Jose Mourinho has questioned those who value style over substance after attacking those who brand Premier League champions-elect Chelsea "boring".
Arsenal supporters chanted “boring, boring Chelsea” at the end of Sunday’s goalless draw at the Emirates which leaves Mourinho’s men 10 points clear and within two victories of the title.
As he had on Sunday, Mourinho railed against the accusation that his side were boring, saying that “cannot be true”.
“In any point of analysis in any criteria you can find, we are the best team or the second-best team. As simple as that,” the Portuguese said at a media conference to preview Wednesday night’s match against Leicester City.
“What is that? Style and flair? The way people now analyse style and flair is to take the goals out of the pitch.
“It’s the football they play on the moon, and the surface is not good. Some holes. But no goals.
“It looks like the goals are not there. Sometimes you speak about ‘boring’ and you consider boring a team that scores as many goals as we do, but you don’t consider boring a team that has 70 per cent of the ball possession and cannot win the game. It’s quite a big contradiction.
“I ask myself if in the future, when I am a granddad and I am at home with my grandsons, and maybe the future of football is a beautiful green grass carpet without goals.
“Football started a few centuries ago and the objective was one, but now it looks like the objective is another one.
“For me, I am very simple in my analysis. Football is about putting the ball in the net of your opponent and stopping your opponent.
“When football becomes without goals, you will say it’s boring. You will say bring the goals back.”
For Mourinho, beauty is in performing to get a result.
“The beautiful game is to go to every game and know exactly the way you have to play and what you have to do,” he said.
“We were brilliant,” against Arsenal, he added. “Brilliant. A game where we were brilliant from the first minute.”
It has long been suggested that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich wants to watch a side akin to Barcelona of a few years ago, when Lionel Messi starred with Xavi and Andres Iniesta with a style known as tiki-taka.
Yet so happy was the Russian billionaire with Chelsea’s display at the Emirates Stadium that he embraced the players afterwards as Chelsea neared a first Premier League title in five years.
“I saw him hugging the players in the dressing room after the game,” Mourinho said.
“I think he’s happy and I think every Chelsea fan is happy if we win the title.
“If we win the title, we have a fantastic Premier League with everything.”
The Chelsea manager immediately after Sunday’s draw criticised Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger for not trying to win the game and for his side’s 11-year wait for the title.
Put to him on Monday that Arsenal fans felt Chelsea were boring, Mourinho said: “I’m not sure of that.
“I met an Arsenal fan this morning, a gentleman that lives almost next door to me, an Arsenal fan for more than 50 years and he congratulated me for my press conference, saying that I was spot-on.”
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PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Key facilities
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- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
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- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
How to avoid crypto fraud
- Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
- Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
- Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
- Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
- Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
- Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
- Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
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Sector: PropTech
Initial investment: Self-funded by founder
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