Posts Tagged ‘Long Term Vision’

Thought of leaving Blues never crossed my mind, says Terry

• Defender confirms he will reject move to Eastlands
• Captain set for new deal worth £150,000 a week

John Terry is expected to agree an improved contract at Chelsea this week after the England captain finally broke his silence on Manchester City’s ambitious attempt to secure his services by committing his future to the London club.

City had a £30m bid for the centre-half rejected out of hand earlier this month but retained hope that Terry might agitate for a move to Eastlands for as long as he refused to comment publicly on the matter. The 28-year-old had privately been unnerved by Chelsea’s inability to secure a marquee signing this summer, and by two years of managerial upheaval since Jose Mourinho’s abrupt departure from the club, but insisted that leaving Stamford Bridge “was never a possibility”.

He had held talks with Roman Abramovich before the team’s departure for their four-match pre-season tour of the United States, but has since met the club’s owner and the chief executive, Peter Kenyon, for further discussions during their stay in the US as he sought assurances over their long-term vision at Stamford Bridge. Although Chelsea were always convinced that they would not lose the defender and believed they had an agreement in place with Terry, the player himself did not make up his mind definitively to stay until Saturday.

• Ancelotti insists he always knew Terry would stay
• Daniel Taylor on Terry’s decision to resist City’s millions
• Dominic Fifield: Chelsea’s pre-season is going to plan

The carefully worded statement released through Chelsea ahead of the team’s game against Club America will be the prelude for discussions to move on to securing the captain on improved terms likely to swell his weekly wage from £135,000 to nearer £150,000 – considerably short of what City were prepared to pay him – which should be signed before the end of the week. The new deal is not expected to extend the defender’s stay at the club beyond the three years still to run on his current contract.

“I am totally committed to Chelsea and always have been,” said Terry. “Chelsea have also made it clear to me consistently that there was never any intention to accept any kind of offer. When you are linked with any club, or with a manager [Mark Hughes] who I have huge respect for, it will always make headlines, but me leaving Chelsea was never a possibility.

“I know there has been comment that I should have made a statement earlier. However, throughout this period there have been numerous discussions between myself, the owner and the Chelsea board and we all agreed that the timing of any statement would suit everyone involved in those talks, not any outside influences or agendas. What is clear to me following those discussions is that Chelsea’s ambition remains as high as ever.”

That ambition has yet to yield either Franck Ribéry or David Villa, the players Terry suggested Chelsea should pursue in the wake of victory in the FA Cup final in May, though the club remain in the market for new blood. Securing their captain will provide a timely boost, particularly as Terry was genuinely intrigued by the project being put in place by the Abu Dhabi United Group at City, though Carlo Ancelotti insisted he was never perturbed by the issue. “There was not a problem because we have been sure that John stays at Chelsea,” said the Italian. “There’s never been a problem with this.”

The new Chelsea manager has already indicated he will build his team around its English core, typified by Terry, with the captain pinpointing the Italian’s influence as another reason to stay. “I am certain that he will take this club on to the next level,” he added. “Another important factor was knowing that Chelsea would be securing key current players for the long term. The strengthening of the squad around this core is crucial to pushing us on to greater success. I am as committed as ever to helping drive Chelsea forward and I will be proud to lead the team for as long as I can.”

The implications for City are less encouraging, though a move for Terry had always been hugely ambitious. Hughes still hopes to secure the Arsenal centre-half Kolo Touré, a long-standing target, as he seeks defensive reinforcements to complement the mouth-watering attacking resources already lured to Eastlands this summer.

The key challenges facing the FA’s new chief executive

Ian Watmore must focus on 10 pressing areas when he takes up his role at Soho Square

When Ian Watmore arrives at Soho Square today for his first day as FA chief executive, he will not immediately be packing his bags for Kazakhstan to accompany the England team for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier. Instead, he will spend his first week in the job meeting key staff and trying to set out his priorities.

The decision to stay behind is not intended as a snub to England’s Kazakh hosts, but can be interpreted as a clear statement of intent that he will not let the glamorous side of the job – the England circus and all the baggage it entails – interfere with the important business of running the FA and re-establishing it as the voice and regulator of English football at all levels.

Here are 10 of the most pressing challenges that Watmore, an Arsenal fan with a reputation as a quietly effective operator with little desire to use the job to project his own ego, will face as Brian Barwick’s successor.

1 Burton

Decision time is looming on the National Football Centre in Burton. The FA has spent an estimated £25m buying and developing the land and may need at least another £35m to complete the project. Despite a firm commitment to go ahead, the likely opening has slipped to 2011 from 2010. And there is still a range of dissenting voices about the location and purpose of the centre. Envisaged as a centre of excellence for coaches, sports scientists, nutritionists and more, as well as providing a training base for the England team, Watmore will have to remake a compelling case that ties into a long-term vision for the FA’s wider role in youth development.

2 Youth development

A long-running impasse between the professional game and the FA concerning the best way to structure youth development is crying out for Watmore to break the logjam. Amid speculation about his future, the FA’s director of football development, Sir Trevor Brooking, had a public war of words with the Football League chairman, Lord Mawhinney, late last year over how youth development should best be funded. The professional game believes that development money is best channelled through them, leaving the FA to “coach the coaches”. But FA insiders point out that they also have grassroots football to consider and the infrastructure for the entire amateur game to worry about. Watmore has made the issue one of his top priorities.

3 Wembley

The new national stadium, the final bill for which approached almost £1bn and the legal fallout from which is still rumbling, continues to cast a shadow. Despite widespread praise for the stadium, the pitch continues to create headlines. More seriously, Watmore must oversee the financial viability of the subsidiary that runs the stadium. It is confident the recession will not affect its business plan, which relies heavily on corporate debentures, but it must also negotiate the refinancing of loan repayments that fall due every year until 2016. Watmore also faces the internal challenge of maintaining staff morale as he manages the move of hundreds of staff from their existing West End location to new offices at Wembley. Along with a round of redundancies, the prospect of trading in the restaurants of Soho for the kebab shops of the North Circular has done little for morale.

4 Reforming the FA

This falls more squarely in his chairman’s lap, but their fates will be intertwined. Since the Burns review delivered its conclusions in 2005, progress has been painfully slow. An independent chairman, in the shape of Lord Triesman, is in place and represents some progress. But the overhaul of the FA’s structure that the review so urgently highlighted, including widening the membership of the FA Council to better represent the game’s stakeholders and introducing non-executive directors to the main board, appears to have ground to a halt. Triesman got the job on a reform ticket but appears now to believe he must tread more carefully. Perhaps he has been waiting for Watmore’s arrival to act.

5 Drug testing

On 1 July new rules requiring a pool of the top 20 footballers in England to make their whereabouts known for an hour of every day are due to be introduced under the new World Anti-Doping Agency code. But an ongoing spat between Fifa and Wada, and criticism from some athletes, has clouded the implementation of the new rules. UK Sport, responsible for administering the tests, is adamant the new rules will be introduced, even if it takes two or three months. The FA has hitherto been more equivocal, and clubs, the players’ union and agents are far from convinced. It will fall to Watmore to defuse a potentially volatile situation.

6 Political landscape

The FA has decided upon, but has yet to deliver, its answers to Andy Burnham’s seven questions on the future of the game. While reasonably arguing that it has a far wider base of opinion to consult, the seven-month delay left the organisation looking leaden-footed against the Premier League and the Football League. Triesman found himself frustrated at only being able to follow the consensus of the earlier proposals from the professional game, after the board blocked his more radical ideas; hardly the ideal basis on which to launch a bid to re-establish the FA as the game’s authoritative voice. Watmore must also hit the ground running in making his way around the boardrooms of England and the backwaters of the county game in an effort to win a broad base of support. In this, he may be helped by the fact he does not come from a Premier League background, unlike his main rival for the job, the former Arsenal chief executive Keith Edelman. Yet he must also heal the lasting wounds caused by his chairman’s attack on the lack of accountability and financial management among top-flight clubs last year. But diplomacy is said to be among his strengths and he has already met the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore.

7 TV rights/commercial deals

Given that he is succeeding a former ITV and BBC head of sport and is just one year into a new four-year broadcast deal, Watmore may have hoped that would be one thing he did not have to worry about. But the uncertainty surrounding Setanta’s future and ITV’s attempt to “smooth” its payment schedules on their joint £425m deal for the FA Cup and England internationals will give him pause for thought. Whichever way things go for Setanta, the FA is confident that a combination of money already banked and the possibility of reselling the rights will not force it to take a hit. But the real challenge will come when the sale process begins again in two years’ time. With little competition in the market, it may be hard to maintain value. Watmore will also want to mull the hardy perennial of how to maintain the profile and allure of the FA Cup in an ever more crowded football calendar.

8 World Cup 2018

Although the bid for the World Cup is run by a separate company and led by Andy Anson, the FA and the bid vehicle share a chairman in Lord Triesman. Watmore will not be directly involved but the two are umbilically linked and the successes and failures of each will impact on the other, as seen with the furore over the lack of representation for black and ethnic minority groups at the launch. A successful bid would create a feelgood factor that could not help but benefit Watmore’s tenure.

9 Discipline/Respect

The first season of the FA’s high-profile Respect campaign has delivered mixed results. How the initial findings are communicated and how the campaign is taken forward will be crucial to re-establishing the FA’s image as a body that is able to take a lead on issues that affect all levels of the game.

10 England

It is one of the delights and the frustrations of the job that Watmore could be an unalloyed success in all of the above and still come under pressure if England fail to deliver on the field. He has some leeway from the fact that he comes into the job with England well placed to qualify for South Africa 2010 and with a manager who is not his appointment but looks every inch the man for the job. Establishing a good working relationship at an early stage with Fabio Capello and his staff will, of course, be crucial.