IT SAYS a lot for being in charge of a Premier League team when a noticeboard, signed by Frank Lampard, reads that Chelsea players will be fined £20,000 for being late for training.
It screams “I’m in charge. Don’t mess with me or my assistants”.
2
2
Also “You’re paid extremely well, so I have to make a hole in your wage packet or you’ll take very little notice”.
And respect the rules, because in the end they are for the good of the team. Neither does it matter whether you are a star or a squad man, the penalties are no different.
I use the plural because the notice has a dozen fines, right down to “Reporting in the wrong attire/kit for Team Travel and Match day” which will cost an offender £1,000.
I like the idea of a £5,000 fine for a player who refuses or fails to turn up at “corporate/community duties”.
Yes, I’ve heard plenty of excuses, from a bad cough to a granny’s funeral. Just how many grannies can a footballer have?
Lampard went to a public school and it shows. I can just imagine a warning sheet of this nature appearing on message boards in the quad and assembly room.
There’s no messing with Frankie, either. If a fine is not paid in 14 days it will be doubled.
Can you just imagine what Chopper Harris, Norman ‘Bite yer legs’ Hunter or the charming Roy Keane would have made of that?
Mayhem. I wonder how much the leaker of Frank’s fines will be fined if he’s caught? Possibly a good kicking!
RULES ARE RULES
Another rule is no eating within an hour of training — and no agents to visit training sessions unless they do so in an official capacity.
As for family/guests at training, only with permission from the manager 24 hours beforehand.
All major clubs have similar systems, although not necessarily produced by a Latin scholar and rule-stickler like Lampard, who was certainly no pussy-footer on the pitch, numbering 59 bookings and two sendings off in the Prem.
Times change. It used to be that players were fined £50 for not wearing flip-flops in the shower — but I guess these days there are greater dangers than verrucas.
It’s a tradition at many clubs, including West Ham, that fines are saved for a Christmas party. Some party this must be, although not at one club I know of.
The manager left them before Christmas and kept the whole pot.
It has to be presumed Gareth Southgate didn’t check a rule book when considering what punishment fitted Raheem Sterling’s vengeful attack on Joe Gomez in the England canteen, causing a scratch under the Liverpool player’s eye.
No great crime, but it warranted some kind of sanction — and Southgate gauged it about right.
Sterling must take it like a man or gain a reputation as a whinger as much as a winger.
His 24-hour loss of perspective would not test a psychologist for long. We all have them sometimes. We all commit misdemeanours, whether you are Joey Barton or the local vicar.
Southgate is demanding sensible behaviour from his whole squad, just as Chelsea chief Lampard is. And you can’t argue with that.
