SHYEAH RIGHT!

From The Times:

Having gone to great lengths to ensure that Peter Kenyon remained out of football’s front line until the end of the January transfer window, Manchester United will still rue the timing of their former chief executive’s official arrival at Chelsea.

Kenyon, lured from Old Trafford by Roman Abramovich this season, took over this week after an extended period of gardening leave and stepped into the limelight once more with a brief to turn Chelsea into a greater international force in football than United.

Just as his old employers are fighting an onslaught of negative publicity about their corporate governance, amid allegations of improper transfer dealings from their own shareholders, Kenyon’s star is in the ascendancy at a club with substantial financial backing.

Kenyon is being hailed as the marketing expert capable of eclipsing United as the biggest brand in English — if not global — football.

“It’s very important to be a successful business,” Bruce Buck, chairman of Chelsea Village, the club’s parent company, told Chelsea TV. “Manchester United have a very good brand that is reasonably well recognised around the world and we think that we can do that — or better — largely because we’re a London club.

“With his (Kenyon’s) background as chief executive at Umbro and chief executive at Manchester United, he can achieve something in the marketing and branding areas that maybe hasn’t been seen before on this side of the Atlantic.”