Kiss Of Death

‘PATRICK Vieira has been a good player for Arsenal. He’s been given the captain’s armband of late and has relished the experience.

Vieira winces at the propect of leaving his beloved Arsenal

And now he says that unless his employers pay him what he and his agent think he’s worth, he’ll see out his contract and walk away on a Bosman free at the end of next season.

All Arsenal fans should be saying to this is: ‘Bye-bye, Pat. Best of luck. Hand your shirt in on the way out.’

The arrogance of saying that you are effectively bigger than the club who helped make you leaves a sour taste.

The vote of confidence that used to come from the chairman’s office immediately before his manager was sacked has been replaced by the player kissing the club’s badge.

They have all done it. It’s a nice gesture, showing that you are honoured to wear the club’s crest. It is also, save for a few individuals, a complete con.

Vieira would love to stay at Arsenal, he says. He would like to finish his career there.

And if the board could just break their pay structure and tell him how marvellous he is, then he might just stay.

Cheers. Thank you. Perhaps, rather than cheering the next time the players come out, we should tug our forelocks and thank the kind sirs for turning up.

Rio loves West Ham. Teddy loves Spurs. Day-vid loves Manchester. Rio loves Leeds. And they all love money.

And if you’ve got the money, they will love you.

The truth is that no single player is bigger than any club.

The most telling comment of last year came from Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood.

When Vieira moaned that the team were not performing in Europe, Hill-Wood offered the advice that, since the Frenchman was on the pitch, he was pretty well placed to do something about it.

Football fans who go to matches know what’s what. What you see is what you get.

It’s just that the marketing drones who seek to run today’s game only want us to see the veneer, the shiny film that disguises the whole picture.

Sky TV invented it, and it’s being exported to all corners of the ground…

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Posted: 16th, July 2003 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink