Jesper, Who?
Not many people today know the name of Jesper Gronkjaer. Honestly I’m not even sure if I can pronounce it. On May 11, 2003, this man scored perhaps the most consequential goal in the history of Chelsea Football Club
To give a bit of context, May 11 marked the final day of the 2002/2003 FA Premier League season. Chelsea and their opponents, Liverpool, both had accumulated 64 points for the season. Chelsea sat in 4th place in the table and Liverpool in 5th. The stakes for qualifying for the Champions League (and the riches that come with it) are high enough on their own but there was a special added pressure for Chelsea to win that day. Chelsea’s financial situation was dire and legend has it that in the locker room before the game, Chief Executive Trevor Birch confirmed that with a loss the club would be ruined. Players would be sold, staff would be laid off, and ambitions would be curtailed. 90 minutes later, however, the club had received not only Champions League qualification but also the attention of this man:
Enter Roman Abramovic
While the exact nature of Roman Abramovic’s wealth is not entirely known – he supposedly began his business career in the Soviet Union selling contraband – he arrived in London with his money seemingly burning a hole in his (presumably expensive) pocket. The new owner spent £113m spent on 10 new recruits for the upcoming 2003/2004 season. These names included Hernán Crespo to Juan Sebastián Verón, Adrian Mutu to Claude Makelele – while the squad who had finished fourth the previous year looked on precariously. Despite causing rifts in the squad, this spending paid dividends as Chelsea finished 2nd place in the league that season, marking their highest league finish in 49 years.
Chelsea would finish the 2003/04 season trophy-less and as a sign of their ambition, Abramovic fired manager Claudio Ranieri despite a second place finish and a place in the Champions League semifinals. Ranieri’s replacement is a familiar name to those who follow football: José Mourinho.
Bolstered by another summer of ludicrous spending (nearly £120m in an era when that was unheard of) on the likes of Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, and Ricardo Carvalho the team has the most successful campaign in Chelsea history. Mourinho’s men lost only 1 game all season and finished with a then-record 94 points. They conceded only 15 goals in 38 games which is still a record today. A year later Chelsea would retain their title in emphatic fashion. Mourinho would leave the club in 2007. That year, Chelsea was ranked as the best team in Europe per the UEFA Coefficent (the process for determining and ranking teams based on coefficients is incredibly complicated and jargonistic so you’ll just have to take my word that it’s impressive). From a club on the brink of financial ruin only 5 years prior, Abramovic had clearly spearheaded an impressive turnaround.
A Somewhat Happy Ending
If you are familiar with this blog so far, usually this would be the place would something would go horribly wrong and the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Some business scandal or financial catastrophe ruins Abramovic and Chelsea sink into mediocrity. Football fans may decry Chelsea’s lack of history or chastise the club for “buying success”, it is hard to argue with the results Abramovic achieved at the club. Before Abramovic bought the club for $179m in 2003, they had only won the league one time and had never won the Champions league. Now, nearly 15 years later, Chelsea have 5 league titles, 4 FA Cups, a Champions League, and 3 League Cups. They are arguably the most successful English team of the late aughts, building a stable core of players who developed into club legends. Yes it is true that the club spent with reckless abandon during the first two years of Abramovic’s ownership, the club tapered its spending in subsequent years. According to Forbes, this past year Chelsea actually turned a record profit of $86m. Now people can have their gripes about Roman Abramovic (sacking managers too frequently, having ties to Russian oligarchs, being banned from the country for not declaring the source of his income) but one cannot argue the success he has brought Chelsea. Maybe the club is doomed for a collapse once Abramovic inevitably sells the club but this is the first story on this blog that has not ended in a mushroom could and for that I thank you, Mr. Abramovic.
Football Through Finances 