Mourinho’s Notebook – February 28
Down And Dirty at The Valley
There’s this little vine been doing the rounds this week. Probably best to play it without context first.
Yeah, so this couple allegedly broke into The Valley, Charlton Athletic’s home ground, and proceeded to… erm, copulate… in the centre circle. The thing went viral because sex sells, though it didn’t take a magnifying glass and a deerstalker to work out that it was probably a fake.
It was. But here’s the thing that keeps it interesting: It was actually commissioned by CHARLTON AFC THEMSELVES! The club is hiring out their grounds in a promotion over summer, where fans can book and play on the actual turf that Premier League stars once played on back when Charlton was a relevant side. The campaign is titled: ‘Score at the Valley’.
This from club chairman Mark Hassan-Ali:
“We wanted to launch our pitch hire programme with a viral that would make football fans laugh. We released some ‘CCTV’ footage earlier in the week of a young couple on the pitch in a rather amorous situation. We then decided to own up and explain that it was set up by us to launch our pitch hire campaign. The feedback has been great and we can confirm that the young couple will be attending our next home match.”
Shout out to the BBC as well. Gullible lads and lasses that they are.
Poor Parma
Things have gotten so bad for Italian Serie A side Parma that a former player has likened their situation to the sinking of the titanic. That was Alessandro Melli who said that, a man who won the Uefa Super Cup with the side in 1993. Parma also won the 1993 European Cup Winners’ Cup and the Uefa Cup in 1995 and 1999.
However the club is in such bad shape financially that they can no longer afford to play players or staff. Nobody on the pay roll has been paid for seven months, in fact. And things hit a new low when they had to postpone their home game against Udinese last weekend because they couldn’t afford to pay for stewards, electricity for the floodlights, an ambulance to be on call, and whatever else goes into the event management of a top flight football match.
Players are having to do their own laundry so that they’ll have a kit to play in. They can’t afford a bus, so everyone will just have to drive 209km in their own cars, paying for their own petrol, to play Genoa in the next game. They had offers from supporters groups that said they could raise the money for a team bus and Genoa proposed to cover hotel expenses, but club captain Alessandro Lucarelli politely declined, while thanking them for the generosity.
Parma has something close to NZ$300m in gross debt. The club is holding an auction to raise money. Gym equipment, the benches in the dressing rooms and basically anything else they can spare is going under the hammer. The offices are bare, without the money to maintain the leases on the computers and printers that they had rented. Their academy team, coached by Hernan Crespo, is only able to play thanks to Sampdoria’s owner, Massimo Ferrero, covering costs.
Here’s Crespo talking to Sky Italia:
"If you think the first team is in difficulty, just imagine what it has been like for us. We don't even have water for training. Today we had cold showers. Boys have already got ill because of it many times. We've kept training because the ground staff have done us a few favours."
That straight up sucks.
UPDATE: The Genoa game has been postponed too under threat of a player strike.
Dunkin’ It
From no money and no power, to a story that reflects the very worst of commercial tackiness. Liverpool and sponsor Dunkin’ Donuts (they don’t even spell doughnuts right!) unveiled this disaster of a campaign this week.
This tweet has since been deleted, but thanks to the wonders of screenshotting it lives on in shameful immortality. It’s the LFC logo redesigned as a Dunkin’ Donuts crest. Complete with a sloppy reimagining of the motto and a pink and orange makeover – which are silly but harmless – but they’ve also replaced the flames with iced coffee. Those flames that just happen to be there as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989.
Unsurprisingly, DDs soon apologised and canned the campaign.
DID LUIZ SUAREZ BITE ANOTHER GUY!?!?!?
Oh… nope. He did not. Never mind.