First post. Registered the other day.
We'll obviously need to wait for all the facts to be presented before handing out judgement. But that payment reflects horribly on the club. Still unsure of the circumstances regarding the payment. The press are calling it hush money. If that's what it is, then that something that shouldn't have happened and the club will be rightly vilified for it.
Some journalist on SS (Oliver Holt I think) said that this payment links the past to this current regime. Other clubs can claim it was a bygone era and no-one at the club from those days is still around and then distance themselves from it while the club is still implicated and Chelsea couldn't do this because of the payment, which unfortunately makes a lot of sense.
This thing will get a lot worse and we'll hear many more stories come out.
As for Syed, I've long since stopped paying attention to him. The fact that he's using other people's pain to once again single Chelsea out is so very Matthew Syed of him.