Did They Go Bollywood Because Of Their Falling Popularity?

Bollywood, a somewhat satirical term for the Indian version of Hollywood. But recently, they have being the talk of town not by movie-goers or Indians themselves, but the football world. What's the link actually? To be honest, there should be no link. But now they have been tagged together with Chelsea, the reigning champion of the English league. So what's the link? Well..

Chelsea stars Frank Lampard and John Terry are being lined up to appear in a Bollywood blockbuster.

It features Bollywood heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan as a devoted Chelsea fan. The film will be partially shot in London and will include footage of the players in action.

Producers are in talks to give Chelsea's star players and manager Jose Mourinho walk-on parts.

Yup, footballers now have to be the one dancing around the trees with funny music going behind the scnese. Did the director pay more money for them to act than Abramovich to actually stay on the football pitch and to do their job? No idea, but of course there's a reason behind every of this ridiculous decisions.

Chelsea hope the movie will boost their popularity in India and persuade British Asians to take more of an interest in the club.

Yea, to attract fans! Brilliant! Is it any wonder that they struggles to sell out even for European games, putting advertisement on their newspapers and mass media. It's a shame for the English champions, failing to attract the fans. And by thinking that going to Bollywood and goes on big screen will actually make anyone notice Chelsea, then maybe you'll get some fan girls, that's about it.

Maybe here's the reason though:

A survey has confirmed that Chelsea have the poorest public image of the top four clubs in England.

Independent consumer research commissioned by PRWeek magazine showed that despite the efforts of Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon to improve the club's profile, the champions remain the least liked club out of the Premiership's top four.

So the ever brilliant Peter 'once a red, always a red' Kenyon might think that going to Bollywood would actually make them a more likeable club, then wrong. You're going to be despised by football fans for doing that.

Maybe instead of doing all these publicity stunts, why not just improve the conduct of the players, manager and also the way you guys play on the damn pitch. Don't forget, Chelsea is a FOOTBALL club. But seriously, who takes them for what they are nowadays. The term 'Abramovich's play thing' is used to describe them and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

After spending a grand total of nearly 300 million GBP and having 70% of your turnover going into salaries, is it still a football club, at all? With players like Ballack, Joe Cole and Shevchenko, neutrals expect to see good football from a team that has quality from back to front. But so far, they haven't been too inspirational, isn't it? A couple of good matches and that's about it, continual grinding out results and it's not even fun watching them anymore.

If Chelsea were to remain a true 'football club', then stop the 'selling out' and if they really want to draw fans, then they should start from what they're supposed to do primarily. Do the talking on the pitch, if people are liked the way they play on the pitch, then it wouldn't be so much of a problem drawing fans.

Football commercialization or in other words, 'selling out' is what is common in this day. Like what Rafa Benitez said, the football world is just a reflection of the real world, there isn't any difference. Remember the underground band you used to love and they constantly played in your local pub. But as popularity rises and the greed that got into them, they began to 'change' and evolve into something you can no longer relate with. They got sold out to the MTV crowd and you were left with nothing but reminisce of their past.

If you're a Chelsea fan prior to the Roman era, I truly pity you and I could feel your pain. A Russian who probably couldn't give a toss bout the club came in and turned the club upside down. Whether it is for the good or for the bad, nobody knows for sure. But time will tell.

So if Liverpool lacked Chinese fans, I wouldn't think our board will let us do a Crouching Peter, Hidden Finnan, don't we?

Tags: Chelsea, Bollywood, John Terry, Frank Lampard