Just when things finally looked to be turning around for Chelsea, a huge report in the Guardian today reveals that Chelsea are facing the very real threat of a points deduction.
Now first off, it’s important that this isn’t some sting being done on the football club by the paper. It’s actually part of a huge international investigation called Cyprus Confidential. Some 3.6m offshore company records uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Moreover, several dozen different news outlets across the world have had access to parts of it.
Chelsea are facing points deduction:
One of many, many, many revelations from this has been that Chelsea’s former owner Roman Abramovic may have been funding the club in ways that not just flouted profitability and sustainability rules, but outright made a mockery of them.
Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea for £140m in 2003, threw a frankly insane amount of money at them. People forget but, at the time, this has just never, ever happened on this scale before. They went from getting Petit and Gallas in one window. To Crespo, Veron, Duff, Makelele, Parker, Cole, Duff, Bridge, Glen Johnson and Mutu in the next. It was nuts, and it was practically overnight.
He finally sold up last year when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant that the financial sanctions imposed on the country by the UK rendered his ownership untenable. But almost from day one of him leaving, there has been all sorts coming out about it.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who literally wrote The Price of Football, says that,
“If there is proof that the club has used third-party transactions to circumvent the profitability and sustainability rules then sanctions would be either financial or a points deduction. The latter is more likely as any commission investigating a club’s circumstances will want to put out a deterrent that dissuades others from repeating such behaviour.”
If there is proof that the club has used third-party transactions. Every other individual and company mentioned here. They paid money either directly or indirectly to people associated with Chelsea, is a third party. Abramovich owned them. But that doesn’t make them affiliated with the club. They have their own money and it is against the rules for them to spend that on a football club’s behalf.
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