Nothing Chelsea do will ever be good enough for them to be the good guys

Chelsea will continue paying their players and their staff their full salaries during the shutdown. Somehow this is being twisted into a negative.

We really don’t like to play the “campaign against Chelsea” card any more than necessary, and you would think that the absence of VAR during the shutdown would deny us the opportunity or need to do so. But the way some media are spinning Chelsea’s handling of the coronavirus shutdown gives us little choice but to play the campaign card, as well as note that if Liverpool did such a thing the British media would be nominating the club for a Nobel Peace Prize. But, of course, Liverpool did no such thing. In fact, they were prepared to shift their non-playing staff payroll onto the exchequer’s dole until reversing course amid public outcry.

Cesar Azpilicueta negotiated on behalf of the players and offered their willingness to accept a 10% pay cut. This is being presented as a disregard of the Premier League’s “recommendation” of a 30% cut, and a lack of solidarity with other clubs’ players who were standing against any pay cuts.

In short, The Telegraph and others are having a cranky Goldilocks moment because Chelsea negotiated for less than one group wanted but more than another group wanted.

Chelsea’s real transgression – like those of people in various circumstances worldwide, including some Tottenham and Arsenal players in a different context – is independent thinking.

Azpilicueta and his Blues reached their own decision based on their own values and judgments, and are being scolded for it on the grounds that they did not hew firmly to one camp or the other. Instead of going along with a “recommendation” or a herd, they went their own way. Much sin. Very shame.

Adding to the silliness of the anti-Chelsea sentiments are the facts that the players have pledged to keep up their charitable donations during the shutdown, and Roman Abramovich is committed to no one in his employ taking a pay cut during the shutdown.

So while other clubs’ players are being urged to give up some of their salary to help their owners pay the full staff, and some staffs are on government-supported furlough, the Blues are in a negative light because their owner is making no such demands of his club. He is absorbing the financial hit, as an owner should do, and encouraging the players to give some of their salaries to the community instead of to him or the club.

The players will get their full salary. The club’s full-time staff will get their full salary. And match day and temporary workers will receive their full wage as if the season was proceeding normally.

Again, if any other club did this, the accolades would knock any other news off the headlines.

Obviously, we’re biased. It’s the entire reason we’re here. But it’s hard to imagine a neutral, impartial reading of the situation that would not cast Chelsea in a positive light; and of this latest episode in line with their community-first leadership throughout the shutdown. While Arsenal and Tottenham struggle to get buy-in from the players, and Liverpool had to be shamed into not going on welfare, Chelsea have asked for nothing, denied nothing to anyone and given freely.

No doubt we’ll soon hear about how “Roman’s rubles” are buying goodwill and positive PR, because that would clearly be the most flagrant act of sportwashing in England these days, right?