“As for Chelsea’s PR team, don’t be absurd – if anything, they played the antisemitism issue down.”

They certainly didn’t initially, they might have had a volte-face when a number of Chelsea fans objected to the sly implication that criticism of Grant’s appointment equated to anti-semitism. Martin Samuel who knows more about football than me, and certainly you, wrote about it very eloquently here.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article2577718.ece

Anyway Pini Zahavi reckons it’s not Chelsea Fans who are anti-semites, it’s all the others.
“There are no words to describe the mistreatment Avram is receiving,” Zahavi said in an interview with Israeli daily newspaper Ma’ariv.

“They are sucking his blood on a daily basis regardless of his victories and what he achieves.

“You know what, maybe if he hadn’t been Israeli or Jewish, it might have been different.

“Obviously there is some sort of anti-Semitism here, especially if one remembers who appointed him. Abramovich is not only Jewish but also Russian and Jewish. So the Chelsea fans love him, but the rest of the fans in England certainly don’t.”
According to Pini, we are all Hezbollah now, whether we like it or not.

Look Grant is a nice guy, and no-one should have to put up with the stuff you cited. Bottom line is that he wasn’t good enough, and his nationality and/or his choice of prayer book doesn’t alter this one jot.

Mike, this hardly carries the same venom as “Gaaaaaasss a Jew! Jew! Jew!” or – a favourite over in Holland – “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”

As to fighting antisemitism, I spelled it out above. He made a very public visit to Auschwitz. He spoke clearly about his father (and his mother, who was booted out of Iraq). Had he not had to endure the arseholes in the crowd and the death threats, I doubt he would have felt the need to do these things.

The 5 million is irrelevant, surely? These insane numbers are part and parcel of the Premier League these days.

As for Chelsea’s PR team, don’t be absurd – if anything, they played the antisemitism issue down.

Prenton Park and Anfield actually, but I’d never claim religiously, which is kind of my point. For God’s sake, you need a very rudimentary working knowledge of the Premiership to realise the difference between what Grant has achieved and what Ranieri did. Equally you’ve only got to watch an English team playing Inter or Juve on telly to hear “same old Eyeties, always cheating.”

I wish Grant all the best, he seems like a nice feller but with the frankly astounding £5m pay-off he has coming for basically inheriting Mourinho’s stellar squad, plus 15 million for Anelka, and still winning nothing, I feel my sympathy might be better placed elsewhere.

“Grant The Fighter against antisemitism”. What, where? I must have missed this, due to the antisemitism of the English media, or maybe it just never happened. Personally, I’ve had to single out an English sports figure as a fighter against anti-semitism it would be Ben Helfgott – that guy is a true 24-karat hero, and he doesn’t need Chelsea’s PR team to prove it.

So: want to give us faux types an example of “anti-Italian chanting”?

For fuck’s sake… are you seriously implying that British fans don’t engage in anti-Italian chanting? Have you ever attended a European game against an Italian side, or even watched one on telly? The essential difference between Ranieri and Grant, is that Ranieri didn’t have such high expectations to disappoint. By any objective criteria, he left Chelsea a more successful team than he found it. Grant cannot make any such claim.

“Antisemitism, and racism more generally, is deeply ingrained in football culture, which is why Grant was vulnerable. Read a John King novel and you’ll see.”

I rest my case. Worthy of the Fast Show’s Roger Nouveau-Supporter.

“Gambling and drinking vodka martinis is deeply ingrained in MI6’s culture. Read an Ian Fleming novel and you’ll see.”

Aggrieved-victimhood shareout time! In a thread about, categorically, racist sentiment, what is the relevance of this?

1) At a Spurs v West Ham game I was shocked to hear the songs from West Ham fans that bait the Spurs fans – i.e. the gas chambers reference
2) With a team assembled like Chelsea, expect them to be broken up this year – its all about the money
3) Cheslea demonstrate the worse aspects of the EPL esepcially on the pitch when they continually surround referees when decisions do not go their way – they complained about Tevez not passing teh ball back to Cech but at least twice Cheslea kicked the ball out of play making it more difficult for United
4) Grant will go – who knows if he is any good – he will get a new job

The reason I had to explain the meaning of “Chelski” is that, while I’m a Brit, I work in New York editing a website – http://www.z-word.com – with a mainly American audience, which is where this piece was first published. Trust me, over here you have to spell these things out.

Of course it’s possible to debate Avram’s managerial abilities without reference to his ethnicity. But the fact remains that his ethnicity has been a central issue. Why is that? Who raised it first? Not Avram Grant, not Pini Zahavi, not any of the commentators – it was the wankers sending him death threats and singing antisemitic bierkeller chants at the games. It’s because of them that we’re having this discussion.

if there are still those who aren’t convinced, cast your minds back to Claudio Ranieri’s time at Chelsea. He made some dreadful mistakes, but I don’t recall any chants of “you’re a f–king wop”, “bolognese-guzzling bastard” or anything similar. Antisemitism, and racism more generally, is deeply ingrained in football culture, which is why Grant was vulnerable. Read a John King novel and you’ll see.

Yes, the antisemites are a small minority. But arguably those who would deny or play down its seriousness are a bigger problem.