It was technically legal when Chelsea did it, although they more than Man City or PSG (or collapsing clubs like Leeds or Portsmouth) are the reasons behind the FFP rules.
I think its pretty obvious who is old enough to remember the first few years under Abramovich compared to Man City currently by the level of fury towards Man City cheating.
Chelsea spent double or even triple what their nearest rivals did in 2005 or so. Man City outspend their rivals sure, but not by an insane amount.
The real issue is that a team like City “shouldn’t be allowed to spend as much as Man U or Arsenal” which is odd IMO, I think there should be a hard salary/transfer cap to level the playing field, not a “well you were massive before we changed the rules, so you can spend X, but you weren’t as big so can only spend Y”
People can disagree with that if they like, but the fact that Chelsea themselves managed to spend way more “non football income” than Man City, become one of the “big clubs” just before the rules changed, so now are “allowed” to spend more than City, because now their “football income” is huge is just mad to me.
I thought we kind of know what’s going out (as in wages, transfers etc) through their books and what other teams report. It’s the dodgy money coming in that’s the main issue.
Though imagine that 115 charges, there some on both sides!
Either way, even if you want to just make up whatever numbers you feel are right (let’s say Haaland cost 120m for example) I still feel like they’d be short of the mad advantage Chelsea 2005 had. You couldn’t massage the transfer fees to make them double what Man U, Chelsea or whoever spend. Plus it looks like Chelsea were lying all the time anyway.