Friday Cannon Fodder: anonymous

Good morning TSF and happy Friday. As always, you’ve done well to make it through another week. I hope you have time to reward yourself with something fun / relaxing / enjoyable / [whatever] this weekend.

My mind is all over the place this morning, which had me write and delete several different things as the topic of today’s CF. We’ve landed on Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his late-to-the-party £4B bid to buy Chelsea. Must be nice, right? To have that kind of money, to be able to buy a football club (seemingly) almost on a lark, and to have the relative anonymity Mr. Ratcliffe has. Maybe he doesn’t have that with Brits, but he’s worth £16B, and I’ve never heard of him.

We will leave my thoughts on the concentration of obscene amounts of wealth aside for now, but Mr. Ratcliffe being absurdly wealthy and not on my radar is refreshing. It’s a welcome departure from many other prominent billionaires who seem deadset on inserting themselves into the public conversation at every possible opportunity.

I’d really prefer it if they just would, like, not. Although it is nice to have a near-constant reminder that having preposterous amounts of money does not mean that somebody is intelligent and / or a good person.

Seriously though. If it wasn’t annoying (and in some cases damaging and destructive), I would be impressed at the frequency with which these people can put their foot in their mouth without learning anything from it. If I had that kind of money, you wouldn’t hear a peep from me. I’d be off somewhere, minding my own business, and enjoying the heck out of my life.

Circling back to Arsenal (because whenever I talk about billionaires I remember we’ve got one of our own), I’m glad that Stan Kroenke is one of the lower-profile disgustingly wealthy people in the world. The bar is literally on the floor, but Stan the Man clears it. So that’s something. He’s done some not-good stuff. You won’t ever catch me singing his name at the Emirates. But I can take some solace in knowing that my football club isn’t owned by a Legion of Doom-level villain.