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Chelsea FC face new questions over how Roman Abramovich funded success | Roman Abramovich
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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People always like to point out that City ruined football, but the FA and the other authorities just letting Roman financially dope his way through success was rhe bigger alarm.
None of it matters now. They've reaped the benefits and any points deduction doesnt make a difference.
It was technically legal when Chelsea did it, although they more than Man City or PSG (or collapsing clubs like Leeds or Portsmouth) are the reasons behind the FFP rules.
I think its pretty obvious who is old enough to remember the first few years under Abramovich compared to Man City currently by the level of fury towards Man City cheating.
Chelsea spent double or even triple what their nearest rivals did in 2005 or so. Man City outspend their rivals sure, but not by an insane amount.
The real issue is that a team like City "shouldn't be allowed to spend as much as Man U or Arsenal" which is odd IMO, I think there should be a hard salary/transfer cap to level the playing field, not a "well you were massive before we changed the rules, so you can spend X, but you weren't as big so can only spend Y"
People can disagree with that if they like, but the fact that Chelsea themselves managed to spend way more "non football income" than Man City, become one of the "big clubs" just before the rules changed, so now are "allowed" to spend more than City, because now their "football income" is huge is just mad to me.
We don't know how much City spent. They're accused of lying about it.
tbh the rules aren't really about fairness. FFP isn't the real name anyway. It's about stopping the problem of sugar daddies getting bored and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the pieces.
I thought we kind of know what's going out (as in wages, transfers etc) through their books and what other teams report. It's the dodgy money coming in that's the main issue.
Though imagine that 115 charges, there some on both sides!
Either way, even if you want to just make up whatever numbers you feel are right (let's say Haaland cost 120m for example) I still feel like they'd be short of the mad advantage Chelsea 2005 had. You couldn't massage the transfer fees to make them double what Man U, Chelsea or whoever spend. Plus it looks like Chelsea were lying all the time anyway.
While this would 'level the playing field', it would just take money from the players and give it to the owners so I don't think this is obviously a good thing.
If you limit how much can be spent on players, that just means more money going into the owners' pockets. It's not like teams are going to lower prices because player salaries are lower.
I suppose there could be more profit sharing, or funds taken for lower leagues/grassroots football, or any number of good causes.
Or perhaps they could put some sort of price cap in place so fans don't get ripped off. Wouldn't really work on match tickets as demand is still high now, even at those crazy prices, but replica shirts/merch, things like that.
Obviously you make a good point, but if we were to implement a hard cap, I think they'd also have to implement other plans to stop it simply being money going into the pockets of the owners of the richest clubs (as the smaller clubs wouldn't be affected by salary caps).
Hell, why not make the teams fan owned, so if there is profits being made, its going to the fans not some billionaire who can't even be bothered to show up to matches?