Chelsea, William Gallas and Peter Kenyon. A Premier joke.

By Garry Cook

Whatever the truth about William Gallas and his fall-out with Chelsea, there is one
thing we can be sure of: his former club are the most hypocritical petty whingers the game has ever seen.

Chelsea's issuing of a statement because it was 'important for our supporters to be made aware of the full facts regarding William Gallas and the lack of respect he showed to the fans, the manager and the club' is as hypocritical as an arsonist phoning the fire brigade on bonfire night.

The sheer regularity in which either Chelsea, chief executive Peter Kenyon or manager Jose Mourinho get into spats with UEFA/FIFA/Barcelona/Arsene Wenger/Sir Alex Ferguson/Ken Bates should be enough for the Blues to realise that silence is golden - or at least a helluva lot more peaceful.

But it is the sheer pettiness of Chelsea - and one can only presume Kenyon is behind the statement - which riles.

If you accept that revealing to fans what Gallas allegedly said is fair enough, surely you can't stomach the way Chelsea twist the knife.

Part of their statement on Gallas read: "He also failed to recognise the role Jose Mourinho and Chelsea played in helping him become a double Premiership champion for a player whose only league title prior to that had been in the French Second Division."

Why add in the bit about 'only' winning a league title previously in the French Second Division?

As well as upsetting the French Second Division (possibly) all this sentence does is highlight the fact that the bitter Blues are not in control of their emotions.

It leads to reader to think that the Blues have been scorned by Gallas, like a 15-year-old girl high on hormones who has just lost her boyfriend to the bird across the street.

No, Chelsea sitting on the moral high ground does not rest easily on the stomach.

This is the club, remember, who in recent weeks paid Manchester United £12m (plus £4m to Lyn Oslo) for Jon Obi Mikel, a player they were all but found guilty of tapping up from Lyn despite him having signed a deal with United. They denied making any contact with Mikel, even though the player stated a desire to join the Stamford Bridge after having signed with United. Strange.

The fact that they stumped up so much cash for a teenager who never played any kind of match for United is an admission of guilt as much as it is an admission of desperation to get their hands on the player.

They also, in the words of Leeds chairman Bates, 'tapped up' two Elland Road kids. When Bates labelled Chelsea 'a bunch of shysters from Siberia' they issued a statement accusing him of racism (Chelsea's Russian owner Roman Abramovich is Jewish) but nothing by way of an apology for taking two of Leeds' potential stars. Apologise? Chelsea? Are you out of your tree?

Then there was Mourinho's labelling of his own player Claude Makelele a 'slave' after he was called up for international duty with France after retiring.

Instead of asking their manager to lay off the mud slinging, Chelsea issued yet another statement labelling comments by France, their coach Raymond Domenech and Lilian Thuram "Ill-considered."

Ill-considered? Mourinho called him a slave!

The statement went on: "They (France, Domenech and Thuram) also fail to understand Jose Mourinho's comments regarding 'slavery' which were purely a metaphor to illustrate the Makelele problem, a figure of speech rather than a literal comparison with slavery as a social and political issue. As a result of their failings, deliberately inflammatory comments will only cloud a problem which is on its way to being resolved."

How dare they. How f****** dare they! If calling a black player a slave is not inflammatory, then hold my hat I'm jumping in the nearest river. I can't take any more of this.

Chelsea were riled, by the way, after Thuram had dared to criticise Mourinho's use of the world slave. Clearly Thuram should have known better!

There are countless other cases of Chelsea tapping up, arguing, bullying and defying soccer laws.

In many respects, these things are accepted as part and parcel of football. What club doesn't tap up? What manager doesn't say things which annoys another manager?

What riles about Chelsea is the way one arm complains it has been violated while the other violates in the worst possible way.

Though the Gallas problem had been simmering for a while (as early as last season, Chelsea claim) it only came to a head on the back of the Stamford Bridge club's outrageous tapping up of Arsenal full-back Ashley Cole. And they even tried to squirm there way out of that one despite granite-like evidence. They were recently fined £300,000 and had a suspended three-point deduction imposed by the Premier League.

The fact that Kenyon and Mourinho - a manager I rate, though I have grown tired of his whinging - were virtually forced to hand over Gallas in the deal that saw Cole move across London is the only piece of pleasurable most fans will take from this whole sorry story.