Chelsea Tactics and Transfers: Blues were last to enjoy pre-FFP openness

This week Manchester City were hit with one of the larger punishments in recent UEFA history. Chelsea were the last to come through in an era of openness.

No one knows how these punishments are going to play out for Manchester City. If they appeal, the punishment will likely be suspended while their appeal is heard, as is usually the case in all things involving football’s governance. But even in that interim some things will change grossly for the blue side of Manchester, and the effects will play out throughout the Premier League.

Generally, I think it’s in bad taste for Chelsea supporters to act as if we’re on a high horse about this. Yes, it’s true the club has shown the sort of business sense that would suggest they’re run by an incredibly efficient and intelligent businessman and one of the most powerful men in Russia in recent years. But that was not always the case.

In many ways the Financial Fair Play rules Manchester City have been “convicted” of breaking were introduced to football because of Chelsea. When Roman Abramovich bought the Blues he changed the football landscape forever. He immediately pumped enough money into the side that they could compete not only at the top of the Premier League but also in Europe. He so marvelously and quickly challenged the establishment that they were shaking in their boots for years and everyone complained. Everyone.

I have always disagreed with FFP. I wouldn’t go so far as calling it a “protection racket” like Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail, but it is exactly the sort of bland, boring and conservative thinking that should not hem in sport and life. Why shouldn’t someone who is competitive and interested be allowed to spend their money on a hobby? Why shouldn’t that hobby be a football club? For some people in that rarefied air it is, and that’s fine.

People forget that it has literally always happened in football. The Agnelli family has done it with Juventus for ages. The King of Spain has done it for Real Madrid for ages. If it wasn’t him then it was Francisco Franco. Whoever was atop the Spanish state either made audacious and crazy immigration law changes to get players like Alfredo Di Stefano or simply wiped out club’s debt so they could purchase players like Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and Ronaldo. Jack Walker did it with Blackburn when he bought Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton, and won the Premier League in 1994/95.

FFP is so annoying because it simply protects those clubs who happened to be powerful at the time it was made. For organizations as associated with corruption and bribery as UEFA and FIFA, there’s more than a little salt to be pinched any time they discuss fairness.

I’m happy for Manchester City to get any sort of ban they can get, if only because they compete with Chelsea and I support anything that’s good for the Blues. But that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the ridiculousness of FFP and, in general, the way FIFA and UEFA choose to do business.

They support the big clubs, the established and famous clubs. They look down on the rest, and FFP is just another tool to do that. Chelsea may have been the last team to really sneak through that door, but things like FFP make it unlikely something as wonderfully fun and life changing for so many people will happen again, and that’s a shame.

The sentiment Chelsea created by brazenly infuriating everyone in European football when Abramovich took over without a doubt contributed to the FFP rules that City are slogging their way through.  I know many people seem to hold the opinion that “well Chelsea spent the money better than City” so somehow the circumstances are different.  That’s negligible at best.

So while it’s better for Chelsea to have more of their competitors weakened, it’s important to be reflective as well. Manchester City’s circumstances are not so different from Chelsea’s own, and their story not so different, either.

The Blues do seem to have put their financial house in order and should be happy to be among the biggest clubs in the world. It’s an incredible story in terms of how much things have changed.

The sad thing is that it simply seems less and less likely to ever happen again, and that doesn’t seem very sporting at all.