Avram Grant Fallout: Is Foreign Ownership Worth It?

Avram Grant's unceremonious sacking has left a bitter taste in many peoples' mouths. Unfortunately, this is not the first time it has happened.

The root cause of all this is Roman Abramovich—without a doubt. He was the one who brought in all the players with his money and now, he is the very man who seems to be taking Chelsea down.

When Abramovich came to the fore in 2004, Chelsea were a big team looking to consistently establish themselves in the top four. They were always tough opponents but not world beaters. He pumped in a considerable amount of money to sign the likes of Adrian Mutu, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson, Wayne Bridge and Claude Makelele.

These players cost Chelsea around 50 million pounds—a whopping amount of money spent in the span of two months. Nobody knew the man, but no-one was complaining as he was pumping in all the cash.

Then came his first "decision" that many people accepted. He sacked Claudio Ranieri at the end of the 2004-2005 season after the Italian made certain tactical blunders. But, he was already under an immense amount of pressure by then—it is possible that the pressure got to him and he made mistakes as a result of that. 

Then came the appointment of the enigmatic Jose Mourinho who proclaimed himself to be "The Special One". He had an air of arrogance, created controversies, thrived on winding other managers up and most importantly—he was a winner. The Chelsea fans took to him immediately and he bought his own players in and won a considerable amount of trophies.

His tenure lasted only three seasons—two in which he had won the Premier League. Why did he get sacked? Abramovich didn't like the type of football Chelsea were playing (and Jose Mourinho) and decided to give his wind-up toy a new key in the form of Avram Grant.

Avram Grant was an understated person and was hated by many of the Chelsea fans due to no fault of his own. When he took over, Chelsea languished in mid-table and were in turmoil. He turned things around and Chelsea finished runners-up in the Premier League, Champions League and Carling Cup. This, for any team was by no means a failure—except Chelsea. Grant has been sacked after being in-charge for eight months.

Abramovich wants to win—and win at all costs. He doesn't care if Chelsea win in a penalty shoot-out or with an own goal.

That's when instability is created in a team. Nobody can keep on winning forever—as Roger Federer has proved. Teams will have barren spells. Manchester United didn't win a thing for three years and look where they are now.

Unfortunately, foreign owners are unrealistic. Just look at Manchester City, where Eriksson has done a fabulous job of turning a relegation threatened team into UEFA Cup qualifiers (albeit through the Fair Play League).

What is his reward? He is going to get sacked by the former Thai Prime Minister—Thaksin Shinawatra.

Liverpool have been in turmoil almost all through the year. Many people have hailed the signing of Fernando Torres but few know that Liverpool made out a loan of 26 million pounds to bankroll his signature. Their co-owners, Hicks and Gillett nearly sacked Benitez in a pathetic way by going behind his back and by trying to appoint Klinsmann. Hicks and Gillett can't even look at each other and yet all the decisions off the pitch have to be taken by both of them.

How can a football club function with these kind of imbeciles in-charge?

Football teams need to have stability on and off the pitch. Only Manchester United have shown that they can succeed with the foreign owners—in my opinion, they have been very lucky to have owners like the Glazer family but they are not exactly stable as they do have a huge amount of debt to repay. Therefore being consistent every season is imperative for them.

It is difficult for any manager to come in and win straight away. Only Mourinho did that and he is a great manager. It has been proven that stability is the only way that a team can succeed. Managers should not be sacked just because the owners feel that their teams have under-achieved. It is not fair to the managers, fans or the players.

Foreign ownership has only brought money into the game. We all know that money can't buy everything. The likes of Abramovich and Shinawatra are better off investing their money somewhere else where they can get more monetary rewards.

It is hard enough to win titles with the kind of competition on the field but, if a manager is fighting against the very people who own his team—his job becomes untenable.

The ultimate losers are the teams themselves. When we allow oligarchs and suspicious characters to own our teams, we set ourselves up only for a short term success and long term instability.

I feel sorry for the likes of Mourinho, Grant and even Rafael Benitez as they have/are all "fought/fighting" with their owners before even "fighting" on the pitch.

Abramovich's next move is unclear. But we all know what he will do to Grant's successor if Chelsea finish anywhere other than first position again.