The Guardian comment on Cuntly Pete's 'absurd' practices.
With the Guardian's Fantasy Chairman season only hours old, self-doubt has not set in for us armchair experts convinced we'd do a better job than the real-life bigwigs. But one question nags even the super-confident. Could you, in all honesty, discharge your duties with the unique flair of Peter Kenyon?
The second the Chelsea chief executive decided to cement his reputation as football's Renaissance man by joining in the tedious managerial sniping that consumes Messrs Ferguson, Wenger and Mourinho, did you not once again wonder whether £1.5m a year was not an insulting pay packet for a chap of his undeniable talent and charm?
It takes a rare talent to have so little, bar the odd stonking fine, to show for the various furores caused by these hunting expeditions, and not for the first time when contemplating Kenyon, one is reminded of the hapless Elmer Fudd. Bugs Bunny's would-be nemesis is destined never to get his man but cartoons are a brutal world and in real life the pity eventually creeps in. In this spirit I do hope for Peter's sake that he manages to pull off the purchase of Michael Essien from Lyon.
Those who lost interest in the outcome sometime during this saga's mid-Mesozoic period may have missed the Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas's description of Kenyon's attempts to sign the Ghanaian international. But, if they are to be believed, his business style has taken on the flavour of a caper to such a degree that, if he does not land Essien, he may well be driven to some kind of Inspector Dreyfus-like breakdown.
Given that it is not Aulas who spent last season making wildly misleading statements about potential transfers, let us grant him the benefit of the doubt here. According to his amusingly scathing account, the Chelsea chief executive scorned making an initial offer for Essien, forcing a bemused Aulas to explain standard procedure. Later Aulas is summoned to a St Tropez meeting - "a parody of a discussion", in his words - with Kenyon and Roman Abramovich, to which the latter mysteriously never shows up.
But it is an incident on July 28 in Lyon that shows how original the business style we might call "Kenyon's Way" really is. "Without forewarning," reports Aulas, "[Kenyon] made it known he could be found in the restaurant opposite the club . . ." Odd that Peter should go about a multi-million pound deal in the same way EastEnders' Phil Mitchell might let some other Albert Square resident know he is in the market for their dodgy motor - "I'm in the caff over the road and I want a word" - particularly given that his run of bad luck with restaurant-based meetings hardly makes such locations the equivalent of donning his lucky pulling pants.
Whatever the outcome, one sadly missed opportunity means the saga will never attain the true heights of absurdity it deserved. Negotiations stalled while Essien was playing in the Peace Cup in South Korea. We can only fantasise about what might have happened had Peter attempted to remedy this by flying out to the cult-sponsored event and doubtless receiving an invitation to the persuasive Reverend Moon's box.
Elmer Fudd's defining characteristic is, of course, his excessive gullibility . . . But no. There's no point dreaming.