is no way they can earn enough money to cover there wage bill etc.
I'm not neccesarily saying they will either. For all we know, a freak wind might make a tree fall on Mourinho's head tomorrow, he'll lose all ability to manage, and they'll drop out of the Premiership in a season, RA will leave, and their losses will spiral horribly. Or they might win every trophy they possibly can from now until eternity, and make more money than Bill Gates. But regardless of what
I think will happen, I do believe that the Chelsea board, or Kenyon, or someone, has a plan to try and make the club work. If not least for that mythical day when RA "gets bored and leaves". Otherwise, why would they invest in a youth system instead of simply buying in proven talent, or cut the squad down instead of simply loaning out the likes of Crespo and Duff forever, until they needed them?
The thing is, I don't think Chelsea are simply aiming to be as big a club as say, Arsenal, or Spurs, in terms of worldwide support, because yeah, they're hardly that far off anyway. It's much more ManU at their peak level here, or Real Madrid and Barca, or AC Milan. The biggest of the big clubs, who are known the world over, even to non-footballing fans. That's the point when you can start making a shed-load of money from people the world over imo.
