• SOERERY@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    City and Chelsea duking it out for the one direct promotion spot in the national league next season.

    • evenout@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      I always like to think what would happen if a huge club dropped to the National League. It’s worse than relegation for players because the Championship is not that bad, some players jet off but some will stay to help fight back. If City or Chelsea, hypothetically were to drop down what would they do? Would Foden or James stay at their respective clubs to stat pad in the National League? Would the entire squad have a clear out and they’d use some PL2/U21 kids in the league? It’s fascinating to think about.

  • gethatwearhat@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Why is it that teams like Chelsea and City can manage to do this in the first place, and then there’s no reprocussion discussions until a decade later?

    The FA, Premier League, FIFA - whoever, need to start being more proactive with laws instead of reacting to teams taking the piss.

    • Rorviver@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      The extent of Chelsea’s cheating and cities cheating are barely even comparable. It’s like one slapped a grandma and the other committed a genocide.

  • UglyWanKanobi@alien.topOPB
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    1 year ago

    Chelsea FC face fresh questions over how its former owner Roman Abramovich funded the club’s success, after leaked files revealed a string of secret payments that may have breached strict football rules, including those on “financial fair play”.

    Experts said the transactions, uncovered through a joint investigation by the Guardian and international partners, could lead to the Premier League imposing punishments on Chelsea, such as a deduction of points.

    The files reveal a series of payments worth tens of millions of pounds over a decade, routed through offshore vehicles belonging to Abramovich. The transactions in question appear to have been for Chelsea’s benefit, raising questions about whether they were declared in accounts submitted to football’s governing bodies.

    • Darpn@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Sad for the new owners since nobody from the Roman era is still there but I guess they didn’t do the necessary due diligence.

    • grchelp2018@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Every time I read about Roman’s financial transactions, there are new shell companies from the BVI. More shell companies than people have throwaway email/reddit accounts. He must have a dedicated guy on payroll just for naming them.

    • NotClayMerritt@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      You do have to question this entire piece of journalism considering it’s not telling us anything new or groundbreaking. We already know as fact that Clearlake have reported secret payments that were made under previous ownership to the Premier League months ago when going through the club’s finances. I don’t suppose Bruce Buck or Marina are around to face questioning?

      I swear it’s like a new publication gets to write this exact story every couple of weeks (coincidentally the last one came during the last international break aka slow news cycle).

      Next they’re going to tell us we paid Andreas Christensen’s dad as a scout or that we paid Bertrand Traore’s mum - both of which we’ve already served two transfer bans for btw.

      • Lyrical_Forklift@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        We already know as fact that Clearlake have reported secret payments that were made under previous ownership to the Premier League months ago when going through the club’s finances.

        I don’t think much of it has been leaked to the press though - this is the media doing what the should be doing.

        The question is, what kind of punishments should Chelsea face? If it’s a small points deduction years later, when it ultimately doesn’t matter, then it’s not much of a deterrent to anyone else.

        • not-always-online@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          The only fair punishment that would also act as a deterrent, is to strip them of all their titles during this period.

      • empiresk@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        You do have to question this entire piece of journalism considering it’s not telling us anything new or groundbreaking.

        Did you read the article? It literally states multiple instances of rule breaches that have not been self reported.

      • depressingmirror2@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Do you not think that maybe that is why Clearlake reported what they did. To muddy the water like this. They report the least damning thing they can find and lump every other accusation in as what they’ve already reported.

      • Rare-Ad-2777@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        They’ve found more payments haven’t they. That’s what this is saying. It’s more of the same stuff. Not looming good for chelsea

    • NotClayMerritt@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure if anything substantial will wind up happening mostly because Clearlake have been upfront with the Premier League and self reported potential infractions.

      BUT if this leads to significant punishment down the line, it will taint Abramovich’s legacy as owner. He will no longer be known as strictly the serial winner who took us to a household name. It’s not my place to adjudicate nor am I naive enough to think his image was totally clean before all of this. It’s just something to ponder. Potential punishment on top of the two transfer bans we were handed? It skews the measurements.

      • Livinglifeform@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Should be a stripping of titles as it was previous owners and perhaps a financial restriction to punish the gains down the line from the cheating.

      • Alsmk2@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Hey guys, I just murdered someone. I’m being upfront though, so I guess that’s fine right?

      • Rare-Ad-2777@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Don’t think self reporting matters does it? They can still penalise the club, dock points and put a transfer ban in place.

        • Rorviver@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          It certainly helps, or at least should. Thought City’s tactic of denying, bribing and throwing lawyers at it seems to be working better.

      • grchelp2018@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        BUT if this leads to significant punishment down the line, it will taint Abramovich’s legacy as owner.

        Only if it leads to titles being stripped or something. A few 10s of millions in total going to some agents here and then isn’t going to do much.

        What I am curious about it is why they did so in the first place. The amounts are too little to go through all this trouble. I’m more inclined to think that his finances were such a complicated web that every now and then, money went out from the “wrong” shell companies or they simply missed it when reporting it later because it was so complicated.

  • surgereaper@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    We’re acting like these things are new now? The entire system is rotten to the core, not just the club funding but the entire organisations running the sport

    • DamoDuff11@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Arsenal fans had Usmanov owning their club for a long time and begged him to own it fully at times too so it’s always funny when they cry about Abramovich.

    • NotClayMerritt@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      They can financially dope all they wish, but the players still have to perform, the manager still has to do a job. Money doesn’t buy competence or success.

  • telcomet@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Wait you’re telling me that Chelsea’s meteoric rise to winning trophies, immediately after being acquired by a Russian oligarch who was friends with Putin, is in some way connected to ill gotten gains?

    • AframFram@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Add Salzburg, Girona, Leipzig, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg… there are more offenders who will gladly join this project and bring as many fans and morals as the ones above.

      • rilex1905@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Leverkusen and Wolfsburg have nothing in common with the Red Bull clubs. Those two were founded by factory workers of Bayer and Wolksvagen. This is where they get their name and sponsorship from. And lots of other clubs were formed around factories, as they were meant to provide better conditions for workers before clubs went professional. PSV and Sochaux were formed around Phillips and Peugeot. Red Bull just bought clubs and pumped money into them via nefarious means. Leverkusen and Wolfsburg don’t do that and their relations to corporations are historical.

        • AframFram@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          Leverkusen and Wolfsburg don’t do that and their relations to corporations are historical.

          I was thinking about adding PSV, but compared to Wolfsburg and Leverkusen they are actually liked and supported in their country. The only reason why Bayer and VW get a pass nowadays is because of RB.

    • meganev@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Gotta let us actually win something first. Then we can be banished to the shadow realm.

    • Freddichio@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Chelsea, City, PSG, Newcastle, Barcelona, Juventus and Spurs.

      Spurs haven’t been making these dodgy deals but it’d be funny

      • PassengerOk9027@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        I mean, where’s the OG of doping, the RM itself – the only organic thing about them is all the blood it took to fertilise the government that raised them so

  • The_Big_Cheese_09@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Is this any different than City taking ‘revenue’ from shell companies owned by their club’s owner? If nothing will be done to City for money laundering and stuff like that I doubt anything comes of this.

    And despite all of this, the Premier League will keep opening its legs to any shitty human with a lot of money.

  • shaka_bruh@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    The only reason this post was isn’t downvoted to hell is bc Chelsea fans are outnumbered, they’re in denial about stuff like this lol