Just what do the footballing public in southern Europe think about the issue of Cesc, his contract, and the fact that Barca are nowhere near as financially sound as the world makes out.
We sent out intrepid report Walter Broeckx to Spain, to keep us up to date on how football appears in such foreign lands.
Here’s his report, just in.
Hi Tony,
If you see some strange things in ñy mail just notice I am typing on another keyboard and with all kind of funny things like “ñ” on it in places where I normally have other letters. Hope you can understand.
I managed to get hold of a computer as my son has launched the new Arsenal Benelux website and I had to take a look. The new site looks great but just couldn’t resist to send you a ñail.
Just to inform you a bit about the crazy world I have found myself in. For in Spain this is “Cesc is coming home” this week. ñ!
I am getting out a bit, although unfortunately on the first day I fell asleep in the sun and I look as red as the new home shirt is. But when I do go out I see the tabloids and every one of them has the same headline. In fact you cannot miss it: they are are all talking about Cesc. There’s a bit about Contador the bloke that won the Tour de France, but for most of the newspaper it is Cesc, Cesc and yes Cesc. ñ ñ ñ ñ!!!
If those journalists are paid by the number of times they mention him they are all multi-millionaires.
Yesterday the headline was : The five year contract for Cesc is ready. He will get 7 million euros a year. In fact all that is missing is his signature. And oh yes just the fact that it all depends on the goodwill of some club in North London who already have a 5 year contract with Cesc but who really should understand that if “we” want Cesc to come back home, he should be released by Arsenal. Oh and the moment Arsenal agree with selling Cesc, it will only take Cesc a fez minutes to sign on the dotted line. Because legally and morally he is ours.
¿Offering a 5 year deal to a player who is still under a 5 year deal with another club, isn’t this tapping up¿¿¿¿¿¿ But then again we should keep in mind that this is a tabloid offering Cesc a contract. ¿ñ¿?¿ñ!
Oh and today headline is talking about Barceloanus people flying to London to talk with Arsenal today (yes today, not yesterday ¿ñ¿?¿ñ! to finalize the transfer this week. Now this is something new. This is the sañe thing I heard just last week. So I think we can conclude that this is just another reprinting of the same story each week at the start of the week! ¿ñ¿?¿ñ!
Now I must admit that I don’t speak fluent Spànish or Catalunian but I can read a bit and I can understand it a bit. My wife who knows a bit of the Spanish language confirmed what I just summarized as being in the headline and articles.
¿ñ¿?¿ñ!
Out on the streets, I am wearing an Arsenal cap to prevent ñy brains getting boiled, and in the shop people are urging me to let Cesc come home¿ñ¿?¿ñ! As I am well educated I don’t show them any fingers in certain positions but I tell them to leave our player alone as he has just signed a contract which holds him at Arsenal for another 5 years and that they are behaving in a disgraceful way and are an embarrassment to their club and country and to the letters ñ à and the upside down question mark ¿
And as their English is mostly as bad as my Spanish I leave them with something to think about¿
Well this is it for the moment but I will try to keep an eye on the Spanish crazypapers, (you cannot call them ‘news’papers) and let you know. Now I am staying out of the sun for a few hours on the hottest time of the day I can have a look on the internet and read ñy mails a bit¿
Sorry for the typing errors but I also haven’t got my reading glasses on so it all is getting a bit dark before my eyes for the moñent.
Greetings from your Gooner in Catalunya, in plain English also known as [word edited out in the interests of decency and good taste¿]
Walter Broeckx
Arsenalisation – the next step: the statues of our three great heroes¿
This season’s team: the defence¿
Even more untold than you can shake a stick at¿
Great post!!
loooooooool fabrigas he is barcelona player loool
lool arsenal am happy to see fabrigas in barcelona kkkkk kakakakaka
lol at ‘cant resist to send you a nail’
sorry to be saying this again , but this blog i very poor , love being a goon but hate seeing crap like this being put up , if ya dont have anything factual to say then dont , stop talking crap
Funny writeup Walter, get em told!
The question that is driving me mad is why oh why are Barca so desperate for cesc? He is a great great player and would make a difference to any team but why this desperate? After all you can probably snap up ozil for about £10millionI just cant understand the logic
wow, wats up wit robbie keane’s bro??!! cant be arsed to explain to nincompoops anymore, not worth the mental energy. factual????!!! u serious!!!!???. not long now anywho, cant w8 4pool. rvp will score 2, shavin-2, champz-1, cesc-0 cos he’s off aint he!
gooner80- its cos real mad rip the piss out of em at every opportunity for letting one of the good one slip thru the net. plus when xavi or incesta retires the only like for like replacement is cesc. ozil is class but he’s no cesc.
amazing post!! loved it!
@alan keane
Can’t see what you are moaning about. This article doesn’t claim to be factual, it is just an attempt to show how Cesc mania has taken over Spain and the huge pressure and momentum that is growing over there for a move. Sometimes little articles like this are a nice relief from the so called ‘factual’ articles you crave for. By the way I haven’t seen a factual article about Arsenal in two months, anywhere!
these website is very poor, not well informing or it lacks facts. cesc is staying put
My theory is that they want to finish the deal quick, because the longer they wait, the stronger Arsenal grows. Moving from Arsenal to Barca might not be as lucrative in the future, as Barca’s economy doesn’t look too good. If we can hold on to him for another season or two, then maybe we can persuade him that Arsenal is a better place to be. But the team needs to show improvements this season. I can understand if Cesc is getting fed up.
@ak47
yeah I understand that but they are pursuing at a ridiculous level, maybe its cause they know cesc is quite happy at arsenal, I have been looking at cesc and xavi and I think cesc plays different.xavi is a midfielder and cesc is an attacking midfielder
i still dont really get how much they are courting a player with a 8 year contract when they dont really need him, surely ozil would be a very decent stop gap
Honestly, if it were his “dream from childhood to return” or some such, why would he just have signed that extension with Arsenal? Normally, signing a contract extension is the final word on transfer speculation, particularly an unprecedentedly rich deal. Normally, giving a player the captain’s armband and his accepting it is a reaffirmation of his commitment (did you notice that TV5 captained the side for those first friendlies?) to the club where he is under contract.
And of course, normally, playing off the bench for your national team behind three central midfielders who all happen to be at the same club is an indication of what your role would be at that club…
I think it’s asking too much of a player to demand that they stay “for life”, especially with Arsenal’s short-term deals for players over 30 (which I think is a perfectly sensible policy), but I don’t see this transfer happening this summer. The naysayers then say, “well then we only have him on loan for one more year”. Let’s make the most of the year, then, win some trophies, and cross that bridge when we come to it.
These naysayers must not be able to reproduce — any time they take someone on a date, they say, how can I know you’ll stay with me for life? and boo her when she gets up to use the restroom — so hopefully these message boards will be less cluttered with pronouncements of doom a generation from now.
The papers in Spain sales only when the headlines is on Cesc hence, they have to write about him even if its means repeating everyday. Leave Cesc alone or u can exchange him with Messi if u are so desperate. Loooooool
Best post 4 a long time, don’t mind u going “spanish” and re-post at the start of every week m8 🙂
Tony have you seen this dribble Daily Mail are printing
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1297855/New-25-man-Premier-League-squad-rule-big-earners-sitting-out.html
About the new 25th rule!!!!! There stating arsenal will be in some trouble if Sol doesn’t sign. What a load of garbage
Hey walter while your over there walk around with xavi’s name and number oN the back of a arsenal shirt
Maybe we could do a straight swap fab for xavi haha!
I am now resigned to the fact that there is a small number of people who don’t quite get the fact that part of the “Untoldness” of Untold is that we do humour. It might not be to everyone’s taste, and it might be childish to some, but humour is on the agenda of this site.
I also changed the banner headline a while back to incorporate a comment that a reader kindly made about Untold – the bit to the right of the photo.
But some readers like to take it seriously, and in a sense I think that adds to the humour.
On occasion I have even tried putting a note up saying “contains irony” or whatever, but that hasn’t worked.
But to be clear – Walter certainly is in Spain, and the Cesc mania there is as he says.
Next up: its Billy the Dog in Austria.
plz fabri we love u so much. don’t leave us
My interpetation of the cesc saga is as follows…..
Barceloanus are already up to their eyeballs in unmanageable debt until if and when they get a loan from the bank for 150 mil if they havent got it already Tony??
If their in this position after having won every cup available to them in the last two yrs and with mourhinio(sp) at RM its very likely they wont have the same success as last yr which means allot less revenue and their money woes amplified by forking out even more money with villa and the likes on the payroll aswell.I think they realise and are trying desperatly to sign him but the way their going about trying to sign cesc isnt true to who he is and im sure hes positivley embarrassed by their carry on but id put a wager on it and say hes going to have an amazing season this yr and they wont be able to afford him next season.With a recession due in spain any day now I can see spanish football going down the drain even after being wc champions,90 percent of footballers are mercenerys and they will go where the money is,Spanish football in any case is like a battle between apple and google,totally monopolised and the only match worth watching is real vs barcaloanus.Why would any fan go to the same matchs getting a drubbing from the top two teams every season.We have already won the moral battle and I really hope wengers “KIDS” FULFILL WENGERS VISION THIS SEASON WITH GUTS AND TOTAL FOOTBALL AND TAKE HOME SOME SILVERWARE.
Good article… shame a few don’t really get it. The tabloid papers don’t report news anymore – they simply sell themselves – same in Spain, same in Italy, same in the UK. They are more like comics – The Beano for ‘adults’.
It’s perfectly clear to anyone with an ounce of nous that Barca have failed in their desperate attempt to crowbar him from Arsenal and what remains is pride, face saving and explotation from all concerned. This farce and the way Arsenal are being painted as the villians is reminicent of my two young children fighting over the same toy – one discarded it, the other picked it up and found a really good game to play with it and suddenly the other wants it back, tries to snatch, shouts ‘not fair’ and sulks.
Boo hoo Barca – please someone send them to the naughty step so they might learn from this!
As soon as Joe Cole signed for Liverpool I, and many others, knew Fabregas would stay.
Think about it.
Lovely Walter!
“…an embarrassment to their club and country and to the letters ñ à and the upside down question mark ¿” – love it!
Hey just wanted to ask Barca one question…
There were so many young players with Barca and Cesc was just one of them. Why dont they buy all those who trained and played with Cesc in Barca. I am pretty sure that half of them would like to be signed by Barca(Like Merida).
Its just that Cesc has become successful that Barca remembers their children. How about the other orphans playing in other clubs with a Barca DNA. You dont get a better example of glory hunters.
gr8 post!!
Loved it!!
i must say i’ve lost respect for barca
My current blocked publication on my NOTW feeder is now a staggering 30. They can rot alongside ANR and LeGroan (who are permanently on it since the very beginning).
Too tired reading about B-tard now.
Brilliant post Walter. I can’t wait for Billy’s Austria report.
Tony, great report. I do speak the spanish lingo. Sport.es (Barcelonaus pro website and newspaper) claim that Fab is at present in the greek islands enjoying the end of his holidays. He is aparently recharging his baterries to confront Le Boss on Thursday (10am precisely)in his office and inform him that he is anoyed at him for lying. Sport and the Barcelonaus reports claim that Le Boss told him prior to the world cup that he would help him move out of Arsenal if that was his wish. Now Fab is angry that he has made a complete U turn. According to the report they also claim that Barcelonaus will send a team to London on Friday to try to negociate the move.
On a more factual note. Sport.es claims that Barca have reported a loss of £77.1million a bit of a difference from the gain of £11.1 million sugested by the outgoing board. In total Barca are now £552million in debt. All is not beautiful and rosey in the Kingdom of Barca.
I feel a bit sorry for those who didn’t see the humour in the article. And my God, Cesc the weather in London is far better than this hot summer in Catalunia. 😉
This is all toooooooooo hot for me. I haven’t got the right DNA I think. 🙂 I haven’t checked the newspapers today but Damian did, but maybe later this evening I can come up with another report on the maddness going on over here.
To Damian point, barca now stating loss at $77mil vs. Previously stating profit $11mil. I wonder how many other crooks did that in that the world of football. Isn’t there a law against it. Kinda make wonder about the Totenham article, what if another indepndent auditor take a look their book, will it be as Rosey as it is. But at the flip side I also wonder whether Rossel trying to crash the base so it’s easier for him to claim success. Crazy world of football. Make me value Wenger even much more.
Walter, thank you very much for your well reported article it is clear to see that you were arduous in gathering these details for us and it was a welcome break from the non-sensical drivel that has been produced by other sites and news organisations.
To those who have complained and Walter’s humourous derision of Barcaloanus and their media conspiracy you might be wise to loosen up. Only Simon Cowell should be allowed to wear his trouser waist so high and I gather that Rossel is demanding that he too be returned to their nursery!
Let’s enjoy the fact that for once our club has stood their ground and if Cesc is here for one more season let’s enjoy it; how must our other players feeel when we moan and groan about one player this is a team sport!!!!!!