Chelsea, La Liga, Manchester City, South America

If I was Isaac Newton, which I’m not, and alive today - which I am but he’s not - and if I were trying to explain the Third Law to you in a kind of abstract and flowery way because you were only six and I was tired, I might draw your attention to the current chaos surrounding the wantaway Brazilian striker Robinho.

Yin and Yang, Karma, Third Law, or just a crude way of packaging the piece. Whatever you want to call it, there is a certain poetic justice about Real Madrid’s current plight.

Action – Real Madrid try every trick in the book to unsettle Cristiano Ronaldo throughout the summer, using partisan national media to turn the Manchester United player’s head. Although United insist from the outset that they will not sell their best player at any price, Real argue that if Ronaldo wants to leave, he should be allowed to do so. Several months, a flakey bid and a few million articles about slavery later, Ronaldo commits his immediate future to the team in red.

Equal and Opposite Reaction – Madrid playmaker Robinho asks for a transfer after speculation that he would be swapped as part of the deal for Ronaldo. After initially stating that they won’t keep any player against his will, Real later declare that they ‘profoundly regretted the behaviour of Chelsea’s directors who, despite knowing perfectly well the decision not to sell the player, have continued to make statements and gestures.’  Of course, even the meeker minded amongst us can see the hypocrisy of Real Madrid in this matter. They break all the rules and then hide behind them in a moment of weakness. Yet another illustration that football has become the most unsporting of sports.

Over a decade, it’s grown accustomed to the money of big business, but now it’s lending from their book of morals too. And much as we love to point the finger at Real, they are patently not the only offenders (if perhaps the most outrageous). The biggest clubs in the world increasingly resort to money and Machiavellian tactics in order to augment the success of their club and consequently, their brand. For Manchester United read Berbatov, for Liverpool Barry, for Chelsea, Robinho himself. Any essence of traditional respect amongst football clubs has been superceded by big business strategy, where the richest few simply move in and forcibly asset-strip their smaller rivals. ‘Keep us big, keep them small’.

Some would argue America has been doing it with actual countries for decades. But it’s not what the beautiful game should be about. Maybe Platini doesn’t actually hate the English so much after all, when he speaks of limiting debt and the numbers of expensive foreign imports into The Premiership. Maybe he’s genuinely trying to engender a less commercially driven sport in a era when McDonald’s are sponsoring the Olympics Games and global business tycoons are flooding football.

The Robinho dream
On the seemingly incidental point of Robinho the footballer, is he really worth the fuss anyway? I think not. He was never particularly good at Real. In his head he’s a great footballer but he seldom seems to put those thoughts into practice. I fear that Robinho could become the sort of one-trick pony that critics feared Cristiano Ronaldo to be when he first came to England.

And the Brazilian has done himself no favours by stating that it’s his ‘dream’ to play for Chelsea. Are you trying to take the mickey mate? For me, the most unsightly phrase of the summer has involved mercenary players talking about it being their ‘dream’ to play for a club that they probably hadn’t heard of until three years ago. I can just picture Robinho dreaming of Chelsea from his home in Brazil at the age of eight, although it is doubtful whether Manchester City ever came up in one of his dreams.

Indeed, we can only imagine the pain he must have felt on the day he signed for Real Madrid, what with the dream and all. Of course, the dream that Robinho et al are actually referring to is that of them being able to lie on a bed of their own cash with a couple of absolute stunners, while dwarves serve you Martinis, just how you like them. Which is probably what will happen if you sign the multi-million pound contract with Chelsea, or even more with Man City as Robinho appears to be receiving now. “We have sold Robinho for reasons of a human nature and for sporting reasons,” Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon told Spanish television. “The fact that he has accepted an offer from Manchester City says that he is not going for sporting reasons.”

So Robinho can enjoy the ‘dream’ but possibly without the Martinis, while the dwarves will just serve nibbles.

Tags: Chelsea, Cristiano Ronaldo, La Liga, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Robinho

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