Is Chelsea's premiership title legit ?

Football being part of life is never fair, we know that but that doesn't mean that fans don't want it to be fair, Glazer's takeover of Manu might be financially sensible for the shareholders, but no Manu fan will say that it's fair. I'm not whinging about Chelsea winning the league unfairly, and I don't think Matt Clark is either, we're just stating facts. I'm simply saying that I can understand why some fans are annoyed by it all.

 

The notion of "fair" is a subjective one, depending on one's prejudices and biases. Ergo, most of those who are not Chelsea fans, will think it unfair, those who are Chelsea fans will have no problem with it. Humans are a funny bunch.
However, there are two points that I'd correct. First, not all clubs became great in the way Senor Clark insinuates. Case in point - Real Madrid. The one player who turned Real into what they are today, Alfredo Di Stefano, turned out for Bacelona for a few friendlies until some friendly persuasion from a certain chubby and still dead ruler encouraged him to make his way north. In one stroke of fortune, Real went from one of the two clubs in the third region of Spanish football (inferior to Catalunya and the Basques) to El Real, whom we all know and love as the club that sells their training ground for 200M to the local government. Then, of course, there's ManUtd, who were buying grossly as soon as SAF took over. On the merit of............well, on the merit of just being ManUtd. (Unless one team 20 years prior has any connection. Which no, it doesn't.) So I don't agree that what Chelsea has done is somehow unique.
Also, its not accurate that we were about to go the way of Leeds. We had a Eurobond payment to make, one that would likely have been covered by the mooted sale of Gallas to Barcelona. Which, rather fortunately, did not happen.

Is our title deserved? Yes; we broke no rules in our play. Do you think its fair that Roman can do this? Well, ask yourself if you wouldn't mind him buying your club. Then actually be honest with yourself. You'll get that answer.
P.S. Spurs fans don't count. I think the reason they're so unhappy is just because they know that had Roman bought them, they'd have spent his 200M on a collection of Gardners, Rebrovs and Postigas. They're jealous of any club with any sum of money which is clever enough not to waste it on terrible purchases.

 

Huh? Why is it not "fair"? It might be bad for the club, but there's nothing unfair about a Glazer takeover. Just like there's nothing unfair about my other club plunging into near bankruptcy due to massively stupid spending. ManUtd chose to go out into the market to raise cash. Now you're saying its "unfair" that someone might do to them what investors do to public corporations all the time? There's nothing remotely unfair about it.

 

But that's the quick short answer. Once you'd sold Gallas, to clear up that one payment, you'd still have been hugely in debt, unable to buy more players without going deeper in debt and having to repay it at some point...

 

Not entirely accurate, but no, our situation was not peachy keen. Which I've never said. We were not, however, about to do a Leeds.

 

nicephoras,

Point of information 1 - Madrid is NOT north of Barcelona. Also, Barca blew their chance with Kubala earlier. Do open a map once in a while.

Point of information 2 - I would not be happy with a mafioso buying my club. I am very unhappy with the fact that Lukoil are laundering money via my Spartak at the moment and so are a bunch of other firms via Russian footy and it is seen as normal. I do not want this to jump over to these islands. Therefore, I am totally against any oligarch-type investment from abroad without any prior investigation. I was very unhappy with the Thai-Liverpool talks. One of the concerns would also be - what if the individual gets the rag pulled from underneath him?

 

The problem with Leeds, Bradford and Leicester was that they were being run by total idiots, so the givens in the securitisation were nigh impossible and although the main lawyer working on the securitisation of the clubs did his best, the situation he was faced with was pretty untenable. Does anyone know quite how Chelsea were securitised before the Abramovich takeover?

 

Whilst i agree it's all water under the bridge (ha ,stamford bridge geddit,geddit, no? oh well, I'll get my coat!)but it's hard to say that you wouldn't. If you hadn't had RA money you quite possibly wouldn't have got into CL, and then it's a spiral downwards...

 

I know who that guy is. Had a very interesting discussion with him about it.

 

£7.5m on a right back, £11m on a striker, £10m on a 'winger' and a projected £17m on a foreign youth? It's a lot more than Charlton and Bolton spent. Plus wages remember

 

Precisely. Had Abramovich seen through his original plan in football I'm sure there'd be more than the odd "Chelski" fan who would be screaming blue murder about the fact that this Russian mercenary had donned the Yiddo white of the Lane and left "their" club burbling along in a stream of it's own debt somewhere down in mid-table. Not to mention how pissed off they'd be about Frank Lampard and John Terry jumping ship to those Finsbury upstarts.

Oh OK, fair point. Besides, I can sit here all day and let you draw parallels between Chelsea and Franco-era fascist Real Madrid.

Yeah, but even that meant more than "just being Chelsea". United between 1968 and 1993 might have had the most overblown self-image in world football, but it was still a good deal more credible than Chelsea's claims to being a big club. And the money they spent, they did actually earn, by virtue of having a very large following indeed (and a rapacious eye for an earner, it has to be said).

In and of itself, it most certainly is. There are no applicable direct equivalents that I am aware of in any of the major leagues. We're talking about a team club that has spent more than the rest of the league combined in two consecutive seasons. And will do so again this summer, no doubt.

... and £120m debts to service ... and a revenue/wages ratio of 85% ... and outstanding transfer installments on Lampard, Stanic and Hasselbaink.

But anyway ... yes, Chelsea's title is legit.

 

But it's not a lot more than Chelsea (pre RA), Liverpool,Newcastle, Boro, Leeds, Spurs... And remember these signings you talk about are over 5 seasons...

Also Arsenal were famous for having a rigid wage structure (ie. they didn't pay much!) until quite recently, so you would have found players at Spurs and Boro on more than players at Arsenal.

 

That's why I mentioned it as you relayed it to me - all very intriguing.

 

How interesting - at what stage was Franco trying to build up a foreign club using his country's assets?

 

You know what, after 50 years of "legitimately" not winning the title, I don't think any Chelsea fan gives a **** whether it is legit or not, and it really doesn't matter what any other fans think about it.

 

Yeah, except if you discuss the matter with Chelsea fans, it clearly does. Not, of course, to the extent where they would actively wish not to be in this situation.

 

Eh? We got into the CL before Roman.

 

That's true. There's a reason most ManUtd fans run around pretending their success is still all built on youth.

 

Did you stand any chance of winning it before roman came though?

 

Actually, it was a distinct possibility. Unlike yourselves of course, who as everyone knows in England, are allergic to Europe.

 

I love that, someone with no clue...."you wouldnt have got in" "woops I mean you wouldnt have been in position to win it."

 

Come on Chelski fans you lot have spent 121,500,000pounds in the last two seasons, please point to any English Prem team who have spent that much in that space of time. Please give facts. I spent some ******** ass time on the Sky Sports website adding up the cost of transfers, there were also five undisclosed deals.

The money has meant Chelsea will win the title, it is ligit. But had it not been for "The Don", Chelsea would be in crippling debt. Accept it I cant see where your arguments are coming from. Obviously Ranieri achieved alot to get Chelsea into the CL two years in a row. But that would be nothing now with out your owner.

And congratulations on your deserved title.

 

121 mil in 2 years? thas wack.
better not lose at that price. better not think about losing. winning is holding serve. winning in style, would be regular winning. Best all time would be really, really winning.

i think they won and with some style, sometimes, but overall they won but in a methodical, grinding, terry and lampard breaks your leg kinda way.

7.5 maybe an 8 deserved, real, but not magical

so fire jose lol bum cant coach

 

How different is this from United spending 76 million on just 3 players in the span of one year, especially when they were already at the top of the league? BTW, they still hold every trasnfer record for every position in England. And because we are bankrolled by someone with more money than the guy bankrolling Spurs you wanna bitch and play pauper? When you guys stop spending more then the bottom of the table teams, we will stop spending more than you. How many homegrown players were Spurs using on Monday? 1? Congrats.