So the big news for Chelsea fans this week is that their club is banned from buying any new players till January 2011, at first view this could be the most dreaded news for the Blues fans but every cloud has a silver lining and could this be a blessing in disguise for Chelsea?
Before we go further let’s take a look at the key points of this case:
*Gael Kakuta joined Chelsea from Lens two years ago after which the French club lodged a complaint with FIFA, seeking compensation for breach of contract and asking for sporting sanctions against the London side.
*FIFA’s dispute resolution chamber (DRC) have announced Chelsea were guilty of inducing Kakuta to breach his contract with Lens and that the player had breached his contract.
*As a result Chelsea have been banned from registering any new players for the next two transfer windows – effectively until January 2011 – by FIFA.
*Chelsea have also been ordered to pay Lens compensation amounting to 130,000 euros (£113,995).
*Kakuta has been banned from playing in all matches for four months and ordered to pay 780,000 euros (£680,311) in compensation.
* Chelsea have the right to appeal against the decision and take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.
As SoccerLens points out the ruling is quite vague, Does that mean they can’t sign any free agents? Hopefully this doesn’t mean that they can’t draft new players (domestically) into their academy, or that it restricts them from offering contracts to players in their youth academy.
Blessing In Disguise?
Firstly, soon to be new dad and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has recently backed the UEFA Spending Cap Plan,UEFA president Michel Platini proposal states that clubs can only spend what they earn in revenue, and any club that doesn’t balance the books within three years would face expulsion from European competitions.
This seems pretty strange for a guy who has spent tons of money in building Chelsea to what they are now, and in recent seasons,especially this season he has not spent money to build on Chelsea, there were talk of big deals for Pirlo and Pato but in the end
nothing like that happened.But than again Abramovich has been indicating that he wants Chelsea to depend less on his money and be a profitable entity on it’s own.
This ban could be the perfect excuse for Abramovich to save all those hard earned ruble’s.
Next, this ban could provide stability in the Chelsea ranks, no new players coming in would mean that the team will not need to integrate over again, this season they are coming to grasp with the diamond formation and it’s been working well so far although there’s still some things to iron out.
And than the question that needs to be asked is…does Chelsea need new players anyway? with the abundance of talent in the team do they really need to bring in new faces? Carlo Ancelotti has been in this position before with Milan and while the Chelsea team in aging (Lampard is 31 now!) Ancelotti is just the right man to make a team out of veterans, looks at Ballack right now, he’s playing with new found gusto and i’m sure with the coach can do a similar job on Lampard, Deco, Drogba, Anelka and co, and we have not seen Joe Cole in a long time, plus the new boy Zhirkov has yet to play this season.
With all those savings they could actually splash out a mighty sum on players in the 2011 window, especially if they win silverware this season, there will be a good sum of change in the bank.
I know Chelsea are appealing this case and might win their appeal and make this article of no value at all, but i also think Chelsea should just take it in, save money in this financial climate and spent it later on.
What do you think?