Can't we go through a month without some sort of controversy.

Being a Chelsea fan these days is 90% off pitch drama, 10% actual football

23 minutes ago, Deino said:

Can't we go through a month without some sort of controversy.

Being a Chelsea fan these days is 90% off pitch drama, 10% actual football

It's no surprise I am always on edge these days whenever it comes to Chelsea.

43 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It's no surprise I am always on edge these days whenever it comes to Chelsea.

1 hour ago, Munkunku said:

Nicholas Jackson immediately returned to the club & has to play every minute of every game for the duration of his contract.

9 hours ago, bisright1 said:

I'd love a transfer embargo.

It would certainly give those recruits from our existing strategy the opportunity to go through puberty before the next batch replace them.

18 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

It's no surprise I am always on edge these days whenever it comes to Chelsea.

you and your edging..... training coming along well? Stings record will be yours soon!

IMHO, It will most likely just be a fine. I very much doubt points deduction and I’m 50/50 on a transfer ban.

It was in the BBC and guardian articles.

They both highlighted how Chelsea self-reported and cooperated with complete transparency. They even gave them full access to our accounts. UEFA gave us an 8mil fine for those charges. I’m guessing it will be a bit more than that from the FA though.

Not that long ago Brighton were charged by the FA . The charges were in respect of their dealings with intermediaries.

These charges were the second of the sort having previously been charged for similar offences in 2015

Worth a read and there’s a name in there you might recognise

Edited September 12, 2025Sep 12 by terraloon
Dam can’t get the full file over but goggle FA Charge Brighton and you should be provided with a link

On 11/09/2025 at 21:45, Deino said:

Can't we go through a month without some sort of controversy.

Being a Chelsea fan these days is 90% off pitch drama, 10% actual football

I'm reading Stamford Bridge is Falling Down by Tim Rolls at the moment. Our modern drama has nothing on the 70s!

Assume they’ll be a hefty fine. Admire the new owners for several self disclosures.

Associations / governing bodies see Chelsea as a cash cow with all these fines. They’ll need a new income source one day!

• Self reported. Would’ve never come to light had Clearlake not done so.

• 74 charges but context shows it’s only £10m of unrecognized payments throughout a 20 year period.

• Biggest expense was to Hazard’s agent paid via a tax haven, the majority of them are mundane expenses like £40K paid to a physio.

It’ll be a fine imo as UEFA have done. People will see the “74 charges” for the headlines but it really isn’t anything different than what the club did with Cheistensen’s dad.

When City were charged by the PL we saw details so a part of what I am about to write is pure speculation ( so what’s new I hear you ask)

Bearing in mind that the we now face charges which effectively fall in to two categories

1) Making illegal Payments to agents/ intermediaries/ player’s families

2) Money coming from third parties.

Bearing in mind that every incident detailed in 1) was it seems to have been funded from an unauthorised source ( not club accounts) my guess is that a charge under 2) is linked.

I tried to link a link to a case involving Brighton where they in effect put their hands up to around 20 charges which fell under the same type of misconduct as we are putting our hands up to under 1).

What’s interesting is that Brighton admitted the charges at the first opportunity, made a financial settlement with HMRC and carried out a deep dive into their records where other incidents were uncovered.

What compounded matters in my mind was that these charges in the early 2020s followed an earlier charge in 2015 around similar activities between them and intermediaries.

Edited September 14, 2025Sep 14 by terraloon

Bumping this thread because the BlueCo one already has plenty of other things to discuss.

@terraloon's favourite useful idiot, Stefan Borson, who now moonlights as a 'football finance expert', has taken to the High Performance podcast

In this episode, and within the first ~30 seconds, he claims:

• That Chelsea's payments to unauthorised agents were inducements to sign

• That these payments constituted a sporting advantage

• That the quality of the players means that there was a disproportionate sporting advantage.

Firstly, as is the case with any of these types on YouTube, they express opinion as fact. In Borson's case, it's not a very good opinion since all of the points he made were already considered and ruled on by the Tribunal and it was decided that the club had no further case to answer.

We know that the payments were categorically not inducements to the players to sign, because they were not made to them directly. The payments still fall foul of the rules because since 2009 a player can only have one registered representative (usually their agent) and only this representative is entitled to payment from a buying club. In Chelsea's case, Abramovich apparently sought to reward the scouts who identified these players with a 'finders fee' or commission if/when Chelsea got their target. De Visser and Arnesen, for example, were employees of the club and the payments were simply a bonus, that should have been considered club revenue. The payments made in connection to Hazard were to his agent, years after the signing, and to two individuals who alerted Lille and Hazard to Chelsea's interest, essentially a buyer's agent. The introduction of FFP/PSR means they were targeted as a reportable expense. The only way this could ever been considered an inducement is if the player himself refused to sign for the club unless a payment was made to one of these third parties, but as Borson himself admits, the players had no knowledge of these payments.

As ever, the FA's rules themselves need greater scrutiny as the precedent set by this case means it is illegal to pay a player's family but instead empowers clubs to pay super-agents to act for both buying club and player, a conflict of interest that harms any selling club.

The question on sporting advantage has also been answered. There was no FFP/PSR breach, so there was no sporting advantage. We didn't sign players we otherwise could not have afforded to sign. Borson goes so far as to say that Willian only signed for Chelsea at the last minute because of the payment, but it is well known that only happened because Willian hates Tottenham, was disgusted by White Hart Lane and the club itself, and the minor and irrelevant reason that Anzhi's owner was mates with Roman and withdrew all other offers once Roman dropped him a text.

Finally, the last point is so ridiculous it is not really worth going into, but of the list of players only Hazard stands out as being exceptional. Schurrle, Ramires, Matic, Willian and Eto'o all had key roles at times, but were hardly exceptional and to say they constituted a sporting advantage is nonsense. The breaches happened at

All in all, while I despise the idea of defamation law being used to silence people giving a legitimate opinion, I would also laugh my head off if Borson gets hit with a defamation suit for regurgitating and retreading information that is contrary to the already-considered facts.

Edited April 20Apr 20 by SydneyChelsea

1 hour ago, SydneyChelsea said:

has taken to the High Performance podcast

Could have just left it there and we’d have all know what a humourless c**t he is.

1 hour ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Bumping this thread because the BlueCo one already has plenty of other things to discuss.

@terraloon's favourite useful idiot, Stefan Borson, who now moonlights as a 'football finance expert', has taken to the High Performance podcast

In this episode, and within the first ~30 seconds, he claims:

• That Chelsea's payments to unauthorised agents were inducements to sign

• That these payments constituted a sporting advantage

• That the quality of the players means that there was a disproportionate sporting advantage.

Firstly, as is the case with any of these types on YouTube, they express opinion as fact. In Borson's case, it's not a very good opinion since all of the points he made were already considered and ruled on by the Tribunal and it was decided that the club had no further case to answer.

We know that the payments were categorically not inducements to the players to sign, because they were not made to them directly. The payments still fall foul of the rules because since 2009 a player can only have one registered representative (usually their agent) and only this representative is entitled to payment from a buying club. In Chelsea's case, Abramovich apparently sought to reward the scouts who identified these players with a 'finders fee' or commission if/when Chelsea got their target. De Visser and Arnesen, for example, were employees of the club and the payments were simply a bonus, that should have been considered club revenue. The payments made in connection to Hazard were to his agent, years after the signing, and to two individuals who alerted Lille and Hazard to Chelsea's interest, essentially a buyer's agent. The introduction of FFP/PSR means they were targeted as a reportable expense. The only way this could ever been considered an inducement is if the player himself refused to sign for the club unless a payment was made to one of these third parties, but as Borson himself admits, the players had no knowledge of these payments.

As ever, the FA's rules themselves need greater scrutiny as the precedent set by this case means it is illegal to pay a player's family but instead empowers clubs to pay super-agents to act for both buying club and player, a conflict of interest that harms any selling club.

The question on sporting advantage has also been answered. There was no FFP/PSR breach, so there was no sporting advantage. We didn't sign players we otherwise could not have afforded to sign. Borson goes so far as to say that Willian only signed for Chelsea at the last minute because of the payment, but it is well known that only happened because Willian hates Tottenham, was disgusted by White Hart Lane and the club itself, and the minor and irrelevant reason that Anzhi's owner was mates with Roman and withdrew all other offers once Roman dropped him a text.

Finally, the last point is so ridiculous it is not really worth going into, but of the list of players only Hazard stands out as being exceptional. Schurrle, Ramires, Matic, Willian and Eto'o all had key roles at times, but were hardly exceptional and to say they constituted a sporting advantage is nonsense. The breaches happened at

All in all, while I despise the idea of defamation law being used to silence people giving a legitimate opinion, I would also laugh my head off if Borson gets hit with a defamation suit for regurgitating and retreading information that is contrary to the already-considered facts.

Or at least you, or somebody like you, had the right of reply on these platforms with this excellent response to publicly unmask this pitiful moron.

4 hours ago, Munkunku said:

Could have just left it there and we’d have all know what a humourless c**t he is.

Fair. It's devolved to Diary of a CEO nonsense since, but it had a very candid interview in which Lampard revealed the complete absence of standards under BlueCo.

6 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Fair. It's devolved to Diary of a CEO nonsense since, but it had a very candid interview in which Lampard revealed the complete absence of standards under BlueCo.

I couldn’t bring myself to listen to a single episode even if hearing what Lampard had to say would be interesting.

My low performance, just rest lifestyle is too at odds with their manosphere adjacent bo**ocks.

12 minutes ago, Munkunku said:

I couldn’t bring myself to listen to a single episode even if hearing what Lampard had to say would be interesting.

My low performance, just rest lifestyle is too at odds with their manosphere adjacent bo**ocks.

You are our Messiah.

5 minutes ago, dermott said:

You are our Messiah.

Is that because I have a beard?

1 minute ago, Munkunku said:

Is that because I have a beard?

You're obsessed with facial hair.

4 minutes ago, dermott said:

You're obsessed with facial hair.

Its exciting when you finally start to grow hair, let him enjoy his bodies changes. I remember when i was 15 too.

6 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Its exciting when you finally start to grow hair, let him enjoy his bodies changes. I remember when i was 15 too.

As a new parent you should make the most of what you have while you have it.

47 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Its exciting when you finally start to grow hair, let him enjoy his bodies changes. I remember when i was 15 too.

I’m closer to 50 than 15 which luckily means I’m also closer to being all lovely and dead.

Edited April 20Apr 20 by Munkunku