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Andrey Arshavin: press is destroying England team's hopes
of World Cup
By Matthew Syed
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Face value: Arshavin, whose upbringing in
St Petersburg was steeped in want, insists that a professional footballer's
lifestyle is nothing of which to be ashamed. Photo timesonline.co.uk
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Andrey Arshavin is a surprisingly versatile chap. On Tuesday
he was running rings around opposition defenders at the Emirates Stadium
en route to a 5-0 thrashing of Porto, on Wednesday he accompanied his
wife to the Royal Opera House to watch Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet
and on Thursday he turned his hand to table tennis, basketball, hockey
and judo as part of the Arsenal in the Community programme.
But perhaps the most surprising thing of all was an interview in which
the Russian gave both barrels to those who regard the world of football
as a place of terrible excess. He proclaimed that footballers deserve
to earn tens of thousands of pounds a week, that they have a perfect right
to spend their money on what they like, that they are entitled to a private
life, just like anyone else, and that the voraciousness of the British
press is likely to obliterate England's chances of winning the World Cup.
After weeks of being sermonised to on everything from excessive earnings
to excessive promiscuity, it would appear that the backlash starts here.
"If you are not involved in professional football, it is easy to
say it is crazy that we get paid so much for just kicking a ball around
a pitch," Arshavin says. "But I say to the critics, 'Put on
some boots, take a shot and show us something.' If you think it is easy,
come and have a go.
"It is not our fault we earn big money. We should not be made to
feel like criminals. If the clubs pay us, it is because they know that
they will earn more money because we are there. Sometimes I get it in
the neck from other sportsmen. You know, an Olympic champion skier will
complain that he is earning half as much as a footballer who is only rated
30th in the world.
"But what can we do? Football is the best and most competitive sport
in the world. Sometimes it is better to be the tenth best player in the
biggest sport than the very best in a smaller sport. Football pays well
because everyone is interested in our game."
What about the wider question of footballers using their elevated status
and earning power to act as role models for a younger generation, as Fabio
Capello urged last week? Do professional footballers see this as a reasonable
demand?
"All through my career I have heard people say, 'You must set an
example. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't swear, otherwise the children
will copy you,' " he says. "They want you to be like a monk.
But this is impossible. Everybody has a right to live in the way they
want to. That is what it is to be human.
"Of course, I understand we have responsibilities. But it is no good
doing something because you are scared of what people will say. You should
do it because that is what you want to do. The problem is not fame and
money, because if you have a good education and good parents, these things
will not corrupt you. It is about having the right values."
Given the amount of interest in football, is it inevitable that the press
and public will be interested not merely in what happens on the pitch,
but what happens beyond? "Of course, it's normal that people are
interested, but in England you are killing the national team with the
level of intrusion," he says. "You are doing this to the team
[he stamps his foot on the floor]. Everyone wants England to become world
champions, but you are destroying them at the same time. Give it a few
more weeks and they will put a camera in a footballer's pants in order
to get a story. I think you should leave your stars alone and give them
the freedom to be human."
Arshavin is a rather remarkable chap, not just for his outspokenness,
but also for his philosophical consistency. He has worked hard to make
it to the top, has worked even harder to stay there and he does not want
to be made to feel guilty for living life the way he sees fit. When I
put it to him that many fans feel alienated from footballers who have
homes around the world, own multiple sports cars and order Cristal champagne
at ?500 a bottle, he shrugs his shoulders. "That is nothing to be
ashamed of," he says. "It is what I would call a good life.
It is the life many people want to live."
Perhaps Arshavin's unapologetic stance is a consequence of a childhood
steeped in want. He grew up in communist Russia, sleeping on the floor
in a small apartment in his home city of Leningrad (now St Petersburg).
His parents divorced when he was 10, and his father - a keen footballer
who never made it into the professional leagues - died when Arshavin was
20. "It is really difficult to think that he was not alive to see
what I have achieved in football," he says. "I don't think he
would have believed that I could made it into the top league in the world."
Arsenal's march into the quarter- finals of the Champions League coincides
with a strong challenge for the Barclays Premier League, despite what
Arsene Wenger perceives as a deliberate attempt by opposition teams to
kick his team into oblivion. I ask Arshavin - who is nicknamed "the
Meerkat" by team-mates because his voice sounds like that of the
puppet in the television adverts - if he concurs with Wenger's perception.
"Of course we are kicked more than other teams, which is why we need
more protection from the referee," he says. "They should be
given an instruction from the FA to prevent it happening. Good football
should be encouraged because that is what everyone wants to see. We don't
want a situation where everyone is playing like Stoke City or Wigan."
Earlier in the afternoon Arshavin had spent an hour with the Arsenal community
programme. In a partnership with the Premier League, the club - who have
a proud track record of working with local schools - offer young people
the chance to get involved with sports such as table tennis, volleyball
and hockey. "I enjoyed it," Arshavin says. "Actually my
best thing outside football when I was growing up was draughts, where
I got to a quite good level. I sometimes play for fun in my spare time."
Do you enjoy draughts as much as the ballet? "I prefer the ballet,"
he says. "In my home town of St Petersburg is the world famous Mariinsky
Theatre and Russian ballet is probably the best in the world. I sometimes
go to the Royal Opera House in London with Samir Nasri, whose Russian
girlfriend has a good connection with my wife, and I have also gone with
Bacary [Sagna].
"To be honest with you, when I watched Romeo and Juliet on Wednesday
night, I was so tired from the match that I slept during the first half.
But then I woke up - and the performances were fantastic."
Timesonline.co.uk,
March 13, 2010
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