Robert De Nirov

There’s something about Fabio Capello that reminds me of Robert De Niro, and it’s not just the Italian connection. For a start, both men are household names, and legends in their respective fields. Each has also been accused of selling out spectacularly in the twilight of his years, with both electing to cash in late by taking up roles that are very highly paid and a tad…erm…suspect.

Was a time when I would make it a point to watch every De Niro movie I heard of. The mere presence of his name on a cast list was a gold stamp of affirmation, inviting you to delight in classic flicks like ‘The Godfather 2’, ‘Cape Fear’, ‘The Deer Hunter’, ‘Raging Bull’, ‘We’re No Angels’ etc etc etc. Nowadays, however, I see his name and think ‘meh’. ‘Men of Honour’ might well have been his last decent appearance on the silver screen, if not his swansong. Then came horrors like ‘Meet The Fockers’, and rom com shockers like ‘The Big Wedding’, or critically panned offerings such as ‘Hide and Seek’. 

My skin crawled when I recently read that he was uniting with Stallone to star in ‘Grudge Match’. Seriously, what the…? Jake La Motta meets Rocky Balboa? In 2014?! Stallone recently declared how hesitant he was to star in this movie, until a call from De Niro made him change his mind. What? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?! No, it was De Niro who changed Stallone’s mind to act in a dodgy movie because ‘we’ll have a good time.’

As disillusioned as this makes me feel, it is not impossible to understand. Nowadays Bobby De Niro is reported to command 20 million bucks a movie, with backenders worth 20% of earnings. Good on him I say, and who are we to call him a sell out? When it comes to money for jam, let every dog lick their own balls (as the Spaniards so eloquently put it). At the end of the day we’ve all got bills to pay, and in this age of extreme financial uncertainty, you could burn a million in the blink of an eye.

 

 

Which brings us to Fabio Capello. The old tactician is presently on a cool 11.5-ish million bucks a year to coach Russia, making him the highest paid national team manager on the planet. This is almost twice the income of second highest earning national gaffer, England’s Roy Hodgson, presently on a yearly paycheck just short of 6 million bucks. Both managers are doing very well when you consider that their teams didn’t make it out of the world cup’s group stage.

Of course, public knowledge of these figures only fuels the national outrage when the teams managed by these coaches fail to deliver. Russia crashed out of Brazil ‘14 almost a fortnight ago, but tempers are still boiling over at the team’s performances. Just today, a small band of fans gathered outside the Russian Football Headquarters and hurled condoms filled with water at the building, whilst calling for the President of the Russian Football Union to do something very naughty to himself.

This latest protest follows hot on the heels of a recent rant by Russian right wing politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky (‘Zhiri’), who called on the Duma’s committee on sport to summon Capello to publicly answer for Russia’s poor showing in Brazil:

'We need to look into his work and ask him to resign. But he’s greedy, so of course he won’t. It’s pretty good to get millions for doing nothing. The team lost and it doesn’t affect his pay in any way. Thief!'

This may sound a bit hypocritical coming from ‘Zhiri’, especially since a number of his pre-election promises - such as providing all Russians with free vodka and underwear (?!) - have not yet materialised. His accusations have been received lightly overseas, where ‘Zhiri’ is perceived as a bit of a bad joke, with his latest antics including an open threat to have his aides rape a pregnant journalist, and publicly spitting at political opponents.

Yet people forget that Russia is not the rest of the world, and that ‘Zhiri’ is also suspected of being a secret servant of the Kremlin, who use his radical outbursts to test populist sentiment on a number of puerile issues, just to see if any political mileage can be made out of them by HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED. And although the word is that Capello is ready to stand in the dock to save his handsome kitty, he should be careful. The rage of the man in the street shows no sign of abating as Russia’s politicians perform an open post-mortem of their world cup exit. An already disillusioned public is only getting angrier that their side were a bit rubbish, since they can’t avoid the feeling that Capello is a bit of a, well, a gold digger.

Fabio Capello does not look like your usual gold digger. His jaw is that of a Renaissance Habsburg, and his face is more wrinkled than a retired cavalryman’s bottom. At 68 he does not seem to possess a single silver hair, which is dyed so strongly that it looks like a large slab of chocolate fudge fell onto his head. This is not to mention the steely stare of a demented serial killer, which is hardly softened by a pair of black-rimmed square spectacles, and which cannot help but remind you of Francis Dolarhyde in ‘Red Dragon’. All in all, an appearance which has not gone unnoticed by the right wing buffoon of Zhiri:

‘Even the way he looks makes it hard to like him! He looks like a schoolteacher!’

Admittedly we would all prefer it if team managers at world cups were tall and fetching blonde damsels. But instead, Brazil 2014 has served us with the likes of Pekerman and Sabella, who look like white walkers. Germany’s Joachim Low still dresses like a fresh divorcee trying to get back into the game, whilst ‘Big’ Phil Scolari resembles a butcher with a crazed glint in his eye, who is itching for the cameras to be turned off so that he can deck someone. I could go on and on, but what is certain is that national team managers are not paid for their looks.

Zhiri’s fellow MP Oleg Pakholkov is also convinced that Capello is only on the Russian bench to make a financial killing:

‘I think Capello knew very well he would achieve nothing with our team, but he simply decided it was a good way to make money, he wanted to hoover up bundles of cash for his retirement’

 

Of course the other implication to be had from this accusation is that even Capello’s accusers know that the national side is rubbish, even though they are asking Don Fabio to explain how he intends to turn a team of donkeys into racehorses. The Russian politicians also want Capello to understand that he is not the nation’s ‘little bit on the side’, and that he is being paid to exceed the feats of other national team managers whose salaries are dwarfed by his, even though their sides reached the knockout rounds.

As a long-time admirer of the Italian, I find it hard to believe the rough patch he has found himself in. His cause was hardly helped earlier this year, when he called up the wrong player, Andrey Semyonov, to a friendly with Armenia. But in his current role Capello must be having more trouble overcoming suffixes than managing his players. A recent team-sheet of his read: Kannunikov, Kerzhakov, Shatov (not joking either – and no, he’s not a central defender), Kozlov, Kombarov, Denisov, Glushakov – reading that lineup alone must leave Capello’s head spinning, and even I’m sortov struggling to tell who’s who!

It's days like these when Capello must miss the majestic cauldrons of San Siro and the Bernabeu, where he once reigned supreme over mouth-watering world talent. Which is not to mention his dominance at the Delle Alpi, and the days when he was lauded as the Emperor of Rome, after leading perennial runners-up AS Roma to the Serie A title. Moscow must be a lonely place for him at times, and with him being constantly held up as a model family man devoted to his wife, it’s not even as if he can head out on the town when things are stressful to help himself to a few slappers and knock back the bubbly. In short, it’s not exactly a case of money for nothing and chicks for free. How he must yawn with boredom!

Yet Russia’s latest failure to qualify from the group stage has suddenly made life difficult for him, worse than when his England crashed out of World Cup 2010. Which also begs the question: why did the Russians spend so much money on him in the first place, when Capello’s England adventure clearly demonstrated that even the best manager in the world cannot achieve much if he does not have the right tools at his disposal? One wonders why the money was not spent to further develop grass roots football in the country instead.

 

But if Capello is indeed thrown out, and manages to flee Russia with his life, he will be relieved to pocket 15 million USD in compensation. This would in turn permit him a comfortable Sabbatical, during which he can get hired by a Gulf State or perhaps even join his compatriot Marcello Lippi in China. Believe it or not, he might even fancy his chances of securing a greater salary, since Don Fabio is only the fifth highest paid manager in the world, after Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger (also in the 11 mill region), Lippi (13.8 mill), Jose Mourinho (13.93 mill), and – wait for it – Pep Guardiola (24.63 mill). Ah! No wonder Pep learnt German so fast!!!

Football has certainly become a big bad business full of bigger bucks. And it cannot be disputed that a manager’s job is highly stressful. Yet if clubs and countries keep on shelling out this kind of money to hire a manager, one wonders how long it will be before Hollywood stars start turning their heads in envy towards the gaffer’s dugout.