Mourinho’s tribute to dear friend Greenberg
Jose salutes ex-MoS man who broke football’s best scoop
JOSE MOURINHO joined leading figures from football and the media to pay tribute to one of the most significant sports journalists of his generation, former Mail on Sunday reporter Simon Greenberg, who died last week at the age of 52 after a short illness.
Roma manager Mourinho saluted the man who paved the way for modern sports news reporting with a string of exclusives and award-winning stories at this newspaper in the Nineties.
Mourinho, who became close to Greenberg during his time as communications director at Chelsea, said: ‘Simon was my shadow, my friend and a man of trust during my first spell at Chelsea. We laughed together, we celebrated together and we also disagreed on occasion. But as good as he was, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t convince me to love cricket. I will miss him. Rest in peace, my friend.’
Prior to his role for Chelsea, it was at The Mail on Sunday where Greenberg came to prominence, working on arguably the biggest sports story of the decade, when, amid a swirl of unsubstantiated rumours concerning bungs in football, he revealed then Arsenal manager George Graham was being investigated for a £285,000 gift from agent Rune Hauge.
Though many speculated at the time about which high-profile managers might be drawn into the scandal, Greenberg, working with then financial editor Lawrence Lever, was the first to name Graham, a story which eventually led to the Arsenal manager losing his job.
Greenberg, then 25, won a string of awards for his revelation, which came amid a Premier League investigation into the culture of agents oiling the wheels of transfer deals with gifts to managers.
‘When you think of Simon and everything he did, it’s impossible not to recall the George Graham bung story,’ said Roger Kelly, who was his sports editor at The Mail on Sunday and hired him from the Hornsey Journal. ‘It was one of his greatest successes, and written at a very young point in his career. It was ground-breaking in the way it opened up a whole new world of investigative stories in sport, based on painstaking research into financial records. Simon helped to establish this new way of doing things.’
Greenberg’s extraordinary networking saw him write several exclusives for the paper. Having been rejected by Cardiff University’s post-graduate journalism school, he thrived on City University’s journalism course, where a fellow student was Will Lewis, the future editor of the Daily Telegraph and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, who became a lifelong friend.
The Mail on Sunday’s former chief sports writer Patrick Collins recalled: ‘When Simon started at The Mail on Sunday, I was asked to introduce him to people in various sports, especially in football and track and field. Time and again, I discovered he already knew them, he had their telephone numbers, and he could trot out half a dozen stories about them. I never met a young reporter with so many contacts. And he made good use of them. He was a fine journalist and a bright, engaging travelling companion. He was taken from us far too soon.’
He was trusted by the biggest names in sport, ghost-writing Les Ferdinand’s autobiography, and the QPR director of football said: ‘I was so shocked and saddened when I heard of Simon’s passing. There are few people I would sit down and write a book with. I was happy to do that with Simon. When we bumped into each other we would always say, “We must meet up for a meal”. Sadly that day never came. My sincere condolences to Simon’s family. The world has lost a good man.’
At Chelsea, he developed a strong relationship with Mourinho, his arrival coinciding with the hiring of the Portuguese manager in what was initially a tempestuous relationship with the press. As Chelsea swept to early Premier League titles, the manager often refused to deal with media, outraged at his portrayal in national newspapers.
Greenberg was instrumental in calling an early peace conference between sports editors and Mourinho, in which the new manager charmed an array of media executives for almost two hours with off-the-record anecdotes.
Simon maintained his friendship with Mourinho, visiting him at Inter Milan, where he once persuaded the manager and his staff to put his friend Lewis through an excruciating fitness test as a surprise 40th birthday present. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck said: ‘Simon’s time at the club covered a period of
incredible growth and new success, and he thrived under the pressure the media attention provided. He played a vitally important role and helped carry the club through those hectic times with enthusiasm and wit.’
Though he worked for Chelsea, his first l ove was Tottenham Hotspur, where he was a life-long season-ticket holder, other than his years at Chelsea.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy personally hosted a celebration dinner at the new stadium for him and his closest friends in the final weeks of his life, knowing how important the club was to him.
Greenberg, a natural socialite, enormously enjoyed the occasion, touched by the trouble Levy and executive director Donna Cullen had taken on his behalf to organise and attend the intimate event. The club had also arranged for him, his son and his father to tour the stadium.
Greenberg’s illustrious career saw him appointed sports editor of the Evening Standard at the age of 29, work for Chelsea, England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup and News UK, publisher of The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, where he was tasked with internal investigations into the phone-hacking scandal. He later worked on international sports rights for News Corp and had recently taken a job at The Athletic, the US digital sports publisher.
‘His death has come way too early and the only way I’m rationalising it is that he lived a life much fuller in 52 years than most of us manage in a full 80 years,’ said Lewis.
Viscount Rothermere, chairman of DMGT, The Mail on Sunday’s parent company, attended his funeral, as did Rupert Murdoch.
He is survived by his wife, music executive Fran Jefferson, and their son Sam, as well as Coco and Sukie, Fran’s daughters from a previous marriage.