This evening, I was sat in the office, taking advantage of yet another wonderful opportunity to remain at work until 10pm – ah, the joys of transatlantic clients – when I had what alcoholics may refer to as a “moment of clarity”.
I’d been reading the Shevchenko stories, you see. The Mirror grabbed it from a Russian newspaper, and it was picked up (in quick succession) by pretty much the rest of the British national press and media. Information travels with such swiftness in our connected world. A man may write an ill-judged email in Alaska at dawn, and be laughed at from Helsinki to Hobart by sunset. We should all be grateful for this technological grease on the bearings of the media. It allows us to see soldiers building human pyramids of hooded prisoners, or elderly Chilean dictators being carted off to hospital, or a pair of performing chimps doing appalling things to people in faraway countries in MY name, not that I ever recall agreeing that invading Iraq was a good thing… but I digress.
Thing is – and it’s an obvious point – that misinformation travels just as quickly as the real McCoy. Quicker, possibly. To steal an idea from the late great Douglas Adams, it was once suggested that a kind of propulsion system be developed that was powered by bad news; the only thing known to travel faster than light. The idea was eventually scrapped when it became clear that the vehicle driven by bad news would be incredibly unpopular with the locals when it arrived.
So a lie, or a mistake, or a typo, can be amplified and streamlined and then beamed into every home in a matter of seconds, all thanks to the wonderful power of the Interweb. Check the sources? Nah. It’s online: it must be true.
I admit, my first reaction on reading the Sheva story was to think “how did those bastards get an interview with him?”, but you can put that down to jealousy. My second was a kind of surprise as I thought about what was being said. And again, it comes back to the “who does this benefit” argument. It was the same feeling that caused me to raise an eyebrow over Peter Kenyon’s pronouncement about Chelsea’s plan to rule the world by 2014. Who wins here? What good does it do us? What good does it do him, or anybody? The obvious exception, in both cases, is of course the entire non-Chelsea-supporting world, who are only too happy to have a sly chuckle or yawning guffaw over any suggestion of trouble in paradise.
So how would this interview work to Sheva’s advantage? It suggests discord within the squad. It suggests that the manager and the owner are at odds. It implies that Chelsea are so fickle that they’re willing to turn their back on a mind-bubbling investment of cash and throw a similar amount away on a replacement. And the thought that the man might go back to Milan as a loan – that we’d paid out 30million nicker for this chap and that he’d end up playing for his old team after all – had me grinding my teeth. If it happens, I’ll personally tear up my membership, hand in my shirt, and go and support “football” for the rest of my born days. Gone, for me, freezing my bits off in the MHL. Enough with the rubbish lager. Down with the Shed End. I know my club has changed, but surely a man has to draw the line somewhere.
Well, surprise surprise, the club denies the whole thing, to the extent of printing in its entirety the only interview that the player has given in recent weeks, to a Russian magazine called Pro Sport.
I know we’ve had ongoing conversation on the site about the Sheva issue. We’ve discussed a change of environment, we’ve talked about World Cup hangovers, new systems, ageing legs and an expectation of more time on the ball. We saw an influential player in the Sofia game, if not exactly a fearsome one. But surely even this club, and its remarkable abundance of wealth, wouldn’t let a man like this go because of less than half a season of average performance?
Would we?
