Chelsea aren’t the “poster boys for when football goes wrong” at all, that title sits squarely with Manchester City, Newcastle and PSG, I think.
Oh look, another kid who forgot Abramovich.
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.
Should have clarified that, my bad.
Ok so by your logic
American billionaire who spends a lot = oligarch
American billionaire who is cheap = not an oligarch
That makes a lot of sense
Like what?
Like /u/espret’s story! Like how the government helped Real with shady deals 20 years ago… … Duh
Like what?
Off the top of my head: real sold their old training ground to the municipal govt for a fee far, far in excess of what it was worth. The govt then sold/gave them long lease on new facilities for a peppercorn sum.
Daz just gud business!
That’s not true. Their land and their old training ground was built near Paseo de la Castellana in 1963, but back then it was on outskirts of the city.
That land was worth fuck ton after 30 years when city grew, this is what the build on it after:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuatro_Torres_Business_Area
They moved to unconnected unbuilt outskirts of Madrid once again, which are still half-empty to this day, called Valdebebas.
Here’s HITC Sevens episode about it, when I learned it from:
https://youtu.be/ao5gccLtRL8?si=3EfB8NVAbfrOsg3e&t=319
Here’s article about it, title is:
“EU Court rules Real Madrid got no state aid in land deal”
https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/22/eu-court-rules-real-madrid-got-no-state-aid-in-land-deal
Yes, that’s the point, it’s intentionally hypocritical. I wasn’t just taking a shit on Chelsea.
It’s like people not remembering Leeds. That was a disaster. Or Sunderland…
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.
They have plenty of blood. They get it from their blood boys
Malaga
Racing de Santander
Deportivo La Coruña
Isn’t Arsenal owned by American billionaire Stan Kroenke?
Stan Kroenke isn’t bloodless though. He has plenty of it.
It’s stored in a large jar under his bed.
When people criticise people for putting ‘/s’
This is why people put ‘/s’
Can’t believe how dense some folk are. I thought you were pretty funny mate!
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.
Brits invent football and have been whining about it ever since.
This is the definitive slogan of /r/soccer
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.
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.
Cleaned through billions of money in Chelsea.
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.
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.
and the funny thing is that a major portion of redditors are actually american
Are you really using Nazi Germany for an example as to why Chelsea aren’t “the only ones ruining football”?
No, he’s using Nazi Germany as an example of how football has been corrupted by less than benevolent interests for a very long time.
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
Just feel like he’s going to a more extreme level
So you think the UK should have had rules that prevented anyone from owning a club if they had any connections to someone who “wasn’t a good person”?
It’s not even rational to discriminate against someone that was in the KGB, because that just means they were public servants working to protect their country.
I don’t get what we’re doing here trying to paint Chelsea’s spending as some new wave ruining football.
Exactly!
This isn’t even the first time Chelsea’s spending ruined football!
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.
They aren’t even in the top 10 of where football has “gone wrong”.
It’s like people not remembering Leeds. That was a disaster. Or Sunderland…
Hey, I watched a show about Sunderland on Netflix I think. Owners had different priorities than winning from what i remember.
Malaga
Racing de Santander
Deportivo La Coruña
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.
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.
Chelsea aren’t close to the first to be bankrolled by an outside party.
And may all the bankrolled teams at the moment end up like Blackburn.
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.
Ok so by your logic
American billionaire who spends a lot = oligarch
American billionaire who is cheap = not an oligarch
That makes a lot of sense
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
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.
No worries