It's a lot more okay because it indicates his intentions are more likely to boost his local team of which he was presumable a lifelong fan.
It's a far cry from Abramovich using Chelsea to shore up his political and personal security, or the UAE using Man City as a sportswashing vessel to for PR gain for their theocratic police state.
I'm not pissed about teams with rich backers spending more money. I'm pissed about what interests are being furthered by football clubs being used as cynical political tools.
How so? It seems more stable from the players perspective, they have these nice long contracts so they know they're still a part of Chelsea despite being bounced from club to club and country to country on expiring contracts.
Seems like a lot of people understand that statement as "omg they are the worst" but as i see it, it's more like "football is fucked in so many ways, and these guys somehow check nearly all boxes"
Ohh yeah, sorry. I am at work and saw wages pop up in some comments, and replied as per that. But I do agree, loans are taken to pay for transfer fees. It's standard for every major transfer irrespective of the club.
Chelsea were the most recent large club before the oil state clubs to use owner wealth to successfully break football apart
Other clubs have done it before (Blackburn rovers for example), Chelsea are just the most notable recent ones who took it further than it had gone before, until the oil clubs overtook them.
The oil clubs are doing the financial doping but also it’s much darker with them since they’re sportswashing as well - abramovich might have been a bastard but he’s leagues behind Saudi Arabia and the like in terms of crimes against humanity - hence those clubs are the new poster boys
Or Southend. Or Scunthorpe. Or Bury. Or Macclesfield Town. In lower league football when things go wrong they can really go wrong. You could end up without a club at all.
So funny to see english fans argue who the worst team is in their league. Meanwhile, football is fucked anyway and its a business first and a sport second, so no matter if its the Saudis sportwashing or an American pumping billions into it, the image of that pure, innocent and local football sport is long gone.
I mean, ignore my flair for a bit, but that's how loans usually work. 10% interest on 10k loan is 1k profit.
2% interest on 100k loan is 2k profit.
That is just doing simple calculation without factoring in duration of loans.
Also, RM and Barca(till recently) have been able to pay all those loans easily (except in some situations), and again they still pay whatever they make. There's no State/Billionaire pumping 10-20 mil in bogus sponsorship to bail them out(again, until recently).
What you're alternative is let RM make 100mil a year but they can only pay 30mil to their staff/players combined.
What would they use 70mil for ? To pay dividends? Which they do btw. But I would rather see those pushed to employees (players/staff) than going into board's pocket.
And the result of this is that we can afford to offer thise wages, even taking loans, which btw, we took for renovation of Bernabeu.
I cannot think of one example where we took loan to pay wages as suggested.
Your loan example doesn’t really make sense. Why would the choice be between loaning 10k at 10% or 100k at 2%? You’d loan ten lots of 10k at 10% and make 10k profit rather than 2k.
And profits don’t go to the board, the board is just representatives for shareholders.
paying ridiculous amounts with money loaned from banks.
That's how most of these transfers are paid though. It's particularly obvious with release clauses.
Clubs offer better value for transfer with a significant amount upfront. The buying club hasn't got that money but the interest they pay will be lower than the premium the selling club wants for more installments. Take out a loan and it's ok. Clubs are fairly low risk in terms of lending. Even a club massively in debt will almost always pay their loans eventually.
This is true. What my point was no loan has ever been taken to pay wages. As far as I am aware. I would be open to stand corrected with valid sources though.
You’re singled out because you spent a billion pounds in a year how is the difficult for some chelsea fans to understand. And then to further the singling out after spending untold money you are remarkably bad.
Eh, high quality football is also “””boring””” and data driven. So many cool football moves are as good as outlawed. You don’t need to look further than classic nr. 10 being a dying breed, replaced by players best described as ‘pressing machines’.
Much bigger problem/reason is that lower leagues aren’t media talking points(let’s face it, sports are men’s reality TV shows), finding a broadcast is hard, etc. It’s just much harder to get into if you aren’t local.
Or maybe Saudi Arabia owning a club, Qatar owning a club, or clubs like Bury that have gone out of busiensss due to shitty owners should be in & around no 1
In absolute terms Saudi and Qatar owning clubs is worse for the game in my opinion. But Abramovich was one of the first pioneers of sports washing. An entity with a truly shady background completely changing his perception outside of Russia.
I doubt sports washing was his primary motivation. But as a side effect he showed the world what was possible and paved the way for Saudi and Qatar.
Or Southend. Or Scunthorpe. Or Bury. Or Macclesfield Town. In lower league football when things go wrong they can really go wrong. You could end up without a club at all.
Do people just randomly forget that some clubs used to be owned by banks and that’s how they are where they are today?
I’m not going to be an hypocrite and say Chelsea doesn’t have a role to play in the current state of football but if it wasn’t Chelsea it was going to be another club.
Current state of football was inevitable. It was going to happen regardless.
Bayer Leverkusen were founded by Bayer, the pharmaceutical company that produced chemical weapons for the Nazis during WWII. Bayern Munich used the swastika as their badge. PSG and Manchester City are oil clubs that actively cheat their books to be able to spend more. I don’t get what we’re doing here trying to paint Chelsea’s spending as some new wave ruining football.
These people who say “football is gone” frankly do not know what they’re talking about. Inflation (both within and outside the sport) has changed the landscape but there has always been stupid money and bad people within the sport.
The complainers are just nostalgic for the times before they knew and understood how bad it is. Picking any one club to vilify is foolish. It’s an arms race.
I think people are nitpicking this article a bit. Saying Chelsea are poster boys for whats wrong with football today is a reasonable take. Sure, they could have said Newcastle or PSG or Man City, but the person is expressing an opinion and it's not a bad one, certainly not as bad as people in this comment section are making it out to be.
Did he? He lost money all throughout his ownership and last I heard still didn't have access to the sale proceeds. Plus rumor is he wasn't even allowed within the country for the last few years.
I don't think Roman "sportswashed" because I don't think he was trying to clean up his public persona, but instead wanted to have assets outside of Putin's control in case things went bad. And at least to date that plan backfired.
People don't read articles here, or anywhere on reddit tbh. One of my professors has his tests just be like from the first 3 pages of each textbook chapter, and people still don't read it. It's like 5 minutes of work lol.
Honestly, the biggest criticism about Real and Barca hurting the sport/la liga were negotiating their own tv deals instead of doing it as a whole. We see the EPL now reaping those benefits when small teams in the EPL have bigger budgets than most La Liga teams
Your loan example doesn’t really make sense. Why would the choice be between loaning 10k at 10% or 100k at 2%? You’d loan ten lots of 10k at 10% and make 10k profit rather than 2k.
And profits don’t go to the board, the board is just representatives for shareholders.
Ohh yeah, sorry. I am at work and saw wages pop up in some comments, and replied as per that. But I do agree, loans are taken to pay for transfer fees. It's standard for every major transfer irrespective of the club.
This is true. What my point was no loan has ever been taken to pay wages. As far as I am aware. I would be open to stand corrected with valid sources though.
Ohh yeah, sorry. I am at work and saw wages pop up in some comments, and replied as per that. But I do agree, loans are taken to pay for transfer fees. It's standard for every major transfer irrespective of the club.
I mean yeah I get it, but that's leaving out a relevant historical context as to why those things happened.
I agree that Chelsea should not be seen as "where things gone wrong", but pointing out to Nazi Germany to say things have always been wrong just seems whataboutism with a really low bar
Yeah they just did that slightly earlier than other clubs, earned lots of trophies and international fans and now you cannot criticize the clubs because of their "prestige"
The hate for Saudis and American's is 100% warranted
Juxtaposing those two together is completely unreasonable. Whataboutism and sports washing in action.
Boehly and Chelsea's transfers have been absurd, the Glazers are leeching money out of ManU, but the rest have been more or less the same as any other group of owners?
Arsenal is at a high point they haven't been at for a while, and Liverpool had an incredible run of success under FSG. I also think ownership at Villa, Palace, Fulham, Leeds, and West Ham has been fine? As a whole I don't think those owners are any better or worse than those at Spurs, Wolves, or Brighton.
Saudi PIF are using Clearlake Investment's investment services, because Clearlake are good at what they do which is why they can afford to buy Chelsea. Shocking.
Brighton are sponsored by American Express, so of course they have ties with every criminal that uses American Express, right?
Exactly the equivalent of saying Man U have ties with Russia, because some russian officials use TeamViewer and they sponsor Man U.
Besides, Arsenal are sponsored by Emirates and had the whole "Visit Rwanda" travesty. How TF are you on a high horse?
Holier-than-thou? Andy Hamilton is a Chelsea season ticket holder, or at least was until last year. He is one of your own saying this, its not rival fans trying to banter you, or the media getting their knives out for the club.
I wrote my comment in response to the people in this thread, most of which have clearly not even read the article posted but just used the oppertunity to blame Chelsea for everything.
sorry, no matter how you dress it up an Oligarch isn't as scummy as a state that has executed hundreds of people, commits human rights abuses, and creates humanitarian disasters in other countries
Thats exactly how washing money works. He will have lost some but has cleaned through legit money now. It also opens up loads of opportunities with legitimate business with the west.
Don't worry he will get his money. Even if he doesn't the intent to sportswash was still there.
Cherry on the cake has thousands of people now like him.
And? What does that do for him? Sports-washing accusations work for Saudi clubs who are clearly trying to raise the image of their country on the world stage so that they're in the conversation for larger tourism and global events etc.
It doesn't fit with Roman's ownership of Chelsea because he didn't do anything during his time to obviously try to boost his own image, or even that of Russia, and I'd argue that the public perception of both Russia and of Abramovic is lower now than it was in 2003.
Maybe he just wanted a foreign asset, but he made a huge financial loss owning Chelsea. Maybe he was genuinely just a fan.
Feel like most of the other commenters didn’t actually read his article…
I pretty much agree with everything he’s saying. Football has been going downhill extremely quickly over the last 20-30 years. It’s so far out of touch from what it once was.
Between the nation states owning clubs and the hyper-capitalists making the fan experience downright dreadful it’s worrying to see how far the sport has fallen.
Football went wrong years ago, it’s not a working mans game anymore. It’s a business for the big clubs, not a sporting enterprise, hence the superleague.
That logic just makes no sense. The reason chelsea are the poster boys, is because they went from a stable club owned by a dirty oil Oligarch, who then due to geo politics was forced to sell, and he did so to American finance men who are just oligarchs and middle eastern billionaires with more governmental restrictions. And those men took transfer spending to a level no one ever could’ve imagined ball in 1 year. Not only that, but they have been utter shit. Spending a billion and still being so bad is horrific.
You’re singled out because you spent a billion pounds in a year how is the difficult for some chelsea fans to understand. And then to further the singling out after spending untold money you are remarkably bad.
"People get inordinately angry. Sure, I grew up in a time of hooliganism, which was a manifestation of tribalism. What football is now is a 24/7 angry tirade. Now everyone has an opinion about everything, but it’s a destructive relationship. Spending your whole life getting worked up about Harry Maguire? Come on, that is not healthy.”
This shit is just lazy journalism at this point. There are many things wrong with football. Spending idiotically for no trophies doesn’t even make the top ten
Basically: "My team isn't hoovering trophies up anymore, I don't want to watch it".
I disagree with this, there is something wrong with whole vibe of club. It’s nothing to do with winning trophies. These fans were there before Roman arrived.
There's like a million football teams in England that don't make any money and play purely for pleasure man. If you say that "football" has gone wrong because one club is making money, then it says something mostly about what you see as football, not the actual whole football lol.
9 months, when the transfer window is actually open. Talk all you want now but Barca already couldn't spend anything on transfer fees this last summer after selling future revenue to make ends meet
Other billionaires will do what Boehly has done and Chelsea are setting a precedent. Look at how Newcastle have done their transfer business, that is how City started off before doing what they do now. Chelsea are not even close to what City are doing because City would never overpay to the same extent, nor would they offer contracts at such ludicrous lengths.
Let’s be realistic, where would all that money Chelsea spent on players go if they didn’t spend it? To the fans? To the community? No. It would still be in the bank account of a billionaire. If they want to splash £100m on a single player from a club deemed smaller, then I don’t see the issue. A club like Brighton can easily spend that £100m on a decent replacement and then some. Also doesn’t guarantee Chelsea trophies and doesn’t wreck a club like Brighton.
Brighton also seem to spend that £100m on obscure but high potential players from much smaller clubs abroad, which helps those clubs.
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Football has been going downhill extremely quickly over the last 20-30 years.
How so? There are still plenty of games that are fun to watch. The gap between smaller/bigger teams or between leagues are growing indeed, but that doesn't mean that football is dying, you can find entertainment both on higher and lower levels.
Eh, high quality football is also “””boring””” and data driven. So many cool football moves are as good as outlawed. You don’t need to look further than classic nr. 10 being a dying breed, replaced by players best described as ‘pressing machines’.
Much bigger problem/reason is that lower leagues aren’t media talking points(let’s face it, sports are men’s reality TV shows), finding a broadcast is hard, etc. It’s just much harder to get into if you aren’t local.
Didn't need to. Sports washing worked perfectly. Cleaned through billions of money in Chelsea. Along with that probably opened up many legit business opportunities. Cherry on the cake has thousands of people now like him.
I love how local and lower level football really does answer nearly all of everyone's concerns but they'd rather pretend the Prem was the only football league on Earth and they're forced to put up with it. Absolutely self-inflicted.
Eh, high quality football is also “””boring””” and data driven. So many cool football moves are as good as outlawed. You don’t need to look further than classic nr. 10 being a dying breed, replaced by players best described as ‘pressing machines’.
Much bigger problem/reason is that lower leagues aren’t media talking points(let’s face it, sports are men’s reality TV shows), finding a broadcast is hard, etc. It’s just much harder to get into if you aren’t local.
for players its fantastic, their future is secured for a long time and they are in a (hopefully) stable environment. For the club its a massive risk to make such long commitments
You’re singled out because you spent a billion pounds in a year how is the difficult for some chelsea fans to understand. And then to further the singling out after spending untold money you are remarkably bad.