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No More Spending For You, FC Chelsea

Sep 3, 2009, 8:28 PM UTC

Roman Abramovich was already hypocritically agitating to limit spending at major football clubs, conveniently just after Chelsea established itself a regular Champions’ League participant and before Manchester City could wedge its way into the club via their own oil baron.â†µâ†µSo you might expect a new proposal (“no spending ever!”) after this bombshell got dropped:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“FC Chelsea is banned from registering any new players, eitherâ†µâ‡¥nationally or internationally, for the two next entire andâ†µâ‡¥consecutive registration periods following the notification of theâ†µâ‡¥present decision,” said the DRC. “Furthermore, the club, FC Chelsea,â†µâ‡¥has to pay to RC Lens training compensation in the amount of €130,000”â†µâ†µâ†µIE: Chelsea can’t sign anyone until January of 2011 except players they already have under contract. That’s a heavy blow. It comes because Chelsea was ruled to be interfering with RC Lens starlet—woo goofy British footie lingo—Gaël Kakuta, who attempted to break a contract and sign with the Blues. He’s been suspended for four months.â†µ

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â†µChelsea, naturally, â†µis appealing, and they just may win a reduction. Roma got nailed on a similar charge a little while back and saw the penalty reduced to one transfer window, which would have Chelsea back to signing folks next summer. Also, the charge here is basically pursuing a kid they want, something every big club does constantly: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Real Madrid began the most public of campaigns to make Cristianoâ†µâ‡¥Ronaldo aware of their interest two or three years ago. The lastâ†µâ‡¥time I checked, Ronaldo had years left on his Old Trafford contract.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Barcelona have been telling anyone that would listen during theâ†µâ‡¥transfer window that they were willing to go all out to sign Cescâ†µâ‡¥Fabregas.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Only this summer Real Madrid’s so-called ‘advisor’, Zinedine Zidane,â†µâ‡¥gave an interview to /Le Parisien/ where he insisted that the Bayernâ†µâ‡¥Munich winger Franck Ribery was on course to become a Bernabeu player.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µThis, in goofy British footie lingo, is “tapping up,” and it’s widespread. Here Chelsea actually induced a player to breach his contract, which makes it significantly different than buying Ronaldo for half the GDP of Spain. Manchester United is unlikely to file a complaint about that. Ferguson isn’t spouting off like so:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“It’s a logical decision. *They stole the boy off us when he wasâ†µâ‡¥16.* He was at our club since the age of eight-and-a-half.â†µâ‡¥Unfortunately, 95 times out of 100, it’s the English clubs who comeâ†µâ‡¥and help themselves,” the Lens chairman Gervais Martel told theâ†µâ‡¥Guardian last night.â†µâ†µâ†µChelsea is unlikely to get off scot-free here: bookies have adjusted their projections.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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