Roman Abramovich Thread

[gdlk 272]

Show me a club which isnt finances with tainted money and you call him world top club, which is in top 20 in Europe. 

[Superblue 6,372]

23 minutes ago, Bernie Finkle said:

Everything is on a knife edge . Ethically I'm struggling explaining to my daughter's why this mess has happened and justifying our past years ownership when deep down we all knew the financial position of the club was built on tainted money. Relentless coverage, discussion at school has made it very hard . I think understandably mentally we all brushed it under the table .

My golden days are Osgood , Harris , Bonetti , etc , even Mickey Droy , Walker . Personally give me purity over controversy.

Just my take .

Personally I think the morality issue extends far beyond Chelsea Football Club. This has been something building and bubbling for years and has been further scrutinised in recent times with newer Premier League investors, the Super League, etc.

The facts are the Premier League need to learn lessons from this with regards to whom it allows to purchase the club. We've already had Newcastle purchased this season so it's clear there's still a blind eye being turned to where money is coming from so long as it flows into the league.

Just like in the Government right now, there needs to be a big question mark over morals running right through the football system - from owners, to players, to PL and FA exec's and even journalists who are more than happy to be dined and looked after by clubs (and many more than likely had no problem going to report the world cup in Russia at the time, or to report the next world cup in Qatar). Chelsea are firmly in the crossfires right now, but it'll be another team down the line.

[Fulham Broadway 16,917]

Will the £4m Tory MPs and Johnson have gladly accepted from London based oligarchs in the last 10 months be frozen/given to Ukraine ?

Of course it fucking wont. 

[Superblue 6,372]

1 hour ago, coolhead23 said:

I also believe maybe our days of being as an elite club might be over. With these sanctions Roman would be forced to sell within the time frame allocated and as what is said that Roman wants someone who can take the club forward. We might have owners who might get the club at a cut price which would have impacted on us being on top. 

If things can be resolved as soon as possible no matter who our owners are, I don't think we'll see a dramatic drop off.

Yes the transfer spending may not be as extravagant but it possibly doesn't need to be. A number of Premier League clubs in recent years have higher net spend than us, and United have about double. Everton have spent fortunes and could get relegated. Throwing money at problems won't always solve it. As a result of Roman, we've been able to rectify and absorb bad signings and poor managerial appointments to operate in a very short term way.

What we'll probably need to move towards is longer term planning and just operating in a more shrewd manner in the transfer market. Fortunately if we can come out of this relatively unscathed in terms of the squad, we've already got a strong squad and top manager. We have some more academy players on the verge of being part of our squad next season too. If Broja and Gallagher come back next season as you'd expect, possibly Colwill too depending on the situation regarding our defenders, we'll have over a third of our squad from the academy. If that conveyor belt can continue for the forseeable then I'm not concerned about our status, because we're then in a position where the squad may only need fine tuning and tweaking with one or two moves a summer which we should still be more than capable of doing.

We're comfortably in the top 3 teams in the country and have two of the hottest young prospects in the Premier League this season to be added to it. It's far from doom and gloom so long as we can get out of the position we're currently in asap.

[cosmicway 1,333]

11 hours ago, Superblue_1986 said:

If things can be resolved as soon as possible no matter who our owners are, I don't think we'll see a dramatic drop off.

Yes the transfer spending may not be as extravagant but it possibly doesn't need to be. A number of Premier League clubs in recent years have higher net spend than us, and United have about double. Everton have spent fortunes and could get relegated. Throwing money at problems won't always solve it. As a result of Roman, we've been able to rectify and absorb bad signings and poor managerial appointments to operate in a very short term way.

What we'll probably need to move towards is longer term planning and just operating in a more shrewd manner in the transfer market. Fortunately if we can come out of this relatively unscathed in terms of the squad, we've already got a strong squad and top manager. We have some more academy players on the verge of being part of our squad next season too. If Broja and Gallagher come back next season as you'd expect, possibly Colwill too depending on the situation regarding our defenders, we'll have over a third of our squad from the academy. If that conveyor belt can continue for the forseeable then I'm not concerned about our status, because we're then in a position where the squad may only need fine tuning and tweaking with one or two moves a summer which we should still be more than capable of doing.

We're comfortably in the top 3 teams in the country and have two of the hottest young prospects in the Premier League this season to be added to it. It's far from doom and gloom so long as we can get out of the position we're currently in asap.

Re. transfers it depends who the next owner is, how soon ad what are his aspirations.

In 1987 the club of Olympiakos Piraeus was in dire straits. Enter George Koskotas a young bankster and during the January transfer window only he manages to stun the world with some super players. Lajos Detari and Juan Alberto Funes were just two of them.
The rest of the story was sad however. Koskotas was found to be defrauding his bank, made a spectacular escape to Brazil, expelled, had to land on US territory then extradited to Greece. His brother Stavro disappeared and was never seen again (believed to be hiding in a jungle in Colombia).
However George Koskotas is rightfully regarded as a hero by Olympiakos Piraeus fans.
Their next prez went to prison too. He was the one who gave his Lear jet to Koskotas to make it to Brazil but later he was accused of other economic misdemeanours.
The next one was Sokrates Kokkalis. The company of Sokrates is the one who manufactures the betting shop terminals in many countries of the world. Those were computers with keyboards initially, now with screen sensors.
But Kokkalis was an East German spy. In his early years he used to send a report to Stazi every day and his reward was 65 US dollars for each report. His Stazi nicknames were "crocus" and "cascadeur".
But in the case of Kokkalis the file stayed dormant in the offices of the Justice department for years and years and meanwhile Olympiakos were winning championships. A little while before the statute of limitations expired an opposition mp stormed the building and demanded the case to proceed. But they locked the drawers and ushered him out (that mp is now a pro-Putin ex mp but anyway).
The reports sent by Kokkalis to the Stazi were nothing spectacular really, but most of the time he kept writing stuff to get his 65 bucks.
In one of them he said "hot meeting between the prime minister and the archbishop over church properties today - clash is expected".
Incidentally the father of said Kokkalis was the doctor of the communist mountain guerillas in 1949. The socialist party of Greece (PASOK) gave the street behind the US embassy his name.

The current president is something of a mystery too. He 's a ship owner and one of his vessels, the Noor1, sailed from Malaysia to Piraeus full of stuff. Midseas the interpol warns Greece about it. So they allow the ship to dock and watch who comes to collect the stuff.
It was hidden inside hollow pieces of marble and it was collected by a close friend of the Olympiakos president. So the police arrests this guy and confiscates the narcs.
But the Olympiakos prez says "what do I know ? he used my ship supposedly to bring marble and I had no idea". Is he telling us the truth or not ? Who knows.

Edited March 11, 2022 by cosmicway

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Milan 17,859]

Who is this Nick Candy, how is he perceived by the general public? All I know about him is he is a Chelsea fan which can be both good and bad.

[Pizy 18,415]

4 minutes ago, Milan said:

Who is this Nick Candy, how is he perceived by the general public? All I know about him is he is a Chelsea fan which can be both good and bad.

I know nothing about Nick but as someone who’s into real estate I know about his brother who developed probably the most expensive condo building in central London amongst other developments. He doesn’t seem to be that rich, though. So he’d have to be a part of a large consortium and I doubt he’d be the main decision maker if his group took over.

Honestly, the best case for us at this point seems to be the Boehly/Wyss group. At least Boehly has plenty of experience in elite sport and will know about building teams.

Getting an amateur who knows fuck all about football in a time of chaos and crisis like this doesn’t sound like a good idea. We need a calming, steady handover. 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Jeremy Gunn 3]

The timing of the next game is an opportunity to expose their hypocrisy. Against the Saudi owned Newcastle. They happily get into bed with the Saudis, who chop up journalists and are killing thousands of civilians in Yemen. Some effective demonstrations are needed, and when better than a high profile game against the Saudis?

[err 19]

Fridman, or mikhelson could step in...

Because that does not sound russian.

plus mikhelson  is a great driver.

[DH1988 1,304]

UK government have just taken the opportunity to control the sale and funnel money to 'charitable' causes, most of which will never end up where it is supposed to.

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[coolhead23 1,146]

2 hours ago, Superblue_1986 said:

If things can be resolved as soon as possible no matter who our owners are, I don't think we'll see a dramatic drop off.

Yes the transfer spending may not be as extravagant but it possibly doesn't need to be. A number of Premier League clubs in recent years have higher net spend than us, and United have about double. Everton have spent fortunes and could get relegated. Throwing money at problems won't always solve it. As a result of Roman, we've been able to rectify and absorb bad signings and poor managerial appointments to operate in a very short term way.

What we'll probably need to move towards is longer term planning and just operating in a more shrewd manner in the transfer market. Fortunately if we can come out of this relatively unscathed in terms of the squad, we've already got a strong squad and top manager. We have some more academy players on the verge of being part of our squad next season too. If Broja and Gallagher come back next season as you'd expect, possibly Colwill too depending on the situation regarding our defenders, we'll have over a third of our squad from the academy. If that conveyor belt can continue for the forseeable then I'm not concerned about our status, because we're then in a position where the squad may only need fine tuning and tweaking with one or two moves a summer which we should still be more than capable of doing.

We're comfortably in the top 3 teams in the country and have two of the hottest young prospects in the Premier League this season to be added to it. It's far from doom and gloom so long as we can get out of the position we're currently in asap.

If's & But's, mate.

All of us want's things to smoothen out, I was referring more on worst case scenario ... 

[Superblue 6,372]

34 minutes ago, coolhead23 said:

If's & But's, mate.

All of us want's things to smoothen out, I was referring more on worst case scenario ... 

Yeah of course. Worst case is we don't even get a buyer.

Any buyer at present though who has some competency and resources to run the club, even if not at the level we have had the last 20 years, I don't see us just falling into the abyss as a result with the set-up already at the club that they would be inheriting.

[didi007 69]

2 hours ago, Pizy said:

I know nothing about Nick but as someone who’s into real estate I know about his brother who developed probably the most expensive condo building in central London amongst other developments. He doesn’t seem to be that rich, though. So he’d have to be a part of a large consortium and I doubt he’d be the main decision maker if his group took over.

Honestly, the best case for us at this point seems to be the Boehly/Wyss group. At least Boehly has plenty of experience in elite sport and will know about building teams.

Getting an amateur who knows fuck all about football in a time of chaos and crisis like this doesn’t sound like a good idea. We need a calming, steady handover. 

Hes been a Chelsea fan from childhood so that helps. Loves the club 

[Superblue 6,372]

Whilst I'm a little hesitant of an American purely based on other Premier League owners, we can't really be picky at the moment.

Boehly's track record does seem to suggest he could be a good owner for the club. This piece is a good read and a couple of interviews I've seen him conduct he does come across as very passionate, well spoken and knowledgeable. 

Matt Law has pushed his consortium as a very credible candidate throughout the last week or two and still is pushing them as one which still want to buy the club, and given he's usually one of the more reliable or 'in the know' journalists covering the club, you would have to assume he is going to be a front runner to take over.

[Superblue 6,372]

12 minutes ago, Hermione said:

What a strange title any owner right now puts us more or less from where we were a couple months a go, what is this savior nullity you'd think were fighting relegation or struggling with money due to poor finances or sponsorships which isn't the case. We have a smaller stadium and still have more revenue than the likes of Arsenal and just a bit behind Liverpool all this without Roman's involvement.

The 'saviour' tag will be based on the fact that if no one buys us and the government sanctions continue we'll go out of business. 

I personally think something will be sorted out before it came to that point, but it's silly to just assume everything is fine in the current situation. We have no means of generating revenue and any sponsorship and prize money will be frozen so whatever monies are available for now won't last forever. I'd be surprised if it can last through the rest of the season. So on that basis anybody who ends up buying us will essentially be the saviour of the football club.