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Premiership Football News: Ramon Vega

Andy Greeves

"There's nothing to say, because you know more than me" replied former Spurs centre-back Ramon Vega to a text message I sent him this week, tongue firmly in cheeky. The question posed? Were stories suggesting he was lining up a bid to buy Portsmouth Football Club true?

My text was a desperate mission to try and get a new angle on a story I regret not having captured in the first place a number of weeks ago. It was then I spoke to Ramon Vega about his football career and plans for the future without capturing the merest suggestion that the ex-Swiss international may be interested in making a return to the game he played professionally for 14 years. "I retired from football eight years ago and set up an asset management firm, which takes up a fair bit of my time," he told me. "I still live in London - I like living here and happy doing what I'm doing, simple as that" Simple indeed, or so I thought.

My meeting with Vega was just days before the stories linking him with Portsmouth broke and, with hindsight being such a rich and marvellous thing, I only wish our meeting could have been just 48 hours later. I'd have dearly loved to have probed Vega about potentially becoming the latest in a long line of foreign owners in the Premiership, what he saw in Portsmouth FC and the visions he had for the club. Not that he would have revealed anything of course, for Vega's education both on the football field and in the business world will have taught him, you can't afford giveaways where football or finance is concerned.

Alas, my conversation with Vega was a simple trip down memory lane. A chat about the most important match he says he ever played in (the 1999 League Cup final), the highs and lows of his football career and how he thinks his old club Tottenham are shaping up ahead of this Sunday's League Cup final.

"It's been a difficult season for Spurs to put it mildly," says Vega as I greet him and tell him of my Tottenham allegiance. "We spent one season in a relegation struggle when I was at Spurs and it is not a nice feeling let me tell you. The league cup is important, but given Tottenham's league situation, I think they will be focused more on survival."

"Spurs need their supporters more than ever given their position in the league. They have a good manager, who I'm sure will keep them up and they can then look to get back to the form they have enjoyed the previous three or four seasons."

Vega's shrewd assessment of Tottenham's current plight is a good sign for Pompey fans that, should the Swiss businessman takeover at Fratton Park, he is still well in-touch with the game. And it's a game Vega also appears to love dearly (especially when he talks of his playing days), a feeling questionable of most owners that have bought in to football these last five/six years or so.

Vega's passion is evidence as he talks about his part in a League Cup winning side with Tottenham ten years ago. "It's already an achievement in your home country to win medals, but if you go abroad, to a different country, different culture and different style of football and be successful it's something else," says Vega. "Winning a medal with a club like Tottenham Hotspur, who have such a fine cup tradition, is a particularly big achievement. It's something I'm very proud of. I still feel really grateful and fortunate to this day that I got the opportunity to play for Tottenham, that the club took a chance on me and brought me to England. I will never forget that."

The 1999 League Cup final was certainly memorable for Vega, for more reasons than one.

"Without knowing, I started that game (the 1999 League Cup final) with a fractured ankle," he Vega. "The tackle (on Heskey, to prevent a certain goal in the closing minutes of the game) involved me putting a great deal of force on my injury, it certainly made my ankle worse. But through the whole emotion of competing in a big game, you just don't seem to feel the pain. You just worry about getting the win for your team and nothing else. Once the game finished, the pain kicked in and it was pretty bad. My face was white."

"The injury was damaging from a career point of view because I was on the sidelines for nine to ten months. I was enjoying a great run of form in the run-up to the final and it also meant I missed out on an FA Cup semi-final for Spurs that year. To miss almost a whole year is a large amount of time in terms of a football career."

"I look back and think ‘was that pain worthwhile'?" he continues. "Of course it was, all the way, because I won a trophy for Spurs and I can sit here today and talk about winning a competition."

"The game wasn't exactly a classic but it was important victory for Tottenham Hotspur and our supporters. It had been a long time since the club had won something, over eight years, and the fans after the game were absolutely over the moon. We had won a trophy and it was a sign we were making a big step in the right direction."

Having won numerous league and cup titles for Grasshopper Zurich in his native Switzerland before joining Spurs in 1997, Vega was well accustomed to success. The player, capped 28 times by his country, also went on to win the treble with Celtic during a loan spell in the Scottish Premier League between 2000-2001. But he still regards Tottenham's League Cup victory as the highlight of his long and illustrious career.

Aside from possible aspirations of owning Portsmouth, Vega's immediate focus on football remains simply in wishing the best to his old club Spurs.

"I watch quite a bit of the Premier League still, especially Spurs of course and every opportunity I get to go to White Hart Lane, I take it. I didn't see the Carling Cup final last season, as I was on a ski slope in Switzerland. Lots of Spurs friends were text messaging me on the slopes though, so I could keep up to date with the game. I watched the highlights on the TV in the evening and really enjoyed it. This year I really want to go to Wembley to watch the final."

Even the calculated Ramon Vega can let his heart rule his head sometimes, as is evident in his prediction of a 2-1 win for Tottenham on Sunday. "It should be a great game. Manchester United are obviously a massive opponent but Spurs always seem to raise their performances against big teams, especially in the cup."

Should Vega buy Portsmouth Football Club, he could be caught up in a relegation dog-fight with Spurs this season - an irony that won't be lost on the man with a degree from Zurich Business School. That would be unlikely to affect his commitment to the Pompey cause however. The 1999 League Cup final proved that Vega will battle through adversity to get what he wants for his current club, even if it means causing harm to another club he clearly has so many happy memories with.

First he has to complete a piece of Premier League history - to become the first player to have plied his trade in the division, then gone on to own one of its teams.

Andy Greeves

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