Let's All Laugh At... Let's all laugh at Chelsea thread

[Misfit]

It's called due diligence though. Everybody has known for years that they were breaking the rules. If you buy a very profitable business that was artificially successful because of money laundering, then more fool you when it blows up in your face.

Fair point. At the very least there has to be sporting consequences for the club, regardless of ownership, or what is the effing point of all of this exactly? It would be a monumental waste of time and effort. Just let it be the wild west where the biggest chequebook will always win out over time.

 

[Misfit]

Agreed.

But by the same token, the new owners paid for a reputation unfairly won.

Any losses the new owners incur as a result of the same legal identity receiving g an appropriate punishment should really be a matter between them and Abramovic, not for the football authorities to adjudicate on and compensate them for.

After all, they acquired all the benefits of the trophies unfairly won, and the football status acquired as a result, , so they should have to deal with all the consequences of the cheating that built all of that too.

Yep. Can't argue. The last 20 years of Chelsea (30 really if we remember how they almost bankrupted themselves before RA saved them from going under) has been entirely artificial and arbitrary. A raison d'etre for introducing things like FFP etc.

The records being corrected to reflect is just what it is if it happens.

 

[cjsimba]

Fair point. At the very least there has to be sporting consequences for the club, regardless of ownership, or what is the effing point of all of this exactly? It would be a monumental waste of time and effort. Just let it be the wild west where the biggest chequebook will always win out over time.

To be honest that's pretty much where we are now.

We're in the 100m sprint but we're racing people with 3 legs.

Can make it all seem futile but at least Ange has us dreaming of the impossible again.

 

[newbie]

But then they should have done their due diligence before hand, and looked into the accounts extensively. This has hardly come as a shock to anyone, and it shouldn't have been a shock to them.

If you buy a an old house with structural damage after you've had a cowboy in to survey it, it's on you to deal with the consequences, not the previous owner or the tenants.

Cheating is cheating

Punish them!

 

[newbie]

Banhammering the new ownership for the old management would be a little unfair - especially as they came clean. But some sanctions needed (financial/transfer ban/Europe ban etc) and the club itself loses any and all "honours" won in the offending periods.

No fxxx them!

They cheated, everyone knew it and everyone knows it!

Now the proofs come out, they get let off? Because they have new owners?

Think of the damage they have done to English football!

Think of how much better off spurs, Arsenal, villa, Liverpool etc would have been if city and Chelsea had not cheated!

We could well have won the league, if it was a fair playing field.

 

[soflapaul]

Also, Boehly and co didn't buy Chelsea in the sense of buying a typical business to make profit.

They bought a football club. A sporting enterprise that takes part in competitions, and they bought them with the aim of making them succseful and using it as a vehicle to fatten their pockets too.

So the cost is twofold.

1. Bought a sporting enterprise that has openly cheated.
2. Bought a business that has proben to have had fradulent or suspicious activity in the past.

ZERO sympathy from me.

Well, i have more sympathy than you, that's for sure. I've weighted it between billionaire dilemmas and the price of caviar.

 

[Misfit]

No fxxx them!

They cheated, everyone knew it and everyone knows it!

Now the proofs come out, they get let off? Because they have new owners?

Think of the damage they have done to English football!

Think of how much better off spurs, Arsenal, villa, Liverpool etc would have been if city and Chelsea had not cheated!

We could well have won the league, if it was a fair playing field.

Quite right. I was being far too forgiving.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Would have zero sympathy for the new owners and I hope both they and City get the strongest possible punishment. Ultimately they would have known full well how rotten the club was and yet still decided to get into bed with them. Even tho they didn’t commit the crimes themselves they are still complicit by agreeing to the purchase of an entity that they knew full well to be fraudulent. And there is zero chance they didn’t know. The amount of money involved every single dirty stone would have been unturned.

Unfortunately tho I just don’t see anything happening to ether team. Everton were an easy target to convince people there are laws. City and Chelsea will get away with a comparative slap on wrist most like. If anything.

 

[spurs9]

People keep pointing this as a precedent but this was nothing to do with FFP as it wasn't around then. There are far more cases around Europe and in this country too where breaking FFP rules have far harsher penalties. Also needs to be said it is not the EPL that hand out the punishments for any rule breaking, all they do is investigate and find the teams guilty of the charges or not.. It is a separate independent committee who set the punishment's.

The article, to me, reads that the issue is "financial irregularities", though the reasoning for doing it is probably to get round FFP. The new owners are also the ones that brought it to light, so that will probably go in their favor.

Personally, in regards to a point deduction, I will believe it when I see it.

 

[Armstrong_11]

Everton were an easy target to convince people there are laws. City and Chelsea will get away with a comparative slap on wrist most like. If anything.

This.......

I am also pretty sure Everton doesn't have as many highly-paid lawyers as City and Chelsea...

it was always bound to happen to a "smaller' club

 

[Japhet]

Fair point. At the very least there has to be sporting consequences for the club, regardless of ownership, or what is the effing point of all of this exactly? It would be a monumental waste of time and effort. Just let it be the wild west where the biggest chequebook will always win out over time.

Here's an idea. Why don't they come up with some sort of algorithm that means tests any fines. It could be based on transfer activity and wage bills with some average home gate receipts and the length of time the cheating took place chucked in for good measure. That should fuck up Chelsea and City for the foreseeable.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

I actually thought this was a really good listen. Talks about Chelsea, City and Everton. Stefan Borson talks extensively about the situation, possible out comes and the reality of what could happen. He joins around the 7 min mark.

 

[neilp]

Yes that was worth watching, interesting to see how it plays out.

 

[Finchyid]

Banhammering the new ownership for the old management would be a little unfair - especially as they came clean. But some sanctions needed (financial/transfer ban/Europe ban etc) and the club itself loses any and all "honours" won in the offending periods.

How is it unfair? They have bought into something that has a higher value because of the success, which if proven was created by breaking rules. When they bought the club they should have done enough checks and understood the financial/club history

 

[Japhet]

How is it unfair? They have bought into something that has a higher value because of the success, which if proven was created by breaking rules. When they bought the club they should have done enough checks and understood the financial/club history

Exactly. What an investment if you could buy a shit team, pump in laundered money and break all the rules, cheat your way to the top and sell for a massive profit with no come backs. The new owner status wipes the slate clean. Can't have that.

 

[qqq1]

Exactly. What an investment if you could buy a shit team, pump in laundered money and break all the rules, cheat your way to the top and sell for a massive profit with no come backs. The new owner status wipes the slate clean. Can't have that.

If new owners wiped the slate clean there'd be nothing stopping a club like Newcastle breaking all the rules then being sold to a different Saudi fund with a different figurehead in charge.

 

[Japhet]

If new owners wiped the slate clean there'd be nothing stopping a club like Newcastle breaking all the rules then being sold to a different Saudi fund with a different figurehead in charge.

Or the next mega takeover puts a puppet in charge for a while who breaks all the rules and then moves over for the intended owner. No way it can even be considered as a mitigating factor.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

That's what due diligence is for when you purchase a business!

 

[neogenisis]

Bit O Karma for the knobends. Least we lost by 4 with one less man. Shame Rona(Jackson)ldo didn't turn up for them.

 

[whitechina]

Losing to them makes me feel worse now as they've only put in one good performance this season and it was against us!
Cmon let us stuff Villa later today