Financial Fair Play? Schimancial Schmair Schmay, more like.
If the leaked Cyprus papers suggest what they seem to suggest, it's further evidence that elite level football has been fundamentally corrupted by big money for decades.
Well, well, well, what do we have here, then? To a not inconsiderable extent, the news that Chelsea may have been funnelling money to players and coaching staff via backdoor means shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise. Their ascent to the top was not only incredibly sudden, but also total. They didn’t just find their way to the top of the Premier League very quickly following Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of the club a little over two decades ago, but they stayed there as well.
Over the course of the twelve years reportedly covered by the leaked ‘Cyprus’ papers, they won thirteen trophies. And the details lay out how direct all of this was. Eden Hazard, for example, seems to have been a beneficiary of this. Antonio Conte was too. Hazard and Conte were the twin bursts of energy which helped to bring them the 2016/17 Premier League title. Conte was manager of the month for three successive months and the manager of the year. Hazard, who’d arrived four years earlier, was in the Premier League’s team of the season, having scored 16 Premier League goals for them that season.
On the basis of what the leaked papers may indicate, there is a very real likelihood that they both arrived at the club as a result of payments sent in such a manner as to circumvent the very same Financial Fair Play rules that were introduced to try and curb exactly this sort of wild spending. Not for the first time, there is a mounting body of evidence that plutocrats who consider themselves to be above the rules of anything will simply nod along in agreement with anything related to the actual spirit of the game and then just carry on shovelling money into their hobby horse by backdoor means in order to ensure that they continue to hoover up all the silverware available.
And I suppose I should be clear about this, because you always have to be clear about this sort of thing (and then get ignored anyway). This is not about ‘jealousy’, and this implication in itself is pretty emblematic of the extent to which childish thinking rots the brain when it comes to talking about football. Mark my words, you could not pay me enough money to have to psychologically wrestle with my conscience over supporting a football club that is funded by, say, a close political ally of a despotic government, or as part of a sportswashing project for a country with a despicable human rights record.
It remains the case that this will almost certainly be a decision that I will at some point have to make to which I probably already know the answer. And that does hurt. But that’s the 21st century for you, I guess, smashing the things that we love and replacing them with alternatives that benefit and/or enrich an ever-diminishing number of people to the detriment of everybody else.
Manchester City already have their 115 Premier League charges and a fan base which has been fundamentally corrupted by their years of success. Chelsea may be on the way to something similar, though we should probably presume that any charges laid at their door will be treated in the same way. Tribalism gonna tribalism, and if there’s one thing that plutocrats will have learned from almost two decades of money being pumped into football clubs that hadn’t been particularly successful prior to their arrival, it’s that people sure do seem to get addicted to that winning feeling quickly and that they’ll defend just about anything to keep that feeling flowing.
Chelsea supporters sang Abramovich’s name even as reports came through that atrocities were being carried out in Ukraine. Newcastle supporters celebrated the possibility of joining that club despite what we all knew about the owners of their club. A substantial proportion of Manchester City supporters have been attack dogs for the United Arab Emirates for years.
But money, ultimately, is the story of the Premier League since its formation in 1992. Financial wherewithal came to conquer all other considerations, to the extent that matches became processsions of exhibition matches, at the end of which it was simply expected that a “Big Club” would hoover up all available silverware. The domestic league and cup double, for example, was completed three times in the 95 years between 1897 and 1992. It’s been completed eight times in the 31 years since.
And you can argue all you like about there being a “right way” and a “wrong way” to establish a domestic hegemony, but that doesn’t alter the stark fact that this hegemony came to exist in the first place and that, rather than trying to take mitigating steps to try and level the playing field somewhat and keep things competitive, laissez-faire capitalism only grew that divide wider and wider.
Financial Fair Play rules were eventually introduced in order to curb financial doping of clubs, but it remains a valid bone of contention to feel that these curbs may have been brought in at the behest of those who merely wanted their dominance to continue, rather than those who wanted everybody to have some degree of a chance.
The transfer of Willian to Chelsea in 2013 is a pretty good example of how this corrupts the game. Reports at the time confirmed that Roman Abramovich, made a ‘personal call’ to Suleyman Kerimov, the fellow-oligarch owner of the now defunct (but then similarly financially-doped) Anzhi Makhachkala owner, hijacking the transfer after Tottenham Hotspur had all but agreed a deal to sign this particular player. Anzhi Makhachkala, for the record, went bust in June 2022.
Now, I’ve never been convinced by Daniel Levy’s caterwauling over the Willian transfer, but it is striking to see this player on the list of those who may have been paid with money that circumvented FFP rules. Don’t cry for Tottenham Hotspur. They’ll always find a way of tripping over their own shoelaces. But this little story does say something about the way in which football has come to do its business; sly and underhand, and with a suggestion of rule-breaking thrown in for good measure.
So, where do you go, should you walk away? Women’s football? Well, they’re in the process of building exactly the same hegemonies as the men’s game. And let’s not go pretending that the non-league game is some sort of paragon of virtue, although it does at least have the merit of being less expensive and not (yet) bespoiled by VAR. Perhaps football in the 21st century isn’t for the likes of me. Perhaps this world isn’t.
And I get it. It sucks. For anybody with a moral compass, these are decisions that we shouldn’t have to make, and it is a permanent stain on the game that people already have walked away from it because they no longer find it conscionable to be able to continue to follow it. Perhaps an independent regulator for the game will make a difference, but big money speaks the loudest in every other aspect of our society, and if we collectively don’t care about, say, the number of people living in abject poverty, then why should we care about the moral probity of football? To that extent, Chelsea have just been living the 21st century dream. It just so happens that the 21st century dream sucks.