Chelsea have now become the club that many feared - soulless. That's right, Chelsea Football Club is soulless, not only soulless but classless as demonstrated by the complete removal of Di Matteo's pictures from our CL win and even the very acknowledgement of his existence, this isn't a recent phenomenon, it's happened gradually since the removal of Jose Mourinho but even moreso since the axe was cruelly wielded upon Carlo Ancelotti.
Non-Chelsea fans will never understand it, despite all the ups and downs, Chelsea always had an identity, it always stood for something, be it Ted Drake's title winning team in 1955, or the "great entertainers" of the 60s containing flamboyant flair players like Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Peter Houseman and the feared Chopper Harris. Or Pat Nevin and Kerry Dixon of the 80s, or Dennis Wise, Roberto Di Matteo, Gianfranco Zola and Gianluca Vialli of the 90s and John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba of now. There is a willing assumption from the press to pin all of our recent problems solely on the owner but I people around him are also partially to blame. The fact is the press don't like Chelsea, that isn't a conspiracy, it's a fact that can be proved based on years of evidence and even admittance from high profile sports journalists on live television. They would rather see an Abramovich-less Chelsea, one that can't compete with England's best. Contrary to media myth, Abramovich is not as involved in the day to day running of Chelsea Football Club as the press would have people believe, Chelsea do not occupy his thoughts 24/7, he has other business ventures elsewhere. When I hear of Abramovich going out on a limb to keep Zola at the club roughly 10 years ago to the day,going out of his way to meet and talk to Chelsea fans about on-goings at the club prior to the City home game in November and allegedly giving all of the gate receipts from the FA Cup tie to Brentford he doesn't strike me as the totally ruthless man he is made out to be, for all his criticism in the British press he still has good relations and a good friendship with at least 3 ex-Chelsea managers. Abramovich built many bridges with the fans including ticket price freezes and change of club after the much maligned "Millwall" badge came under heavy criticism.
Today, I look at the Chelsea team and ask, what do we stand for? Where has our identity gone? Fans being charged through nose for tickets yet treated poorly by the board, this is something synonymous not just with Chelsea but other clubs too, take Arsenal for example - a club with a large and loyal fanbase paying the highest prices in the country but selling off the most valuable assets to the club every season. Arsenal are a club I grew up hating pathologically but they were also the club I had a begrudging respect for and up until recently always were the benchmark for all London clubs, the name meant something, now Arsenal have become somewhat of a laughing stock having sold off key players to rival clubs and gone so long without a trophy, Chelsea are in a similar boat, we are just as much of a circus, as are QPR - a small, but closely knit family club now forking out expensive tickets for players that seemingly couldn't give a toss and a board that want to pander to Asian Tourists in an attempt to become a "global brand". The identity of these football clubs has been stripped by the board, these clubs are losing their soul. Fans enjoying Arsenal and Chelsea's plight shouldn't be, because it might be your club next. In a season where we have seen mass protests/discontent from fans of big football clubs such as Chelsea, Arsenal and Leeds it begs the question of "When will enough be enough?". As a fan of football I can't help but feel saddened when I see fans of clubs like Chelsea, Leeds, Forest and Arsenal being completely shafted by the clubs they love. The Premier League has become a corporate cesspit whereby clubs begin to lose themselves and forget their roots, Swansea and West Brom have been recent exceptions to the rule and got the balance right.
Football is fast losing it's appeal for me, rarely do I sit down and watch entire games of football and devote my full attention to it, I don't get particularly excited about going to games nor watching it on TV. Watching football has just become a thing I do. I might feel differently soon, but when I see men found not-guilty in a court of law left hung out to dry by the media and FA, men publicly vilified for (accidentally) kicking a ball at another fellow professional, Broadcasters like Sky and ESPN being given free reign to disrupt fixtures in favour of certain teams *cough* Manchester United, men face public persecution for kicking a ball from underneath a ballboy who was deliberately trying to stop him from doing his job and then first and foremost men with no connection/feelings to football clubs involved in their day to day running I then fail see the point in getting angry or worked up about football anymore. I can deal with the diving and conning referees and other politics on pitches but off it... Bates at Leeds, Benitez/Emanelo/Campbell at Chelsea, Glazers at United, Kroenke/Hill-Wood/Gazidids at Arsenal, Venky's at Blackburn and the ongoing mess at Forest and even Allardyce at West Ham. At what stage will clubs stop abandoning their principles and alienating their fans? As football fans we'll always keep on coming back for more, unlike any owner it runs in our blood and communities but it's no longer a sport I can say I "love" or even enjoy watching.