Chelsea crisis not Boehly’s fault but too much faith and little sense means Blues stuck with Enzo Fernandez in race row
CHELSEA in crisis is a familiar theme in the two years since the club changed hands.
But for once, chairman Todd Boehly and his sidekick Behdad Eghbali deserve a little sympathy instead of a lot of stick.
It’s the sentence you never thought you’d read given some of the well-documented cock-ups and calamities that have taken place on their watch at Stamford Bridge.
Changing managers on a weekly basis, tossing away millions of quid on overrated footballers and making the club a ‘laughing stock’ in the eyes of some fans is on them.
But the distasteful behaviour of Enzo Fernandez is not their mess. However, it is theirs to clean up.
Whether or not we believe the Argentina midfielder’s claims that his offensive, crass and downright stupid video mocking the heritage of France’s black players was an honest mistake, he has managed to s**t on his own doorstep from the other side of the world.
Caught up in the giddy, post-victory celebrations of Monday’s 1-0 Copa America final triumph over Colombia, the posting of a no-holds-barred “racist” attack on fellow international players suggests this is his true colours emerging, not an unwitting error.
Only now it is down to those in charge to sort it out and it won’t be easy or happen overnight.
Especially for a club which has had a more painful, public association with racism than most among its fanbase.
You can “investigate” Fernandez’s explosive live video stream all you like as Chelsea insist they are doing.
But when the culprit has already apologised it looks bang to rights.
He has been idiotic at best, xenophobic at worst.
The most troubling issue for chairman Boehly and co-owner Eghbali is what next?
It’s an embarrassing coincidence that around half of their hugely expensive squad is French, or have strong connections to the country in their heritage.
Most of them are rightly seething. Sorry won’t be enough.
Blues’ new boss Enzo Maresca recently spoke of the need to get his far-flung players together again ASAP, for everyone to get to know each other following a summer of international football.
He stressed the need to “create the right culture that drives us for the season”. How’s that looking?
Fernandez should be kept away for as long as possible until tempers have cooled and the aggrieved parties in the dressing room are ready to listen.
Fernandez, 23, cost a Prem record £106million when they signed him from Benfica in February last year.
A hefty investment that already looked over generous given his performances for them.
It was noted that when his season ended early in April, due to a hernia, Chelsea played better.
Some would like to see the back of him at Stamford Bridge in light of his astonishing choice of celebration song and because he hasn’t really lived up to his billing as World Cup winner.
There is also a question regarding the mentality of somebody who thinks the ideal way to mark a positive moment in your career is to deride the ethnicity of a team you BEAT in the World Cup final 18 months ago.
A happy event that catapulted Fernandez into the Premier League and earned him vast sums of money.
Unless Boehly and Eghbali can find a way to cancel the contract of a player who in one mindless act has undone all the good work Chelsea do combating discrimination, they’re stuck with him.
Fernandez has seven years left on his deal and with overstretched top-flight clubs constantly playing brinkmanship with spending rules, they can’t dump him on the cheap.
If Boehly and Eghbali are guilty of one thing, it’s having too much faith and not enough sense when it comes to investing in young footballers.
HAPPY TO GO SOUTH
ON Monday Gareth Southgate was a loser, an over-cautious nervous nellie who dragged England down and stopped us winning a long-awaited major tournament.
Today he is a saint. A man who transcended football with his wisdom and humanity.
Who rebuilt burned bridges between the national team and a cynical fan base. An arch-diplomat and deep political thinker.
Amazing what a resignation can do in football.
Personally, I thought he was much of the latter all along and whether England won or lost, if games were a bit dull at times, I didn’t care.
England under Roy Hodgson and Fabio Capello in particular was joyless in every aspect.
Southgate took us to a new level — to a point at the Euro 2020 final where an excitable young man outside Wembley thought it perfectly reasonable behaviour to ram a billowing orange smoke bomb up his bum in the street.
It’s not a trophy but it’s something, right?
WALES CAWLS
GOLF bosses seem only too happy to uproot The Open and take it abroad to Ireland.
Outgoing R&A CEO Martin Slumbers was then asked in his farewell press conference this week where he sees the tournament in ten years. Someone among the audience whispered ‘Saudi Arabia’.
But closer to home, there are those who are a bit put out at the thought of golf’s flagship event going to foreign countries — because it hasn’t been to Wales yet.
The first stop on the emerging world tour looks like being Portmarnock near Dublin, yet what about Royal Porthcawl in Glamorgan for starters?