ARNESEN AND BUCK

By dixon9
November 8 2008

Frank Arnesen has almost been a slightly mysterious figure for some Chelsea fans – never seen and hardly ever heard from. The Dane now provides his first detailed interview since his appointment at Stamford Bridge 4 years ago. Thanks to a Danish fan who has kindly translated most of the interview, we get some confirmation on his responsibilities – past and future - and his influence at Chelsea.

Move from Spurs

Arnesen says his move to Chelsea was 'done and dusted' before the famous yacht photo surfaced. He'd spoken to Levy extensively and they were just hashing out the final details of the switch, when Levy pounced on the yacht photo and used it to strong-arm Chelsea into paying more money. Not only that. While officially on gardening leave, Arnesen was still attending meetings and working for Tottenham right up until he started working for Chelsea.

First Responsibilities 

Firstly, Arnesen says he was limited to overseeing youth scouting and development in his first year at Chelsea. But as things developed, Roman thought it was a bit daft to limit Arnesen's scouting to U19 prospects, so Roman told him to take charge of first team scouting as well. This happened in the summer of 2006 and would explain why Jose seemed to feel threatened at the time.

Structural Development at Chelsea 

"Today I've got about 1000 players in my database. This has happened since we started the program 2 years ago. We are improving our systems all the time and I've taken inspiration from the way they do statistics in US baseball. You have to keep developing because in modern football it's important to maintain first-mover advantage off the pitch.” 

"In my first year at Chelsea I didn't attend one board meeting. Because there weren’t any. Roman held his meetings with Mourinho or with Kenyon. But then Roman began to take an interest in the club's structure, so I asked him why on earth he wasn't holding meetings where people could share their expertise, experience and ideas? That's the kind of culture I came from in Holland and that's the kind of culture I wanted to help build up at Chelsea” 

“So we began having meetings with specific agendas, where people were allowed to take the floor and where everybody had to follow up on what had been agreed. Only in this way could we build a dynamic and sustainable football culture that wasn't dependant on any one person.” 

"You could say we're in the process of building a new, modern Chelsea up from scratch. And it's a bit absurd that it should be as difficult as it has proven to be. Because it's quite basic knowledge that in any business culture, if you want to build something up, you have to communicate across departments to fully utilize the sum of knowledge and experience in the company. In this respect too many football clubs are years behind - even though we are talking about businesses worth hundreds of millions of pounds. But this will change. The era of autocratic football managers who don't take an interest in all the other aspects of the club will soon be history.” 

Roman Abramovich outside the Cobham complex which includes the academy

The Academy 

"The cohesion and history of the club are important. We sometimes have our kids eat with the first team and we hang portraits of former Chelsea stars where 100s of youngsters and their parents attend training. This is to impress on them that Chelsea has a past, a present and a future.” 

“Football may have become a big-money industry, but if your heart's not in it then it's meaningless. That's why our kids live with local families so they've got someone to come home to. We don't just park them at a college where they have to fend for themselves. We talk to them about their school, about their diet, about being young, about pressure. Because even though this is a business, we are dealing with human beings and you have to treat people right and prepare them for a future that doesn't necessarily include professional football."

“I've had to walk the line of course, but I try to learn from my mistakes and I tell my scouts that their integrity and the integrity of the club is all-important. We have to keep our promises so it's better to promise too little than too much. Especially when you're sitting down to talk with a young man who is dreaming of a future in football.”

(Continue to Part 2)

http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/main/s379/st135904.htm