Boehly is going to ruin Chelsea (hopefully)

I mean, it was not that bad bad under Tuchel i think. The drop in performance yes but going for Potter just kill it all. Even at his lowest, i still prefer Tuchel than Potter(a truly truly mediocre manager for me). You could do better than Potter at that moment though, just not sure who was available at that time.

Potter has to be deemed a failure at Chelsea, even with caveats (he wasn't there very long; the squad assembling was incoherent and counterproductive to morale; Lampard is doing much worse) but a mediocre manager doesn't do what he did in Swedish football, (including good performances in Europe) playing actually progressive football, nor change Brighton's style around as much as he did from Hughton and build the basis for a Europa league team (which Brighton could well be next season under current manager).

They all have issues- Tuchel's not great at managing up, and can be a slightly abrasive or 'weird' personality at times, although a lot of players overall like him, but is a very good tactician; Potter's a really good training ground head coach, has high EQ and a good tactician overall, if not at Tuchel's level, who just got lost in the Chelsea tumult and didn't have the 'trophies' nor the technocratic attention to detail that wowed certain players with Tuchel. Potter, IMO, is probably quite close to a British Poch in his skillset, although he has more 'gimmicks' (from his Masters in management courses) and is a little bit less 'tough' in his manner when needs be: I think he'll do well with whatever upper mid-level PL league or maybe German team he can get a job with.
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?
It is a coincidence ffs. Just because Chelsea are smart about selling, doesn’t make it a conspiracy of Boehly and MBS.
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?

I wouldn't worry, I'm sure this is just a coincidence:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/s...estors-Chelseas-new-majority-shareholder.html
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?

How exactly?

Should non-European income be banned from an FFP perspective?
 
Truly astonishing that Saudi clubs are paying exactly the remainder of what Chelsea owe on all their unwanted overpaid players nobody else will give them a fee for and also offering to double their wages to convince them to go. Really mad coincidence that these PIF owned clubs are helping out another club PIF are invested in to help them negate the FFP rules they quite clearly wouid otherwise have broken. An unbelievable coincidence in many ways. I’m sure nothing dodgy is happening though - Chelsea are just so incredibly well run.
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?
@adexkola The Saudi Public Investment Fund is a big investor in Chelsea's majority investor, Clearlake Capital. PIF also own Newcastle and control 4 teams in the Saudi league. So basically, PIF are paying a team they have a major investment in (Chelsea, via Clearlake) for players that they are transferring to another team that they own, in order to get funds into Chelsea and confirm with FFP after their £600m splurge. Which, on paper I don't think is illegal if they pay a fee - however it's shady to say the least.

Not sure what the league / Uefa can do about it unless the law changes though.

Would it bother me if I were a Chelsea fan though - heck no. If it solves their FFP issue then I'd be all for it, they're already sleeping with the devil anyway right?
 
@adexkola The Saudi Public Investment Fund is a big investor in Chelsea's majority investor, Clearlake Capital. PIF also own Newcastle and control 4 teams in the Saudi league. So basically, PIF are paying a team they have a major investment in (Chelsea, via Clearlake) for players that they are transferring to another team that they own, in order to get funds into Chelsea and confirm with FFP after their £600m splurge. Which, on paper I don't think is illegal if they pay a fee - however it's shady to say the least.

Not sure what the league / Uefa can do about it unless the law changes though.

Would it bother me if I were a Chelsea fan though - heck no. If it solves their FFP issue then I'd be all for it, they're already sleeping with the devil anyway right?

Oh I missed this!

Well that changes everything, thanks for the clarification (@Acrobat7 included)

It's not "illegal" but it's a clear loophole of the (idiotic) FFP rules. What's stopping a club's owner from buying a Malaysian club and having that club pay £100M to the original club for a scrub player?

Again, scrap FFP and bring in proper wage and salary caps, or may the best spender win
 
Oh I missed this!

Well that changes everything, thanks for the clarification (@Acrobat7 included)

It's not "illegal" but it's a clear loophole of the (idiotic) FFP rules. What's stopping a club's owner from buying a Malaysian club and having that club pay £100M to the original club for a scrub player?

Again, scrap FFP and bring in proper wage and salary caps, or may the best spender win

Basically, PIF can essentially buy a stake in any or all clubs and play God for the sport. Money isn't a problem for them.

FFP isn't perfect and has its issues. But when a club blatantly conspires with another PL clubs owners, I'm sure it is an illegal activity.

Regarding wage caps, that's a separate discussion for sure but it wouldn't be devoid of issues of its own. What if a Luton Town decide against making any signing and commit their entire budget to sign an ageing player for 400k a week? They may think that's the best bet for survival. Why should they not be allowed to do that?
 
Truly astonishing that Saudi clubs are paying exactly the remainder of what Chelsea owe on all their unwanted overpaid players nobody else will give them a fee for and also offering to double their wages to convince them to go. Really mad coincidence that these PIF owned clubs are helping out another club PIF are invested in to help them negate the FFP rules they quite clearly wouid otherwise have broken. An unbelievable coincidence in many ways. I’m sure nothing dodgy is happening though - Chelsea are just so incredibly well run.

They are American owned so they can do no wrong...
 
Couldn't find a more relevant thread to bump.

These Saudi deals that Chelsea are pursuing (along with the Neves transfer from Wolves) reeks of corruption. Clearly, this isn't a coincidence but a clear and unethical, possibly illegal, tactic of getting on the right side of FFP. Do we expect the league to wake up and investigate or is it 10 years too soon to expect this?

Personally, as someone who is opposed to the Qatar takeover, this is the exact nature of shady business I don't ever want to see in the game and especially from our own club. And if any Chelsea fans see this, doesn't this bother you?

Well said.

Football is completely dead isn't it?
 
Keep saying it. It’s time to just get on board with the cheating. It isn’t going away and nothing will be done about it.

This is literally a large scale conspiracy. Something chelsea drummed up as far back as last summer when they started their ludicrous spending. They knew exactly how they would sort out any ffp issues in the long run. The fact they’ve done this knowing any Tom dick and Harry would figure it out shows a total disregard for rules and astonishing arrogance. But I don’t blame them. What’s the point sitting around playing fair trying to catch the likes of City, who have been cheating year in year out with no consequence.
 
In a revelation that will raise questions over the transparency of the world's most expensive sports sale, Sportsmail can disclose that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund [PIF] have billions of pounds of assets managed by Clearlake, who bought 60 per cent of Chelsea in a £4.25billion takeover this summer
 
All seems very murky. I wouldn't be trusting the current lot at Chelsea to make the most of it anyway.
 
Basically there's so many ways to get around legislation. There's no stopping the likes of the Saudis taking over multiple clubs.
 
That and how was this "fit and proper" test conducted with the PIF having material influence over 2 major EPL clubs in Newcastle and Chelsea? Should be a clear conflict of interest there alone.


UK government loves oil or any money coming in. Just look at London. Anyway, I thought Chelsea's takeover and subsequent spending didn't make sense. Oh well....
 
How is there not a rule to prevent this? Surely if you own or part own clubs you should be banned from transferring players between them? (Or there should be some process to normalise the value for FFP reasons).

Although tbh if you can have 115 charges and it doesn't matter this will hardly matter either.
 
How much stake do the Saudis have in Chelsea? This can get very murky.
5% stake in Clearlake
Clearlake manage around £60B in assets from around 300 investors. PIF has billions of £ managed by Clearlake and PIF are serious investors in Clearlake. Clearlake invested about £2.25B in Chelsea (ie. they own 60% of Chelsea).

I don't know how Clearlake manage the assets though and whether each investor is included in every investment Clearlake do, or whether PIF had instructed Clearlake they wanted a significant proportion of their investments going to Chelsea - if it's the latter, Clearlake are the name of the investor but basically PIF is invested heavily in / own Chelsea.
 
The whole multi club model is open to all kinds of sporting and financial corruption. Having clubs owned by states and their enabling hedge funds the same.

Football has always had its brown envelopes, with the odd case making the front and back pages. Now its on a far bigger scale, its out in the open (almost) and the main actors couldnt give a shit.
 
Yep, money makes the world go round, unfortunately.
we (the uk) didnt bat an eyelid when twentysomethings children of dictators spend their gazillions in london. in fact the tories were quite happy for them to be paying 100k plus for a lunch / game of tennis with ministers. In the meantime middle eastern despots, taking a break from torturing queer folk back home, were coming over here to have tea with the late queen at buckingham palace, hiring out entire five star hotels in central london just to store their luggage, admire their lodgings (country estates / golf courses / horse-racing operations) dotted across the home counties, and then heading back with 10s of billions of pounds worth of weaponry.
 
I'm so confused. They sign Kante on a free transfer and are linked with our Muslim players (for fees a fraction of what Chelsea paid) and we've done something wrong?

If we're cheating, we're doing a really bad job with it.

If they spend what we paid for for Cucurella or Lukaku then I'd get suspicious. Signing Koulibaly for less than half of what we paid for him last year isn't anything suspicious.
 
I'm so confused. They sign Kante on a free transfer and are linked with our Muslim players (for fees a fraction of what Chelsea paid) and we've done something wrong?

If we're cheating, we're doing a really bad job with it.

If they spend what we paid for for Cucurella or Lukaku then I'd get suspicious. Signing Koulibaly for less than half of what we paid for him last year isn't anything suspicious.

Chelsea have FFP problems to solve urgently
PIF has a stake in Chelsea (Edit: PIF has investment in Clearlake but not directly into Chelsea)
Chelsea owner visits Saudi
Saudi clubs are linked with 3 Chelsea players (Ziyech, Mendy and Koulibaly) who they are struggling to sell off in Europe
FFP problems solved

Voila. Conspiracy? What conspiracy?
 
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If they spend what we paid for for Cucurella or Lukaku then I'd get suspicious. Signing Koulibaly for less than half of what we paid for him last year isn't anything suspicious.

Cucirella is shiit. Their fans would probably riot if he was signed… They tried to help you with Lukaku and he is the one that rejected the deal.
 
Chelsea have FFP problems to solve urgently
PIF has a stake in Chelsea
Chelsea owner visits Saudi
Saudi clubs are linked with 3 Chelsea players (Ziyech, Mendy and Koulibaly) who they are struggling to sell off in Europe
FFP problems solved

Voila. Conspiracy? What conspiracy?
I'm sure it's just a strange coincidence.
 
Its gonna be the usual case where one or two teams will take advantage, as its not really 'cheating' as its deemed legal.
Something will be put in the way (long after) and it will stop other teams from doing the same to try and catch up.
As usual teams who try to do things the right way will suffer as the others all compete for the top trophies / or win them.
 
Chelsea have FFP problems to solve urgently
PIF has a stake in Chelsea
Chelsea owner visits Saudi
Saudi clubs are linked with 3 Chelsea players (Ziyech, Mendy and Koulibaly) who they are struggling to sell off in Europe
FFP problems solved

Voila. Conspiracy? What conspiracy?
Saudi are chucking money everywhere, not just Chelsea. It'd be odd of they weren't going for Chelsea players.

And if you think selling 3 of our 80 players solves our FFP issues, I'll have some of what you're drinking.