Re: LMAO @ CHELSEA FOOTBALL CLUB FANS
Marc
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155477214....@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Could only sell 13,000 tickets out of a 25,500 allocation for the 2006
> FA Community Shield against Liverpool.
>
Read your own words again. FA Community Shield. We have pay enough to go to
our home games, let alone a pre season friendly in Cardiff! Fair play to
Liverpool today though. They played better as a team than we did. Can't wait
for the prem to start now.
/\/\arc
Ian Harvey
"Marc" <ma...@isnotforemailing.com> wrote in message
news:44df5...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
To be fair, any suggestion that Chelsea will be self sufficient in 3 years
is a joke.
Don Lancaster
To be fair, they are only a 2nd division team propped up by blood money.
Lots of teams only have small gates in the Premiership and
championship divisions, that's why they don't have long term success.
The Doctor
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Could only sell 13,000 tickets out of a 25,500 allocation for the 2006
>FA Community Shield against Liverpool.
>
Did the Loserfools show up in droves?
--
Member - Liberal International
This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God Queen and country! Beware Anti-Christ rising!
Beware Linux the MS Windows of Unix! Demand UseNet an integral part of Internet!
Marc
"Ian Harvey" <ianeh...@whateveridontreadit.com> wrote in message
news:C8mdnTxx18ssyELZ...@pipex.net...
For once I agree with you. Maybe there's some huge master plan in the works
involving changing the way money works!
/\/\arc
JAB
> both clubs and a lot less money is earned up north than down south!
> Full credit to the Liverpool fans.
>
It's the Charity Shield you idiot ... up there with the Super Cup.
Betty Swollox
news:J6ODg.5076$yG1....@newsfe1-win.ntli.net...> benrobe...@hotmail.com
And all for charity, show's how charitable you cockerknee kunts are, not at
all, selfish bastards the lot of you, up there with your owner is where you
whores belong, bend over while you get rammed, and rimmed, by your russian
master:
The Times July 28, 2006
A game of two opposites
By Matthew Syed
AS ROMAN ABRAMOVICH continues to lavish his preposterous wealth upon Europe's
playboy footballers, spare a thought for those labouring for £1.90 per hour
on the Sibneft oilrigs of western Siberia.
Spare a thought for the generations of workers who spent their lives
striving to build the commanding heights of the Soviet economy, only to see
them sold off at a fraction of the market price to the so-called oligarchs.
Spare a thought for the millions of contemporary Russians whose faces still
betray a sense of collective bewilderment that the country's richest 100
businessmen are now worth more than a quarter of their GDP.
Abramovich made his fortune when he was involved in the £117 million
purchase of a majority stake in Sibneft, an oil company, in one of the
shadiest privatisations of the Yeltsin era. He went on to boost his
shareholding by allegedly manipulating wage payments in order to take over
worker-controlled stock and conducting a scandalous closed share issue in
one of Sibneft's most profitable subsidiaries. Last year an Abramovich-owned
investment vehicle sold 73 per cent of Sibneft for £7.4 billion.
This is the dubious cash that is currently distorting the European football
market and further inflating salaries. This summer alone Chelsea has bought
Andriy Shevchenko (for £31 million), Michael Ballack (on astronomical wages
of £130,000 per week) and is considering the purchase of Ashley Cole for
more than £20 million. Hernán Crespo has been offered houses, boats and a
private jet to remain in West London.
Meanwhile, GDP per capita in Russia lags below that of Botswana and
Equatorial Guinea. The average wage is about £2,000 per annum.
Millions (about 18 per cent of the population) live below the poverty line.
These are the victims of the botched and often corrupt privatisations that
left Abramovich with three super-yachts, a private Boeing, a fleet of
helicopters and a team of champagne-swilling footballers.
Chelsea's monotonous dominance of English football has been achieved by an
obscene redistribution of wealth from some of Europe's poorest to some of
football's flashiest via one of Russia's shadiest. It is a scandal that
should appal every one of us - including the shameless supporters at
Stamford Bridge who seem to regard it as a cause for celebration.
'He won, Russia lost'
Roman Abramovich, Britain's richest man, has lavished millions and millions
upon Chelsea Football Club. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark track down the
workers in the oilfields of Siberia who make it possible
Saturday May 8, 2004
The Guardian
Cutting through the ice-crystal air, a warning bell tolls and the
drillmaster hollers, his body swaddled in wool, fleece and fur to protect
him from temperatures that have slumped to minus 40C. "Re-engage," he shouts
into the dead calm of the frozen Siberian tundra as five members of the oil
rig crew, wrestling with grappling hooks, attempt to steady a 50m-long pipe
that thrashes above our heads.
"Keep that steady," the drillmaster bellows, as his men are dragged across
the platform by the writhing pipe, their heavy felt boots losing grip on the
frozen steel of the burovaya, or screw-drill oil rig. There are 180 hours of
labour ahead before these workers return home to Belarus, a three-day
journey south-west. "Concentrate." One momentary lapse and we could all be
crushed by the hundreds of tons of steel suspended above us. Even if we
could ring for help, how long would it take to reach us on the edge of
nowhere, 600 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in what Maxim Gorky called
"the land of chains and ice"?
Article continues
Finally, the bucking pipe is gripped by the mechanical jaws of a massive
clamp. Steel teeth engage, screeching and sparking, screwing the pipe into
another that connects, segment by segment, two miles into the earth, down to
the hardened bite of a screw drill that is grinding and sucking away at vast
subterranean reserves of crude, black Siberian oil. Three thousand miles and
five time zones away, in the directors' box at Stamford Bridge, south-west
London, a photographer snaps a group of young businessmen in a moment of
jubilation as Chelsea score.
On the right of the frame is Eugene Shvidler, the president of Sibneft, the
Russian oil company that owns the burovaya in western Siberia and 9,999 more
oil rigs like it. Shvidler, his arms thrown up in joy, is now a board member
of Chelsea Village, thanks to an old friend standing to the left, punching a
fist in the air. Britain's richest man, Roman Abramovich, aged 37, last year
famously bought and restocked Chelsea for £250m; coins in his pockets
compared with the dividends paid him by Sibneft, Russia's fastest growing
energy company, of which he and Shvidler are core shareholders. Cheering
beside them are other senior Sibneft executives, Chelsea Village board
members and representatives of Millhouse Capital, a publicity-shy company
registered in Weybridge, Surrey, that marshals Abramovich and his partners'
interests in some of Russia's most valuable former state enterprises.
On the formation of Millhouse Capital in 2001, Abramovich's lucrative
Sibneft assets sat beside his stakes in Russia's national airline Aeroflot
(26%), the world's number two aluminium producer RusAl (50%), Russia's
second largest automaker GAZ, the Orsk-Khalilovsky Metal Combine, Avtobank,
insurance giant Ingosstrakh, a hydroelectric plant in Kraznoyarsk and the
Ust Ilinsky pulp and paper plant. It is these investments, among others,
that have made Abramovich the 22nd richest man in the world, worth an
estimated £7.5bn, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. (As an aid to
visualising the scale of this fortune, it is worth noting that in March
banking giant HSBC reported its annual pre-tax profit to be £7.8bn, thereby
smashing all previous British records.)
No wonder the men photographed at the Chelsea match are cheering: Russian
lads, from humdrum Soviet backgrounds, millionaires many times over by their
mid-30s, now standing in the directors' box, in a stadium they own, watching
their team charging up the English Premier League - and all because of the
breakneck race in the 1990s to create a western-style democracy and free
market for Russia.
From the moment in July 2003 when news broke that a man almost unknown in
Britain had snapped up debt-laden Chelsea, the British public were intrigued
by Roman Abramovich. It was quickly established that he was a member of the
Mayfair club Annabel's, bringing him into contact with the Rothschilds,
Prince Michael of Kent and other influential aristocrats. Abramovich had
spent a reported £12m on a 450-acre estate at Fyning Hill, West Sussex, for
Irina, his wife, and their five children. He was rumoured to have put Arkady
and Ilya, his two sons, down for Eton.
His unofficial publicity machine provided a few Dostoevskian scenes: his
mother died when he was 18 months old; his father was killed in a
construction accident; the orphan Roman was raised by an uncle in Komi, a
Siberian province that was formerly a hub for the Stalinist gulags. However,
by 1996, at the age of 30, Abramovich had become so rich and politically
well-connected that he had become close to President Boris Yeltsin, and had
moved into an apartment in the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin
family. In 1999, and now a tycoon, Abramovich was elected governor of
Russia's remote, far eastern province of Chukotka, and has since lavished
£112m on charity to rebuild the impoverished region. The identikit image
being pieced together for us was of a self-made man who was not only
powerful and wealthy, but acutely aware of those who had done less well in
the tumultuous 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell.
In fact, little of substance is known about Abramovich's wealth other than
that he is one of 23 Russian entrepreneurs who took advantage of the
privatisation of Russia's state assets in the mid-1990s. This exclusive
group now controls 60% of the Russian economy, and their combined wealth
amounts to £44.6bn. Abramovich is the protege of Boris Berezovsky, a maths
professor turned car dealership tycoon, who helped him secure a hold over
Sibneft in 1995 - until Berezovsky fled to Britain in 2000. Russia's richest
oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a majority shareholder in Yukos oil, struck
a merger deal with Abramovich last year - although it is now in the hands of
lawyers after Khodorkovsky was jailed pending trial on fraud and tax evasion
charges.
Sharing the same social circle is Ralif Safin, who controls a £300m stake in
Russian energy giant Lukoil and who last summer was linked to a bid to buy
Manchester United. Oleg Deripaska, Abramovich's shareholding partner in
RusAl, is said to be worth £820m, while Mikhail Fridman, another of
Abramovich's competitors, has recently made himself even richer by selling
50% of Tyumen Oil to BP for £3.72bn. But how did Abramovich make so much
money in such a short amount of time? How did one man come to control a
reported £5.3bn stake in Sibneft, a state energy provider that only 10 years
ago was bequeathed to Russia's citizens, predominantly the tens of thousands
of Soviet oil workers and managers who built the industry?
Abramovich is notoriously coy, and has talked only in the vaguest terms
about the source of his wealth. That is why we have come here, to the crow's
nest of an ice-encrusted burovaya out on the western Siberian tundra, the
start of Abramovich's cash pipeline, to ask his workers how they lost their
share in Russia's oil billions.
And now that the team from Belarus has reconnected the pipe above our heads,
we can feel a pulsing as the rig comes back to life. The arrows on the LED
flow-meter begin to flutter. Oil gushes freely once again: six barrels
filled every minute, 375 an hour, 9,000 a day from this rig alone, grossing
£150,000 every 24 hours for Abramovich's Sibneft, which in the first half of
2003 posted a net profit of £770m, an increase of 190% on the previous year.
To reach the Sibneft wells, you have to travel a circuitous route. It is not
just a question of geography and meteorology - time zones, thousands of
miles and a subarctic crust of ice. Nor that it is an autonomous region,
physically and politically distant from Moscow. The oilfields of western
Siberia generate one quarter of Russia's wealth, nine million barrels a
day - equivalent to £166m - making this a hugely sensitive region.
Foreigners can visit only at the invitation of Sibneft or one of its
competitors.
In a windowless conference room in Moscow, within a shout of the Kremlin, we
meet Abramovich's sharp-suited spokesman. John A Mann II is no ordinary
public relations executive, but a veteran spin doctor from the cauldron of
Washington DC, and former vice-president of US PR giant Burson-Marsteller,
the company that represents Ford and Coca-Cola, and has in the past acted
for Union Carbide following the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India and the Exxon
oil company after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Mann bowls first: "All that
stuff about Roman [pronounced Ro-man] buying up half of London, even Bernie
Ecclestone's place, is complete rubbish." He rocks back in his chair.
"People talk of Roman like he is some kind of mafioso, but he is only
displaying the kind of nous that businessmen champion in the City of
London."
Mann leans over. "Roman doesn't even let me tell half the good stuff. This
weekend, he's spiriting a bunch of poor Russian kids to London to catch a
performance of Mamma Mia. What a PR opportunity, and I have to sit on it.
Roman's changed the lives of 70,000 people in his province, Chukotka. They
used to be starving and now they all have Dolby Surround Sound. Do you think
they're complaining? But for Roman it's not an ego thing."
How did Abramovich come to control Sibneft, we ask. "We don't write anything
about the old days. That's prehistory. If you read our website, you'll see
it was just a question of timely investment and share consolidation." Why do
fewer than 4% of Sibneft employees own shares in the company? Mann is
dismissive: "Roman is just one of our shareholders. We have thousands of
them, including many employees, and we pay all of them dividends every year.
I don't think we have ever said how much Roman personally holds. There's no
requirement in Russia to reveal to you our share register."
Can we talk to Abramovich directly (something we have been requesting now
for four weeks)? Mann chuckles: "I think you just missed him. He flew to
London this morning with some more poor kids from Chukotka. Anyhow, it's a
quiet time right now. No interviews. No headlines." Abramovich is lying low.
Can we go to the western Siberian oil wells and meet Sibneft's workers? Mann
nods. "If you can get yourself to Noyabrsk, our town, we will arrange a
permit. We're really open, not like other companies." Within days, we are
flying east over the Ural mountains and north-west across the great Ob river
towards the Barents Sea.
For three hours, the landscape below barely changes: a frozen cat's cradle
of tracks leading to isolated communities we cannot see. From the air, the
dormitory town of Noyabrsk is a tiny, ice-white blip that is permanently
covered in hoarfrost. We step off the plane and are hit by the juggernaut of
an arctic wind. A shiny new Sibneft people carrier is waiting for us,
purring in the airport car park. Beside it are two Sibneft employees in
black fur shapkas holding a sign: "The Guardian." The gloves come off. We
shake hands. "Welcome to our town," the Sibneft men chorus as ice crystals
clog our nostrils.
Outside the airport stands a Soviet-style concrete obelisk on which an oil
worker wields a raised spanner. But Noyabrsk's old Soviet aura vanishes as
soon as you breach the city limits. Posters wrap up the entire town in
Sibneft's corporate messages, directed at visiting investors and the
company's employees, who make up one third of the 107,000-strong population.
Giant photographs of Arcadian scenes are draped across concrete apartment
blocks. Bees feed from purple thistles. A robin perches on a violet
hollyhock. A butterfly sips nectar among chrysanthemums. But the splashes of
colour sit oddly alongside the monochrome, igloo gloom of Noyabrsk, where
the cold muffles every sound apart from the creaking ice. What is it like
working for Abramovich, we ask our minders? "Well, he's never been here,"
one of them says dismissively. "I thought you wanted to meet the workers,"
the other snaps. "Let's go then."
Two hours later, we skid up to a state-of-the-art complex 70 miles north of
Noyabrsk. Shimmering aluminium pipes lead to a golden flare. With the
assistance of international oil contractors, including Halliburton, Sibneft
has begun to modernise a belching Soviet industry. We leave the people
carrier, and by the time we reach rig five we can no longer feel our hands
and feet. A maintenance brigade dressed in voluminous salopettes, Arctic
mittens and balaclavas is repairing the rig, a geyser of steam and water
shooting up into the air as they pull sections of pipe out of the ground.
"Can we come up?" we shout to the rigmaster.
"Where have you people come from?" he calls back. "London! There's never
been a British person here before. Climb on up." Our minders are not invited
and plod back to the people carrier looking worried. Vladimir Ramazanov, 43,
from the Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk, is the head of the maintenance
brigade and works out here at -35C for 12 hours a day, 15 days on and 15
days off. He says, "It's a nine-hour bus ride home, but I keep coming back.
I have been drilling for oil for 18 years and can't do anything else.
Anyhow, why are we freezing our balls off out here? I'm going to make some
tea."
Ramazanov slides off the platform and leads us to a fatigued and rusty block
of heated wagons, whose lacy curtains add an incongruous hint of
domesticity. He pulls off his felt snow boots and settles on to a stool,
grinning at us in disbelief with rows of golden teeth. Do Ramazanov and any
of his 18-man crew own any shares in the oil industry, we ask. He explodes
in a fit of choked laughter and lights a cigarette. "We earn now less than
we did in Soviet times. We do earn more than many Russians, the fifth
highest wage earners, but I doubt that any of us still hold shares." This is
not the way it was supposed to be.
On Christmas Day 1991, President Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation
and the end of the USSR. A group of economic reformers protected by Yeltsin,
who had been elected president the previous June, began a course of shock
therapy, dismantling the centralised economy. On January 2 1992, prices of
all goods and services were freed, and six months later laws were passed
heralding the immediate privatisation of 80% of state enterprises, from
pencil factories to oil refineries.
On August 20 1992, as the privatisations unfurled, Yeltsin announced that
Russia was about to become a stakeholding society. Every citizen was to be
issued with a voucher worth 10,000 roubles (then worth about £30, the
equivalent of an average monthly wage) that they could exchange for shares
in the companies that employed them or in any other former state enterprise.
The vouchers could also be invested in savings schemes. To ensure a fair
distribution of wealth, shares in each newly privatised company would be
divided into three tranches, one set aside for the 57 million workers and
managers, another solely for outside investors, and the remaining
controlling interest retained by the state. There would be "millions of
owners rather than a handful of millionaires", Yeltsin pledged. "Everyone
will have equal opportunities in this new undertaking and the rest will
depend on ourselves... The privatisation voucher is a ticket for each of us
to a free economy."
Rigmaster Ramazanov slurps his tea. "We didn't understand the concept of
owning shares, and there wasn't even a Russian word for 'privatisation'.
More educated people took the opportunity." While most Russians grappled
with what to do with their vouchers, Roman Abramovich relished the challenge
set down by Moscow. By 1992, the 25-year-old was already familiar with the
notion of a free market, having taken advantage of the legalisation of
private businesses introduced by Gorbachev in 1987 to set up an oil trading
company. For five years, he had bought cheap Russian oil for a few roubles a
barrel and sold it abroad for a considerable profit. Now Abramovich
allegedly bought up blocks of vouchers from oil workers, converting them
into shares in western Siberian energy companies - there was nothing to stop
him, it was perfectly legal.
The impoverishment of Russia helped Abramovich consolidate his holding.
"After the prices were freed up in 1992," says Ramazanov, "everything went
to hell." The rouble fell on the foreign exchange market from 230 per dollar
in January 1992 to more than 3,500 by December 1994, wiping out most
people's savings. The impact on the population was dramatic. Life expectancy
for men fell from 65 in 1987 to 59 in 1993. The number of suicides rose by
53%, as more than one third of the population slipped below the poverty
line.
In early 1994, stalls appeared in western Siberian towns such as Omsk and
Noyabrsk offering cash in exchange for vouchers that were said by the agents
to be worth no more than a handful of kopeks. Ramazanov says, "Of course
people sold up." Many accused Boris Berezovsky and Abramovich of creating
front companies to run these market stalls, an opportunistic rather than an
illegal operation. Both men decline to comment on the allegation. Ramazanov
continues: "If we had held on to our vouchers and exchanged them for shares,
we would have made a lot of money. We hated President Yeltsin for allowing
us to be ripped off by these New Russians."
Economists who devised the voucher scheme now concede that the trade in them
could have been inhibited if one simple measure had been introduced. Sergei
Vasiliev, a member of Yeltsin's economic reform team and today chairman of
the Committee on Financial Markets in the Federal Assembly, the Russian
parliament's upper house, told Weekend, "If we had issued savings books in
each citizen's name that were non-transferable, speculators would not have
been able to obtain large blocks of shares. But we couldn't afford to print
150 million savings books. One piece of paper, a voucher, was much cheaper."
In July 1994, a Mnenie poll for the Izvestiya newspaper revealed that only
8% of Russians had exchanged their vouchers for shares in the enterprises in
which they worked. At that time, of the 18 men on rig five, seven invested
their vouchers in fraudulent savings schemes, five sold them for cash and
two had not even bothered to pick them up. Only four had bought and held on
to shares. Ramazanov drains his cup. "Below our feet is more oil than we
could ever extract, and massive profits are to be had for decades to come.
Me and my crew will have little to show for it. Don't take my word for it.
Go and see how the guys did down the road."
We skittle along the frozen highway to the neighbouring rig where the
Sibneft team from Belarus are mending a screw-drill rig. One hundred metres
above the drifts, with the broken connection thrashing over our heads, we
ask the drillmaster Valery Novik how he and his team had fared during the
reforms. "The same as most," he says. "We didn't do well. We're not trained
to understand shares and economics. The people who got an education
invariably pulled one over on us. Anyhow, the New Russians were soon given a
nice present by Yeltsin."
By 1995, the majority of Russians were worse off under capitalism then they
had been during communism, and the party began to bounce back. Yeltsin would
have to fight a persuasive and high-profile pro-democracy campaign if he was
to win the presidential election of 1996. He was desperately in need of
funds, and turned to men such as Abramovich and Berezovsky, whom he invited
to participate in the so-called "loans for shares" scheme in return for
financial backing. Yeltsin decreed that the government would auction its
tranche of shares in state enterprises in return for loans to shore up the
fragile economy. Once Yeltsin had been re-elected and the country
stabilised, the loans would be repaid and the state would reclaim its
assets.
In the oil town of Surgut, 250 miles south of Noyabrsk, on the day the
government auctioned its stake in Surgutneftegas, the airport was closed,
the roads blocked by police, and only one bid was received - from Vladimir
Bogdanov, the resident general director of Surgutneftegas. He became a
multimillionaire overnight, and today is worth an estimated £1bn and remains
the company's president.
The following month, in November 1995, Vladimir Potanin, an influential
banker, snapped up Norilsk Nickel, Russia's largest nickel company, for £78m
less than the government's asking price. Within months, he had become first
deputy prime minister, and today, although he no longer holds political
office, he is, according to Forbes magazine, worth getting on for $2bn.
Next up was Yukos, Russia's third largest oil company, which was sold for
£173m (a fraction of its real value) to sole-bidder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a
member of parliament in the Russian duma. Not only had 32-year-old
Khodorkovsky helped draft the "loans for shares" legislation, but his
Menatep bank (which had become wealthy by trading vouchers) also policed the
auction. Today, Khodorkovsky is the richest man in Russia, worth an
estimated £8.4bn, his portfolio encompassing 40 former Soviet enterprises.
But the true scale of Khodorkovsky's bargain-basement purchase of Yukos
became clear only in October 2003 when, following his arrest, Russian
prosecutors froze 44% of the company's assets, revealing that they were
worth more than £7bn.
And then, in December 1995, four oil exploration, drilling, refining and
distribution companies in Noyabrsk and Omsk came up for auction, in a deal
that would see them combined into a holding company to be named Sibneft. A
confidential financial analysis by a leading Russian brokerage firm, seen by
Weekend, along with a deposition made by a state parliamentarian last
October to the Russian prosecutor general, allege that the Sibneft "loans
for shares" auction was rigged. Yeltsin authorised Neftyanaya Finansovaya
Kompanya (NFK), a company closely linked to Kremlin insider Boris
Berezovsky, to manage the auction of 51% of Sibneft. But despite the winning
highest bid having come from Uneximbank, which offered approximately £230m
for 51% of Sibneft, Russian critics were amazed to see Finansovaya
Neftyanaya Kompanya (FNK), a barely disguised relation of NFK, the company
that had managed the sale, winning the Sibneft shares with a lower bid of
£117m for assets valued at £337m. A legal action against FNK was launched
and then abandoned, after Uneximbank inexplicably withdrew its complaint.
FNK was then revealed to have been another Berezovsky affiliate company that
was also connected to his new partner, a 29-year-old oil trader called Roman
Abramovich. Sibneft spokesman Mann says: "FNK won an auction to purchase 51%
of Sibneft. The other 49% was privatised during a series of competitive
auctions beginning in January 1996."
Yeltsin won the presidential election, financed by a private war chest of
£140m in donations made by the new oligarchs. Two years later, FNK was
allowed to keep its 51% share in Sibneft after the government announced it
would not be repaying its loans. Abramovich and Berezovsky now owned a
controlling share in an oil company whose reserves of more than four billion
barrels were equivalent to those of Texaco, Chevron and Mobil. By
comparison, the average oil worker's wage was £1.90 an hour, making an
18-man crew worth £75,000 a year, the sum of their combined salaries.
Drillmaster Valery Novik rolls his eyes and says, "We are too busy running
these rigs, working back-to-back shifts, seven days a week, to worry about
what the bosses get up to." Abramovich and Berezovsky now began to
consolidate control over their share in Russia's former state enterprises.
Noyabrsk is sheltering under a thunderous snow sky. Vicious flurries that
Russians call bozyomkas slice down the streets, sweeping a lone dog off its
feet. The town is deserted because no one wants to battle with the weather
on these kind of mean days.
Another Sibneft minder sits with us in the people carrier taking us to the
satellite town of Muravlenko, three and a half hours to the north-west. No
one talks as the driver nips in between brutal articulated lorries that
hurtle along the iced highway.
"You're only here because Roman Abramovich is richer than your Queen," the
minder pipes up at last. "I read it in our newspaper." We laugh, but the
minder becomes distracted by a giant poster of an oil worker that flashes
past the window. "The man you are about to meet," he says, pointing, "one of
Sibneft's most productive employees."
Muravlenko is rougher around the edges than Noyabrsk. On the fifth floor of
a wooden-clad apartment block, Vladimir Sterhov invites us in. His face has
a beaten-up quality, quite different from the youthful image of him on the
billboard. Gulnara, his wife, beckons us into their kitchen with a bottle of
honey whisky made by her in-laws in Bashkortostan.
For five minutes, we politely discuss Sterhov's embarrassment at seeing his
face on an advertising hoarding. But when we ask if he has any Sibneft
shares, Sterhov becomes agitated. "I have no shares in anything. Tell me,
will anyone censor what you write? If not, I have nothing to lose by telling
you the truth. There is a saying that there is no exile further than the
north, and I am already here for life."
The Sibneft minder shrugs his shoulders and Sterhov continues. "After
Abramovich won the 'loans for shares' auction in 1995, we became Sibneft
employees and the company stopped our wages for two, three, four months at a
time."
The Sibneft minder nods vigorously. "It's true. That's right," he says. "Our
wages were held back." Sterhov continues: "Sibneft said it couldn't afford
to pay us. The country was heading for another financial crisis, and by
August 1998, when the economy collapsed for the second time, people here
were desperate. Then Sibneft started saying that although it couldn't pay
our wages, it would buy any shares left over from the privatisations of
1992."
Company shops sprang up in Noyabrsk and Muravlenko, where the Sibneft shares
were accepted instead of money. "Food, fridges, anything," says Sterhov - a
claim that would be repeated by many Sibneft employees we interviewed in
Muravlenko and Noyabrsk. This was not the only way that Sibneft ended up
with the bulk of the shares. An account of Sibneft's complex financial
manoeuvrings, produced by Russian analysts and seen by Weekend, confirms
that in August 1997 Sibneft issued 45 million new shares in one of its most
profitable subsidiary companies.
Core shareholders such as Abramovich and his partners were able to increase
their stake in this subsidiary from 61% to 78% in this closed share issue.
As a result, the shares belonging to workers who had bought into the
subsidiary in 1992 were watered down and significantly dropped in value. The
Sibneft workers launched a futile legal action while the £168m in extra
revenue raised by the share issue was used by Sibneft to settle tax
liabilities.
Christopher Granville, chief strategist of United Financial Group, a
brokerage in London, told us, "Sibneft's minority shareholders were
completely ripped off. The new shares were a closed subscription offered
only to core shareholders." The Sibneft minder sitting beside us chips in.
"My shares plummeted in value, along with everyone else's, when the 1997
closed share issue was announced."
Lord Richard Layard, co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance at
the LSE and an economic adviser to the Yeltsin government, said that this
strategy was possible due to loopholes in company law. "Most Russian
companies did not issue share certificates. The only proof of ownership was
a shareholders' registry, quite often a handwritten book that was held by
the company.
In some cases, the records of a shareholder's ownership were simply crossed
off this list. In other cases, firms issued new shares, free to some of
their shareholders, without informing the others."Mann responds for Sibneft:
"Any registrar system based on people, pen and paper is open to human error
but Sibneft has never had a policy of crossing shareholders off its
registry."
By 1999, Sibneft's most productive worker, Vladimir Sterhov, was struggling
to feed his family on a monthly salary that sometimes dipped as low as £112.
Abramovich and his core shareholders had bought out Berezovsky, and through
a new series of auctions won control of 97.2% of Sibneft.
The following year, the company began paying dividends that broke all
Russian corporate records: £28m in 2000; £552m in 2001; £612m in 2002; and
£696m last year, of which £640m went to Abramovich and his fellow core
shareholders (who by now included Eugene Shvidler and Kenneth Dart, a
carpetbagging Styrofoam cup billionaire and resident of the Cayman Islands).
Vladimir Sterhov takes a sip of honey whisky: "In Russia, a lot has changed.
We workers are now the small people and we do not matter." Sergei Rusakov,
Sibneft's chief engineer and deputy director of regional operations in
Noyabrsk, denied that his employees had been ripped off: "I've been here
from the beginning and I bought shares in 1992. I'm still a minority
shareholder and I do very well. I don't dispute that a lot of employees no
longer have shares. But it's not in a Russian's character to dwell on what
has been lost. Those who sold their shares or vouchers didn't lose out
completely. They bought apartments and cars and fridges, and at the time
they did this they thought they had a good deal." None of them, however,
owns football clubs, country mansions or multimillion-pound yachts moored on
the C¿te d'Azur.
No one in Noyabrsk will say that it was better in the old days. Remarkable
things were achieved in Russia during the transformation period. More than
106,000 state enterprises were privatised in two years. But the free market
has cost the average citizen dear. While there are 23 resident billionaires
in Moscow - a figure topped only by New York, with 31 - Russia's per capita
gross domestic product is now less than that of Costa Rica. This may simply
be evidence of the acquisitive skills and greed of the new owners of Russia,
but in a recent poll cited by the World Bank, 80% of respondents said that
they believed the oligarchs had made their fortunes dishonestly.
Among the most embittered are the families who founded towns such as
Noyabrsk. Mikhail Karpenko, who lives here in a small fourth-floor apartment
with his wife and youngest daughter, says, "I arrived in 1974 when I was 20.
I volunteered. Came here on a Komsomol ticket, in search of something new
and patriotic." Komsomol was the Communist youth movement and Karpenko was
part of the advance party of engineers and geologists sanctioned by the
Supreme Soviet in Moscow to find oil and gas. "We wanted to help build a
future for the Soviet Union."
In March 1980, while Abramovich was still at school in Komi, the Soviet
government adopted Resolution 241, announcing "urgent steps to accelerate
construction in the western Siberian oil and gas complex". Lubov Karpenko
joined her husband to help build Noyabrsk out of sheet metal and timber. She
hands us a well-thumbed photo album. "That's me," she says, pointing to a
row of young female pioneers in knee-length leather boots and miniskirts.
Mikhail says, "We were heroes of the USSR. We lived in a heated truck with
one other family, a curtain dividing us. My daughter Nastya was the 60th
child of Noyabrsk."
He produces a box of bronze and silver medals for Communist Labour and
Labour Glory. "When the changes in Russia began, I embraced them. I bought
shares in the gas industry. I still have them. However, very few of my
colleagues who bought shares in Sibneft still have them."
His cheeks colour. "Abramovich never spent his nights in the back of an oil
fire-heated truck. He never assembled the rigs when a gusher was struck or
helped carve out the rail tracks and roads that brought in more labour. But
he did scoop up the shares of those too poor and uneducated to appreciate
their potential value. He did hustle thousands more out of their stake in
Russian oil as the economy collapsed around them. He won. Russia lost."
However, not everything is going Abramovich's way. Although Sibneft
cancelled its merger deal with Yukos last October, Yukos refuses to let go
and threatens to swallow up Sibneft or suffocate it in lengthy litigation.
The Russian authorities have recently served Sibneft with two bills for
unpaid tax totalling £797m.
New oil export duties set to take effect in August, combined with an oil
extraction tax that will come into effect next January, will raise an extra
£1.68bn in revenue for the state, while shaving 3% off Sibneft's earnings
forecast for 2004.
Abramovich's acquisition of Sibneft is also under scrutiny. Last December,
the audit chamber of the Kremlin announced that it would review all
privatisations of the past decade. Included is a dossier of allegations
presented to the Russian prosecutor general by Vladimir Yudin, deputy
chairman of the State Duma's committee on economic policy and enterprise,
who claims that 51% of Sibneft was sold off in a "fake auction" in 1995, the
winner having been chosen in a "premeditated agreement".
There have been no findings yet, but President Putin has issued a warning to
all of the oligarchs: "Those who were involved in deliberate fraud must not
enjoy more favourable conditions than those who did the right thing and
abided by the law."
Meanwhile, the new tycoon from the old bloc has been quietly securing his
position in Britain. Buying Chelsea has internationalised Abramovich's
reputation and he has also begun severing his business ties to Russia. In
March 2003, he sold his shares in Aeroflot and in October off-loaded 25% of
his stake in RusAl. Both Shell and Total are rumoured to be negotiating with
Abramovich to buy a £2.5bn stake in Sibneft. Abramovich has already said
that he will not stand again for the governorship of Chukotka.
Far out in the roadless tundra stands a wigwam, or chum, made of animal
hides, a curl of smoke rising from its chimney. A snowmobile has towed us
here, three of us sitting inside a tin sledge, to meet the original
inhabitants of the western Siberian oilfields. We are 100 miles north-west
of Noyabrsk but, with its icicle-white reindeer and forests of birch trees,
it feels as if we have travelled back in time and into a Russian fairytale.
The kettle is on, Nadezhda says, inviting us inside her chum.
As the ice for tea melts, Nadezhda's son Pyotr tells us how their ancestors
from the Nenet tribe had herded reindeer across these snow plains for the
past thousand years. "Can I ask a question?" he says. "Sibneft people came.
They are paying us 14,000 roubles [£280] a year in compensation for the
damage done to our land. A share in their profit. Is it a good deal?"
Nadezhda frowns. "The trees are dying. In the summer, the fish float up dead
in the river. The reindeer are sick." The ice fizzles in the teapot. "Once,
we thought our world was so large. You could ski for miles and never see a
chum. Now, the oil rig flares are getting nearer and Sibneft tells us we
have to move." The sun dips, turning the Siberian tundra blue. The only
things that can be seen on the horizon, apart from a net of gleaming stars,
are orange ribbons of fire spurting out from the Sibneft wells that are
strung across the frozen desert like pennants of profit.
The Sibneft perspective
John Mann II, spokesman for Abramovich and Sibneft, said: 'It is very
important that you understand the distinction between Roman Ambramovich,
shareholder, and Sibneft the company. Mr Abramovich held positions in the
company only in 1996-1997, when he was head of the Moscow representative
office and a board member. Furthermore, while he is now among our largest
shareholders, he is not the only one. Everything Sibneft is not everything
Abramovich (and vice versa). The company has its own management team.'
In response to questions about the withholding of salaries by Sibneft and
the establishment of share shops, Sibneft responded: 'In the upheaval of the
mid-1990s, you were lucky to go only two to three months between pay cheques
at any major industrial enterprise in Russia, so it would be inaccurate to
make a correlation between pay deals and privatisation.'
Mann declined to answer questions about the legality of the 'loans for
shares' auction of 1995, or about the August 1997 share dilution row that
was contested by employees.
Any footballer thinking of moving to Chavski should be forced by their club
to visit one of the Sibneft Siberian oil-fields to meet some of the workers
who pay their wages, people who lead some of the hardest lives on the planet
JAB
Betty Swollox
purposes:
Book: Chelsea boss is mocked at home
Corrupt bureaucrats in remote Russian region where Roman Abramovich is
governor laugh at him behind his back, claims author
August 12, 2006 Print Ready Email Article
AS owner of English football club Chelsea, Mr Roman Abramovich is seen as
smart, rich, successful.
Mr Roman Abramovich standing in the Chukotka countryside in the remote
Russian region where he is governor. --AP
The self-made Russian billionaire is said to be popular in London -
especially among football fans - and his club has won Premiership titles
back to back.
But in the remote Chukotka region of Siberia where he is governor, officials
make fun of his expensive tastes behind his back.
So claims writer Yevgeni Rozhkov in a new book, The Town of Poisoned Souls,
reported The Daily Mail.
According to Mr Rozkhov, Mr Abramovich rescued the region from poverty and
virtual starvation after he became governor in 2000.
But he seldom visits the icy spot himself and the bureaucrats there amuse
themselves by flying in top Moscow models as their mistresses.
They have also given high-paying jobs to their relatives and cronies.
Extracts from the book have appeared in respected Russian publication
Arugumenti Fakti.
According to the author, the region's administrators, who come from other
parts of Russia, 'do not know the North and do not like it' and so try to
'import their Moscow lifestyle - restaurants, saunas, and easy girls'.
Wrote Mr Rozhkov: 'They surrounded themselves with their own, established
huge salaries and bonuses, and made useless official trips abroad. They work
little but lived in style.
'The girls were brought as if they were office workers and paid from their
budgets. They were warned that after returning to Moscow they should keep
their mouths shut.'
He also claimed: '(The bureaucrats) have one single task - to grab as much
as possible and leave this northern region, always sick with cold, forever.'
"JAB" <noch...@nohope.com> wrote in message
news:HAODg.18661$vl5....@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...
The Doctor
>both clubs and a lot less money is earned up north than down south!
>Full credit to the Liverpool fans.
>
So a LOSERFool flood.
PMD
> Spare a thought for the millions of contemporary Russians whose faces still
> betray a sense of collective bewilderment that the country's richest 100
> businessmen are now worth more than a quarter of their GDP.
And all of them Jewish and Zionists. True patriots ;-)
--
~PMD~
*****
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
JAB
I'll take that as a yes then ... boring kopites seem to get every where
nowdays
JAB
> In article <1155508103.3...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> <benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> The Doctor wrote:
>>> In article <1155477214....@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>>> <benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Could only sell 13,000 tickets out of a 25,500 allocation for the 2006
>>>> FA Community Shield against Liverpool.
>>>>
>>> Did the Loserfools show up in droves?
>>> --
>>> Member - Liberal International
>>> This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
>>> God Queen and country! Beware Anti-Christ rising!
>>> Beware Linux the MS Windows of Unix! Demand UseNet an integral part of
>> Internet!
>>
>> Liverpool virtually sold out their allocation! Prices were the same for
>> both clubs and a lot less money is earned up north than down south!
>> Full credit to the Liverpool fans.
>>
>
> So a LOSERFool flood.
Shows a limit of ambition when the Charity Shield is important to you.
Lescor
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155508103.3...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> both clubs and a lot less money is earned up north than down south!
> Full credit to the Liverpool fans.
Full credit? It is an idea that clubs and the media (for obvious reasons)
have been promoting so successfully for years that nobody questions it.
Travelling across town to see your team play in a domestic game, or further
for important matches is understandable, but how many who travelled to that
meaningless match yesterday couldn't have found a better way to spend the
ridiculous amount it cost to watch a match which was live on TV and one
which has always lacked that essential ingredient ,regardless of who is
playing.,........real competition.
They love this "we are the true fans image" but doesn't this blind
dedication
say something about the poor state of the quality of their lives? Clad in
overpriced and frequently changed red or blue tat, there will always be a
few
thousand willing to pay to watch mainly purchased foreigners playing briefly
under the banner of Chelsea or Liverpool.
Is the fact that Pool seemingly provided more sheep to this game than
Chelsea be something to be proud of? Maybe it just reflects the fact that
some
had better alternatives because of the area they live in?
To all those "wonderful" fans who turned up to support their sides
yesterday.....
...........for god sake get a life fellers!
LC
ScoopeX
> Could only sell 13,000 tickets out of a 25,500 allocation for the 2006
> FA Community Shield against Liverpool.
>
Says it all about chelsea scum supporters tbh.
lmfao. :)
Graybags
> To all those "wonderful" fans who turned up to support their sides
> yesterday.....
> ...........for god sake get a life fellers!
You do know why this match is called the Community Shield, don't you? It
raises money for grass roots football, clearly something Chelsea, and their
apologists don't care about, yet Liverpool and their fans still do.
b
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155558854.6...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Stop trying to make excuses. Yes Football is indeed becoming more of a
> business than a sport but real fans would sell their allocation or at
> the very least 3/4 of the allocation. This is a friendly but with added
> importance and a possible pschyological edge heading into the season.
So, dispite being a regular for 35 years including having a season ticket
for the last 15years,
having visited 70 different grounds to watch my team, including a wednesday
night trip to York
in the second round of the League Cup when we were utter shite (and we
lost...) in your eyes
I'm not a 'real fan' because I couldn't be arsed to spend £100 on going to
watch Liverpool's
Cup final?
You sir, are a tit.
>
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
"b" <bi...@thefridge.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bj%Dg.43364$Ca.1...@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
too many took your attitude and that is the problem.
it was a poor turnout by the CFC fans, i don't recall the last few CS being
quite so poorly attended, do you?
(maybe that's part of the problem however, that CFC were there last year and
it's pretty much a nothing game albeit a good curtain raiser for the season
for a good cause)
http://www.thefa.com/TheFACup/TheFACommunityShield/History/
but it seems it's your fans that are a bit reluctant to turnout at cardiff
cos it's a different story for wembley-
http://www.soccerbase.com/results3.sd?gameid=286706
--
The Doctor
JAB <noch...@nohope.com> wrote:
>The Doctor wrote:
>> In article <1155508103.3...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>> <benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> The Doctor wrote:
>>>> In article <1155477214....@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>>>> <benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Could only sell 13,000 tickets out of a 25,500 allocation for the 2006
>>>>> FA Community Shield against Liverpool.
>>>>>
>>>> Did the Loserfools show up in droves?
>>>> --
>>>> Member - Liberal International
>>>> This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
>>>> God Queen and country! Beware Anti-Christ rising!
>>>> Beware Linux the MS Windows of Unix! Demand UseNet an integral part of
>>> Internet!
>>>
>>> Liverpool virtually sold out their allocation! Prices were the same for
>>> both clubs and a lot less money is earned up north than down south!
>>> Full credit to the Liverpool fans.
>>>
>>
>> So a LOSERFool flood.
>
>Shows a limit of ambition when the Charity Shield is important to you.
The biggest LOSERFool flood is found at the GRAND Mausoleum Anfield.
Capiche?
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
"Lescor" <les...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:o7ednQVW958...@bt.com...
LMAO! you're sooo ironic.
lets all stay indoors where it's safe behind the keyboard.
Lescor, when were you last at a football match, that you had to part with
cash to attend?
--
JAB
Exactly b, I'm sure if it had been a real Cup final you would be one the
first to get a ticket as it is why would you even bother. I mean it's
the Charity shield FFS. There's been a rash of the plastic kopites ever
since they won the CL ...
JAB
Oh please ... that certainly gets the stupid comment of the week award.
Betty Swollox
news:bj%Dg.43364$Ca.1...@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> I'm not a 'real fan' because I couldn't be arsed to spend £100 on not
> going
You are correct.
disgraceful showing for a charity match:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/roger_w/DSC00212.jpg
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
LOL!
yet no mention of YOU being the "first to get a ticket".
hehehehe
you lot are just reluctant to travel as the comparison of wembley community
shields vs millenium community shields attendances clearly shows.
--
Ian Harvey
"b" <bi...@thefridge.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bj%Dg.43364$Ca.1...@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
Stupid comment about Liverpool's Cup Final aside (their last two seasons
have included two proper cup finals at your expense), you are right. It's a
stupid event that should be scrapped.
JAB
LOL indeed ... I'm not a season ticket holder so although I would be
prepared to make the effort to travel to Cardiff for a real Cup - not
the Charity Shield obviously - the chances a getting a ticket are
virtually zero. Kopites obviously think that the Charity Shield is
important much like the World Club Championship where they were getting
ready to pronounce themselves the best club in the world.
Let's be honest here when you are travelling from Scandinavia it really
doesn't matter whether you tack on a bit extra to your journey does it?
Another boring kopite posts drivel as always ... always a joke no wonder
everyone takes the piss out of them.
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
> LOL indeed ... I'm not a season ticket holder so although I would be
> prepared to make the effort to travel to Cardiff for a real Cup - not
> the Charity Shield obviously -
but this only ties in perfectly on the general view of you as a glory
hunter.
LOL!
you didn't even see it yourself.
> the chances a getting a ticket are
> virtually zero.
clearly not with such a poor repsonse to your ticket allocation.
> Kopites obviously think that the Charity Shield is
> important
really, can you show me a post/web link that substantiates your claim?
> much like the World Club Championship where they were getting
> ready to pronounce themselves the best club in the world.
yes, that's right.
and if chelsea EVER get to a CL final and win the thing they too will have
the chance to win the World Club Championship.
The nearest you ever got to that, Liverpool K.O'd you at Anfield.
And your world has never been quite the same since.
> Let's be honest here when you are travelling from Scandinavia it really
> doesn't matter whether you tack on a bit extra to your journey does it?
you live in "scandinavia", fascinating.
Another boring JAB posts drivel as always ... always a joke no wonder
everyone takes the piss out of him.
--
Betty Swollox
news:koGdnSMlpsz...@pipex.net...
Not everyone, some of us like a bit of a challenge, ripping the piss out of
JAB is too easy, way to easy.
But I will agree on one thing, he is boring, as for his posts, he took his
cue from Bernie and does a copy and paste reply, he has an old text file
full of them waiting to re-use them over & over & over again.
Bernie The Bolt
The only time Bernie does a copy and paste reply is when he adopts one
of you kopites as a poodle and throws them sticks. Why, would you
like me to throw you one?
(throws stick)
There you go, fetch boy!
Bernie The Bolt
--
'Blue shirts good, red shirts bad' - George Orwell
b
"Ian Harvey" <ianeh...@whateveridontreadit.com> wrote in message
news:IOydnT5sp8s...@pipex.net...
Yeah, on reflection I'll retract that bit.
scrap it asap.
>
>
b
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155588025....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Well congrats. I have been to Canvey Island and places like that on
midweek games where we have lost. Including a trip to Carlisle three
days after Christmas... you point is?...
you really are thick aren't you?
b
>
> too many took your attitude and that is the problem.
> it was a poor turnout by the CFC fans, i don't recall the last few CS
being
> quite so poorly attended, do you?
> (maybe that's part of the problem however, that CFC were there last year
and
> it's pretty much a nothing game albeit a good curtain raiser for the
season
> for a good cause)
> http://www.thefa.com/TheFACup/TheFACommunityShield/History/
> but it seems it's your fans that are a bit reluctant to turnout at cardiff
> cos it's a different story for wembley-
> http://www.soccerbase.com/results3.sd?gameid=286706
I didn't go to that one either.
Have been to one CS game and within 5 mins of entering the ground I thought
to myself "what the fuck am I doing here?"
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
at what point were you reminded exactly what you were doing there?
seems to me you all got the wrong end of the stick about this.
I go to watch football for recreation, it's one of the things i enjoy in
life, so it doesn't have to be LFC vs Barcelona in order for me to get off
my arse and out of the house, i'm not in it for the kudos.
same applies to the CS, it's a day out, as it was there was a certain edge
to the event it being chelsea and the increased rivalry between the two
clubs, i though it was a decent curtain raiser to the season, I enjoyed it,
particularly as we won.
So think again.
What reason could i give?
--
Sumisdad
"Betty Swollox" <m...@me.com> wrote in message
news:HK2Eg.79589$Zb2....@fe06.highwinds-media.phx...
Nowhere near as bad as Wigan last season.
Probably the biggest match in their clubs history and a really shit turnout.
b
> "b" <bi...@thefridge.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> at what point were you reminded exactly what you were doing there?
When it dawned on me that it mattered not a jot whether we won or lost. (we
lost on pens btw...)
Give me Swindon away in the second round of the League Cup and I'll be
there, yes the whole
social thing about going to the game is important, but ultimately there must
be a point to the game.
Lescor
<benrobe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155558854.6...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> business than a sport but real fans would sell their allocation or at
> the very least 3/4 of the allocation. This is a friendly but with added
> importance and a possible pschyological edge heading into the season.
Excuses??? For what?? Football is the greatest game in the world but
isn't it just a bit sad to see such a shortage of discrimination that fans
will spend fortunes to watch this particular game? Isn't it taking support
and hero worship just a bit far? Doesn't it put football a shade too high
in the list of priorities to throw away Ł100 or so on games like this? Games
where the importance is only relevant to the fans, or those who want to
kid themselves it really is significant.
Pool will meet Chelsea just twice in the league this season. Any
pschycological
edge will come from how well both have started the season when they meet.
Do you think that if Pool make a poor start and Chelsea a good one (which
might
not look very likely on this showing) that any Pool player will feel more
confident
because of the CS result? Chelsea's pschycological advantage over Pool
based
on 2 titles and good league results will also be worthless once the game
kicks off.
Staunch fans are going to spend fortunes following their sides this year and
I am not surprised if even the keenest decided to give this one a miss.
Far more amazed that so many didn't have lives where they could put this
cash
to better use. Time it was dumped. A summer spent at the WC. League starts
in a few days. An international tomorrow. CL second leg soon after....how
much
do they expect from fans and players?
Good to see fans are voting with their feet by avoiding the England game
even
though it is more significant than that regular pre season CS nonsense.
LC
Lescor
The World Club Championship? LOL.....are you really serious? It ranks
not too far behind the Charity Shield as the most meaningless trophy in
the football world. Blatter's dream despite the fact that it come at the
most inappropriate time for Euro sides. Pool should have swerved that
one last year. It is a nothing competition which could cost a league title.
LC
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
no.
> It ranks
> not too far behind the Charity Shield as the most meaningless trophy in
> the football world. Blatter's dream despite the fact that it come at the
> most inappropriate time for Euro sides. Pool should have swerved that
> one last year. It is a nothing competition which could cost a league
title.
blah blah blah, yeah whatever.
you missed the point, as per, the point was re the CL AND the half hearted
attendance from CFC fans at the CS.
But JAB is just a fool, with a PC, who likes to post derivative crap, who
rarely gets off his backside to go to matches.
--
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
> Staunch fans are going to spend fortunes following their sides this year
and
> I am not surprised if even the keenest decided to give this one a miss.
the keenest will have been there, what a daft statement.
> Far more amazed that so many didn't have lives where they could put this
> cash to better use.
that's merely your opinion, people are free to spend their cash as they see
fit.
when did you last get to cardiff or any match for that matter?
>Time it was dumped. A summer spent at the WC.
i think you'll find the majority of Liverpool fans avoided the WC like the
plague.
> League starts
> in a few days. An international tomorrow. CL second leg soon after....how
> much do they expect from fans and players?
absolute crap les, i say the CS is a great curtain raiser to the season,
it's part of the english football tradition and a great day out for the
fans(+kids etc) who wish to attend, what a killjoy you are.
> Good to see fans are voting with their feet by avoiding the England game
> even though it is more significant than that regular pre season CS
nonsense.
no it isn't it shouldn't even be on the calendar at this time of year(which
is all about club football), as dean ashton etc will surely testify.
--
Lescor
Had too many years of it to mention. Travelled from London to see Pool
more times than I can remember from way back. Watched every game
they played in London for decades. Saw average of 2 or 3 games a week
at all the London grounds with a milk round early morning as a kid to get
the
cash for the entry. Stood in the pissing rain an hour and a half before
kick off amongst 60.000 others. Still go, but less often and in some
comfort
even when paying well over the odds for tickets.
But that's not the point is it? I only ever went to games that had meaning.
Any sports event without true competition is nothing. Competition is the
common denominator between all great sporting events but it has to
be real otherwise the drama is missing and the excitement has to be
invented, I think I am a football fan, in the real sense of the term.
I don't buy crap papers with crap content. I don't go to bad shows or
concerts. Life is far too short not to discriminate. And I would not go
to be bored by a meaningless game like any Charity Shield if it was free
and I had a car door to door no matter if it was Spurs v Arsenal, Pool v
Chelsea or Man U v Pool. No points at stake. No moving to the next
round..........nothing! The only reason I watched this one was to see
the new signings, but it was the first time for years.
LC
Pool
Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista
i'm, kind of disappointed you really weren't being ironic.
> But that's not the point is it? I only ever went to games that had
meaning.
> Any sports event without true competition is nothing. Competition is the
> common denominator between all great sporting events but it has to
> be real otherwise the drama is missing and the excitement has to be
> invented, I think I am a football fan, in the real sense of the term.
well yes I take your point, but i maintain the CS is a good day out, we
don't get this POV for various pre-season matches that fans attend and have
to pay for.
I was at the Valencia pre season friendly game a few seasons back when we
hosted Rafas former club and were given a football lesson, we took a few
kids along, had seats right next to the dug out and they all got Canizares
autograph and were thrilled.
Try looking a little further than your own rather selfish POV.
> I don't buy crap papers with crap content. I don't go to bad shows or
> concerts. Life is far too short not to discriminate. And I would not go
> to be bored by a meaningless game like any Charity Shield if it was free
> and I had a car door to door no matter if it was Spurs v Arsenal, Pool v
> Chelsea or Man U v Pool. No points at stake. No moving to the next
> round..........nothing! The only reason I watched this one was to see
> the new signings, but it was the first time for years.
as it turned out though the CS game at the W/E was a good advert for the
english game, imo.
and as a kid the LFC CS games were amongst the bigger games that my father
and his mates (all Anfield regulars) took the kids to, so no bad thing for
my money, or my dads as was the case then.
I think your attitude is a bit humbug.
That's not to say it's exclusive to you, i got hold of some Uefa cup tickets
for a friend and his family a few seasons back, went out of my way to
deliver them to his house and the miserable **** could only moan that the
seats were towards the back of the Kop, he had specifically requested Kop
tickets.
HUMBUG!!
--
Lescor
> "Lescor" <les...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:btednTG3QoL...@bt.com...
>>
>> "Xavier Santiago Amarillo - Dentista" <x...@plaque.free.com> wrote in
>> message
>> news:0NWdnR_TttYTDH3Z...@pipex.net...
>> >
>> > "Lescor" <les...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
Well, I admit it had a touch more intensity than most I used to watch but
cannot agree that is was a good advert for the English game. £200 mil
of Chelsea talent trying to play only a long ball game was hardly that.
Maybe your judgement was coloured by the good result?
> and as a kid the LFC CS games were amongst the bigger games that my father
> and his mates (all Anfield regulars) took the kids to, so no bad thing for
> my money, or my dads as was the case then.
Taking kids is something else. I have taken mine to all sorts of stuff over
the years
simply because they wanted to go. It was, and is, a treat to go to any match
with Dad,
but I stopped taking them when the obscene chanting of the "true fans"
became
too much.
But that is not the charge I was replying to which was the implication that
"true" fans
go to such games and by definition, those who dont aren't. This idea
suggests
fans own a blind alligience to the club. We often hear them in here. proud
that they
have turned out regularly through thick and thin to watch Pool even when
they were
poor and would continue to do so if they were a mid table average side. It
is
accepted without question that this something to be proud of. The clubs
applaude
it as do the overpaid players. and the media never question it. But it is
the only
area of our lives where such dedication is seen in this way.
We don't continue to go back to cafe's which make us sick, or to shops which
sell rubbish, or stick to brands which are found to be poor quality. To do
so
would be seen as bloody stupid. But all bets are off when it comes to
football
according to some who see the opinion that a game without meaning is not
worth
spending time or money on as some sort of weakness or disloyalty.
It was not always like this, but over the years the balance between
'football lovers'
who supported a club and 'my club' fanatics has shifted, so much that we now
have
to segregate and police them like criminals. We all know what happens if
you don't.
This is where thoughtless dedication has taken us. Glad you and the kids
enjoyed
the game. but the certainty is that your decision to go or not go would not
reflect
on your support for the team as the OP suggested.
LC