Club Politics Quotes

Once again it is peaceful at Augusta National Golf Club, after some rather ugly stand-offs in recent years, when the club balked at changing its all-white, all-male membership tradition. African-Americans and female Americans are on the club manifest now along with other golf-Americans, and all is serene once again.

A great deal of pressure was then built up to remove me from the club and my resignation was, finally, a forced one.

Real Madrid is such an extraordinary club in terms of size and the constant politics that, perhaps, the best results are achieved by those with an ability to remove themselves from the spotlight to concentrate on their work.

I was desperate to leave Hamburg. The club was awesome, don't get me wrong, but I had a personal issue with one of the board members. He was desperate to get me out. The first club came calling, and it was Man City.

I'm aware that at the big, big clubs stuff can change quickly, as can opinions and people in charge. Not everyone is going to like you, not everyone is going to want to play you and that's the business side of it, which I've grown into and I'm certainly not going to take personally.

I always loved the Yorkshire members and was passionate about playing for the county, but the people who were running the club made it at times unbearable for me. The rulers had a history of doing what they wanted and sacking players seemingly on a whim.

If I was a normal player at West Ham and wanted to join a Chinese club, nobody would have said anything. But since I was a leader at West Ham and thought about that offer, I was suddenly a bad man.

Bayern fulfilled every wish, no matter what Guardiola wanted: the players, the coaches, and even the doctors. He caused much disturbance off the field. But he is one of the best coaches on the planet.

Sometimes it looks like the board and the chairman are the worst enemy of the manager and the coaching staff, the football versus the financial side.

Any club has more than enough comics, so if you're not there every night talking to the booker, you're not going to get on. You have to be there more than they are.

Sunderland, West Ham and Orlando City wanted me but Villa wouldn't sell me, saying I was too vital in the dressing room.

I'm not sure about English football to be honest with you. There's a lot of politics down there and I'm not sure it's just about your attributes on the park. If it was I'd still be down there.

The big players historically hold a lot of influence at Chelsea and while I would never doubt their attempts to win matches for the club, their levels undoubtedly change depending on how they feel about a manager at the time. They're either having him or they're not, and once they're not it spells borrowed time for the guy in charge.

Rafa Benitez - man with huge experience who knew how the club operated - could not get the results Real wanted and couldn't walk away from the fights that erupted in the dressing room and the boardroom.

I went in to Reading with the full backing of the chairman, who was great to me, and I got 20 games. Even though it was a three-year project, and I was the guy who knew the club more than anyone, I got the sack after 20 games. Funnily enough, it had just started to pick up, but they lost their patience.

The only true opponent of PSG is PSG.

The most frustrating thing at Villa was the perceived view fans had of me, that certain people at the club painted. That of a mercenary who was happy sitting on the sidelines taking his wages.

When Atletico wanted to sell me, I was told that I earned too much money and they wanted me off the wage bill. I liked that honesty.

I can't concern myself with what's going on with the club or what the media is writing. If you pay attention to those things, that's when you get yourself in trouble.

I don't detest Arsenal because of the way Wenger treated me.