Naturally Arsenal are one of the clubs who could benefit from Chelsea having their assets frozen.
For two decades Gooners had to watch with envy as our London rivals were able to outbid the majority of clubs in terms of transfer fees and wages.
Believing in the concept of Financial Fair play , our whole business plan when building the Emirates was to be a self-sustained model.
We had to sell our best talent most seasons, often to the teams we were trying to compete with.
Van Persie and Sanchez picked Man United over us we essentially became a feeder club for Man City, academy graduate Ashley Cole defected to the bridge. Once our captain, Fabregas would one day don a blue shirt.
So, you can understand why not many of their peers will have too much sympathy for Chelsea currently only being able to operate on a special licence.
Sanctions against Roman Abramovich from the government means Chelsea have to pay a wage bill of 28 million pound a month with the majority of revenue streams now stopped.
The only fans who can now attend a game at Stamford Bridge are those who purchased their tickets before 10-3-22.
Only 400 tickets were bought for the FA cup tie at Middlesborough before that date. Any other time the away allocation would have been 4,000.
Those who can still go to Stamford Bridge, can no longer make any transactions at the club shop, buy a programme, purchase food inside the ground, etc.
Sponsors such as Three suspending their contract to have their names on merchandise is worth approx. 120 million.
The idea of course is to prevent Mr Abramovich from making any money in Britain.
This is part of the majority of the EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The current license ensures Chelsea can afford to fulfil their obligations for the season, with the Premier League funding them money till the 31st of May.
It leaves the European and World Club Champions stuck.
They can’t afford, long term, to be run by a Billionaire who has all of his assets frozen.
Yet the only way to protect Chelsea is by essentially agreeing that a man believed to have close connections to Vladimir Putin makes a sale that will be worth Billions, although he won’t see a penny of it.
While many would see the irony of Chelsea, of all teams, becoming poor you have to take the emotion away and judge Chelsea for what it is.
It’s a successful business in the UK that brings a lot of economy to the capital city of England.
Football is our national sport. The Premier League is one of Britain’s greatest brands that is marketed around the world.
Hurting one of the biggest clubs in Europe, who have existed for 117 years, would be our government cutting their nose off to spite their face .
Worth 12.3 billion, Abramovich can survive whatever happens to Chelsea. The men and women who work in the shop, canteen, on the stalls, cannot.
Then there are the fans who, banter aside, do not deserve to lose the club they love just because they were unlucky enough for their owner to be Russian.
Yes, there are strong doubts about how the 55-year-old made his fortune and the majority of Chelsea fans didn’t care about those rumours when it benefited them .
Yet those allegations are not fresh. They have existed since 2003 and Football chose to look the other way.
Chelsea are not viewed as a very likeable club by the neutrals. I do feel if this were Man United or Liverpool who were being affected by essentially the origin of their boss then there would be more empathy?
Do not get me wrong, Chelsea fans would struggle with a straight face to feel sorry for themselves.
A club who took advantage of being financially superior to others can’t now play the underdog if the same were to happen in reverse.
Only Man City’s owners have done the equivalent of Mr Abramovich’s business model so on the law of averages Chelsea won’t find another backer like the one they had.
They might have to accept the majority of clubs being controlled by someone who wants to only spend what they make.
That makes Chelsea less powerful and easier for Arsenal to catch up.
It increases the chances of them falling outside of top 4 contention, making it easier for us each year.
Banter aside though, the Government can’t let Chelsea drown.
Be Kind in The Comments
Dan
JustArsenal Show Support for Ukraine
They can go bust all I care. Club will survive and if thr fans are true, they stay and support it. Its only the plastic fans who would “suffer”.
Concerning jobs, no doubt soon Newcastle will be hiring new staff.
So good riddance Chelsea! Easy come easy go.
Yes, I remember Chelsea were awful before they took the oligarch’s money. I admired Abramovich’s football passion and willingness to take huge financial damage for almost two decades, but his connection with the Russian government and military is ruining Chelsea’s image
As for the men/ women who work in the shop, canteen and on the stalls, they will survive because Chelsea will never disappear
They weren’t awful, they had players like zola, vialli, Desailly etc, not long before abramovich told over. I remember them being quite exciting to watch at times but never quite good enough to win the big trophies – probably around the level we are right now?
They had several talented players, but the team was mediocre to me
Chelsea is bouncing Back after we got a new owner,we will pull through this Trying times, UK Govt mixing football with politics.Chelsea fetch money to The UK government through Tax and other Sponsorship deals from Across The world.why don’t you Concentrate on your Club and leave Chelsea alone
Well that’s their cup of bitterleaf extracts,none of us on here cares about what they are going through except those who got soft spot for them.i just hope we take our chance in becoming the pride of london by winning numerous trophies especially ucl and cwc amongst others we are the arsenal we are born to rule.
Well,that’s their cup of bitterleaf extracts,none of us on here cares about what they are going through except those who got soft spot for them.i just hope we take our chance in becoming the pride of london by winning numerous trophies especially ucl and cwc amongst others we are the arsenal we are born to rule.
They’ll soon be sold to another billionaire and business will resume as usual…
Well Said
If Chelsea drowns, some other club will make up the numbers in the league. As my most hated club I’d love to see Chelsea sink.
I don’t get this at all. Why are Chelsea fans punished for no fault of their own?
When RA poured money into Chelsea the fans were rewarded with bought trophies for no achievement of either their own or of their club. It was just RA’s money. So now they get punished for no fault of their own. If it was not wrong before, it can’t be wrong now either.
Why are Ukrainean civilians punished for something that’s between few country leaders?
They are not, they are just being unfortunate, needless collateral damage. So they are punished indirectly.
And so are the Chelsea fans, they are collateral damage.
Chelsea is an asset of a Russian oligarch whose money is connected to the #1 war criminal in the world right now. So righly his assets are being frozen, the football club included.
I concur HH. I know quite a few Chelsea fans who were going home and away long before Abramovich rocked up. Even when they were struggling in the 2nd Division they still went.
I have little sympathy on one hand but on the other, admit to wishing Arsenal could have had such success. Better to have proper football governance and ownership scrutiny by the Premier league and our government so that the Abramovitches of this world and Arab states face stiffer enquiries about their probity
I think I’m right, but not allowing away fans into Chelsea isn’t fair at all. As long as any revenue doesn’t end up in RA’s hands I’d have thought that is the main thing. If Chelsea are disadvantaged in the short term then tough luck. They have been bankrolled for 2 decades by a man who has enriched himself at the expense of the citizens of Russia.
I’m certainly not happy with the idea that he can write off the debt which would leave Chelsea in a more comfortable position than should be allowed
The problem in allowing away fans to attend games at Chelsea SueP is the home club have to pay for the police, and the sanctions that have been brought in forbids them spending any money.
fair enough, Herr Drier. Just seems unfair for the away team to have no support in the ground.
I agree SueP, but Chelsea are going to face the same when playing away soon, as they can’t sell tickets after the sanctions were introduced.
Hopefully Chelsea will go back to what they were before Abranovich doctored the competition with his money – bankrupt and yo-yoing between divisions.
Chelsea have been successful over the last 20 years because of financial doping, which should have been illegal, but was somehow allowed.
So I hope the club crashes and burns, and gets all their best players poached!
And NO Arsenal fan should want them to survive given Abramovic directly impacted Arsenal at a time that we were at our strongest under Wenger.
Sad to know they’ll get back up cos billionaires including a saudi media are in a bidding war right now i guess it all goes down to who the uk govt sells to.
If I remember correctly, you have previously hailed Chelsea as a very well run football club, looking away from the obvious sportswashing of RA’s money.
If Chelsea end up in serious financial trouble, they may have to suffer a demotion like Leeds many years ago. Then they will have to rebuild from there.
I really don’t see, why anyone, let alone the government, should save the club from that. Chelsea have taken the money from a very dubious source, and there could be consequences. If anything, maybe it can be a lesson to learn also for other clubs tempted to accept any owner.
Am not for one that to wish bad for anyone , institution or better yet a competing club, just wish good sense prevail in the end.
I must admit though my heart turns to see the suffering of the innocent Ukrainian that has done nothing to deserve what they are going through,
An excellent and above all a realistic article DAN .
All perceptive fans have known all along that Chelsea will not be allowed by the British government to go under and so they will survive, though with some short term financial difficulties, at least until sold to a new owner, which will happen shortly as we surely all can see.
I know , as will all fans who have the courage to examine their own conscience honestly, that were the boot on the other foot, back in2003, we Gooners would have welcomed Abramovitch, if our old directors had sold out to him.
It was at one time floated by him, as too was Spuds, but both turned him down, fortunately.
Far more recently, our club shunned Usmanov’s ambitions of owning us, again very WISELY, as things have turned out.
I see no other Gooner giving any credit to our board and Kroenke for that decision; not surprisingly, I might add.
What will happen ove the next year or two /three though, is that the new owners will now be competing on equal terms and NOT WITH A HUGE ADVANTAGE , over the like of us, Spuds, Liverpool and that is a huge WELCOME and long overdue change for the better of all involved in football.
FANHOOD RIVALRY IS THE GLUE THAT KEEP FANS INTERESTED (apart from the game itself , of course) and as such Chelsea’s survival must be welcomed by thinking fans.
We already have several examples on this thread of the many non thinking fans that all clubs attract , but that is just how life works. Not all brains are equal, sadly!
It is lazy and trite for the politicians and government in the UK to out of enviuosness want to destroy a thriving Club which has not committed any crime or been accused of any wrong doing since the last Twenty years of thier take over by Roman Abramovich.Instead of sending figther jets to the sky to defend the good people of Ukraine, they timidly are chasing shadows. The families of 1,400 men and women who are involved in the day to day running of the Club and thier dependants have seen how dubious and hypocritical the British government can be.
Shame on you all.
The UK government IS NOT trying to destroy Chelsea, they’ve sanctioned a man that owns the club. Ok some people who work at the club may not get paid, but if the players care about those people, they can dip into their massive wages and pay them.
As for sending fighter jets, no country has done that, as that would be classed as an act of war.