The last time I talked about my project, I realized that some of you might not have the keen interest in football, or the interest extends only as far as the international match-ups or the World Cup. Accordingly, I would like to give you some background information on my project before we begin today.
The premier league is one of the three finest football leagues in the world, with the other two being Italy's Serie A, and Spain's Primera Liga. The football team that I have chosen to talk about, is called Chelsea. It is a club based in London, and is a club among the 22 football clubs in the English premier league. There are 25 big and small professional clubs in London alone, with Arsenal being the most famous. Chelsea has not won the league ever since 1956, and its performances have really been disappointing recently, but everyone expects marvels to happen for this team this season. Already, they are second in the league by only a point, and although it is too soon to guess anything extravagant, many have high hopes for this team.
So what drastic change has occured to Chelsea?.
Some of you may have heard that Real Madrid, a vastly rich team in the Spanish Liga, had purchased an English player called David Beckham in July this year, following reported disputes between the player and Manchester united's manager Alex Ferguson. The transfer fee was 40 million pounds. Many fans were divided as to whether Beckham is really worth that amount of money. Which would be true if Beckham was as good a football player as he is a handsome one. .
Chelsea, however, spent 115 million pounds on purchasing players in the off season, buying up the most prolific players in the world. The new owner since July, a Russian oil billionaire called Roman Abramovich, was reported as saying that he had bought the club "as a hobby." He, then, seemingly raked some change from in his pockets for his expensive hobby and entered the season a very strong candidate to win the league.