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
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.
Are you really using Nazi Germany for an example as to why Chelsea aren’t “the only ones ruining football”?
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.
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
and the funny thing is that a major portion of redditors are actually american
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!
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.
The Championship is a superb league. The quality might not be as good in terms of talent compared to the PL, but it is far more entertaining.
Neither me or the person I responded to mentioned loans to pay wages. Did you mean to respond to someone else?
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
You left Arsenal out of that list. It’s owned by an american holding company.
Once clubs went to be owned by billionaires, it was over.
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.
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 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
are you assuming that Roman kickstarted it despite Blackburn doing the same ‘overspending’ a decade prior.
Ties as in Saudi have money handled by Clearlake? i’m sure every team has someone tied to them that’s dodgy if that’s the thread you want to pull at.
Suppose Arsenal have one of those good billionaires that exist despite there being not a whole lot of difference between him and Todd
And what was the Chelsea Loan Army beyond a “farm” system? It’s the same thing lol
Roman was just as scummy as they are
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
It’s the cardinal rule of Reddit
It’s like people not remembering Leeds. That was a disaster. Or Sunderland…
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!
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.
They have plenty of blood. They get it from their blood boys
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.
A well run sports washing machine aye
We were buying quick success in 03-04 and it ended up being a huge success
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