Football stuff

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Remarkable how charitable people get when the firm in question does stuff they like.

Firm's go bust all the time.

No company should be too big to fail. Bad governance leads to bad outcomes. If you want to sell your club to a billionaire with a murky reputation and take their money, you make your bed and lie in it.

Chelsea should be made an example of to put off all other clubs doing the same.

The authorities can and should then go after all the other murky owners and do the same.

The whole debacle has corrupted football beyond measure. The club bares some responsibility for that, like it or not.

You are getting confused between shareholders, club and management. If the shareholder has done wrong, punish him. The club is a perfectly viable concern, what is needed is a change of shareholder.

I suspect you are still smarting from that time a Chelsea fan p1$$Ed outside your house and called you a c***. And that is colouring your view here.

surrey_commuter

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

Stevo_666

surrey_commuter said:

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

Did a Chelsea fan p1$$ in your front garden as well?

rick_chasey

surrey_commuter said:

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

So the FA need to get a good kicking for approving him.

We still don't know if there is evidence or not that the club was being used to launder money.

Fundamentally this is the problem when the authorities allow clubs to be bought by corrupt thieves.

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You can't take the stolen money and then cry when it all goes wrong.

skyblueamateur

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

So the FA need to get a good kicking for approving him.

We still don't know if there is evidence or not that the club was being used to launder money.

Has anyone ever been judged not to be 'fit and proper'?

This happens so often in the lower leagues, Cov, Blackpool, Wigan, Derby, Bury, Stockport etc.

The football league are a joke.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

So the FA need to get a good kicking for approving him.

We still don't know if there is evidence or not that the club was being used to launder money.

Fundamentally this is the problem when the authorities allow clubs to be bought by corrupt thieves.

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You can't take the stolen money and then cry when it all goes wrong.

Who exactly has taken this stolen money?

Dorset_Boy

"Investing" in a sports club for 20 years would seem a strange way to launder money.

I don't know the figures, but in how many years of his ownership have Chelsea FC turned a profit, and how many a loss, and then what is the overall position over those 20 years? If the cumulative position is a loss, then as I say, waiting 20 years to get a return is pretty unusual in the money laundering stakes.

kingstonian

I thought that part of the reason he bought the club was to have assets outside of Russia and therefore out of the clutches of Putin if their relationship ever went sour.

laurentian

kingstonian said:

I thought that part of the reason he bought the club was to have assets outside of Russia and therefore out of the clutches of Putin if their relationship ever went sour.

I heard (BBC radio) he bought Chelsea because VP told him to . . .

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You keep repeating this, but the club is an asset owned by some shareholders. It doesn't get to choose its shareholders.

Anyone who owns a share in anything can sell it anyone else provided there is no security held over it and provided the government doesn't intervene.

Bodies like the FA have the ability to make the purchase less valuable if they disapprove, but they can't stop a sale.

Stevo_666

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You keep repeating this, but the club is an asset owned by some shareholders. It doesn't get to choose its shareholders.

Anyone who owns a share in anything can sell it anyone else provided there is no security held over it and provided the government doesn't intervene.

Bodies like the FA have the ability to make the purchase less valuable if they disapprove, but they can't stop a sale.

I was waiting for Rick to reply before pointing out that the club does not have any choice but to accept funding from its shareholder/owner.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You keep repeating this, but the club is an asset owned by some shareholders. It doesn't get to choose its shareholders.

Anyone who owns a share in anything can sell it anyone else provided there is no security held over it and provided the government doesn't intervene.

Bodies like the FA have the ability to make the purchase less valuable if they disapprove, but they can't stop a sale.

Au contraire my friend, the sale has literally been stopped.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

The club could have chosen not to take his money, but they did.

You keep repeating this, but the club is an asset owned by some shareholders. It doesn't get to choose its shareholders.

Anyone who owns a share in anything can sell it anyone else provided there is no security held over it and provided the government doesn't intervene.

Bodies like the FA have the ability to make the purchase less valuable if they disapprove, but they can't stop a sale.

Au contraire my friend, the sale has literally been stopped.

You missed the bit about "the government" then?

TheBigBean

Also, Chelsea are not the government.

rick_chasey

OK, let me rephrase it.

Owners can do what they like with a company. Right? They can run it into the ground if they want, within reason, or sack everyone, or whatever.

They can also inject their stolen money into the business if they so wish.

But if the company or organisation is so important that it is not allowed to fail if it is caught up in an international scandal that sits incredibly close to the biggest issue on the global political stage, then it is no longer a purely regulatory issue and a political one, and one which the government ought to have an interest.

TL;DR - if Chelsea is so important an asset to the UK the government should not have allowed it to be bought by one of Putin's closest allies.

That it has you can say is a failure of government or governance, but that ship sailed when he bought it.

If they can find a way to make sure Abramovich feels the full pain of having tried to hide behind a famous UK organisation and using Chelsea as a short of shield without obliterating the club then that is clearly preferable, but I don't think Chelsea should get any exceptions for being a football club that people have heard about.

rick_chasey

Again BB, I think you are not seeing the wood for the trees.

We have people up in arms because a close ally of Putin, who is rumoured to have been laundering his own personal money, has had his assets frozen, because it happens to be a famous football team.

That's ridiculous.

kingstongraham

Why do you suspect money laundering?

Using it as reputation laundering has worked a treat up till now, with Chelsea fans as willing patsies, but money laundering seems a weird accusation.

Dorset_Boy

kingstongraham said:

Why do you suspect money laundering?

Using it as reputation laundering has worked a treat up till now, with Chelsea fans as willing patsies, but money laundering seems a weird accusation.

As I said above, in Money Llaundering terms, it would be highly unusual to wait 20 years to see any return of your laundered money. How many sports clubs actual turn a profit? It really would be quite a bizarre money laundering vehicle.

rick_chasey

kingstongraham said:

Why do you suspect money laundering?

Using it as reputation laundering has worked a treat up till now, with Chelsea fans as willing patsies, but money laundering seems a weird accusation.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/9/investigation-reveals-football-used-to-launder-money-men-who-sell-football

and a nice google brings this up

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/jul/01/money-laundering-football-anti-corruption

"Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering," the OECD's Financial Action Task Force said.

While other sports such as cricket, rugby, horse racing or motor racing were also under threat, football was "an obvious candidate to examine money laundering through sport" because it dwarfed all the others in its global scale.

focuszing723

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwyFTRGiIUU

rick_chasey

So Kleptopia, which I just read, gives a good account of the behaviours of these oligarchs and kleptocrats, and blunty, they don't buy anything without a view to launder money through.

I don't see why this would be an exception

kingstongraham

rick_chasey said:

So Kleptopia, which I just read, gives a good account of the behaviours of these oligarchs and kleptocrats, and blunty, they don't buy anything without a view to launder money through.

I don't see why this would be an exception

Because Chelsea are small beer compared to Abramovich's wealth? And he has ploughed such a lot of his dirty money into it.

Dorset_Boy

Seems a strange way to launder mone and you can add anohter £150 million loss in 2021:

kingstongraham

If he was going to ever make Chelsea repay the loans, that could be money laundering I suppose.

rick_chasey

I don't know much about money laundering, but I do know you're not going to find it in the P&L at the end of the year. People who do however consistently point to football clubs being particularly suited to it.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

OK, let me rephrase it.

Owners can do what they like with a company. Right? They can run it into the ground if they want, within reason, or sack everyone, or whatever.

They can also inject their stolen money into the business if they so wish.

But if the company or organisation is so important that it is not allowed to fail if it is caught up in an international scandal that sits incredibly close to the biggest issue on the global political stage, then it is no longer a purely regulatory issue and a political one, and one which the government ought to have an interest.

TL;DR - if Chelsea is so important an asset to the UK the government should not have allowed it to be bought by one of Putin's closest allies.

That it has you can say is a failure of government or governance, but that ship sailed when he bought it.

If they can find a way to make sure Abramovich feels the full pain of having tried to hide behind a famous UK organisation and using Chelsea as a short of shield without obliterating the club then that is clearly preferable, but I don't think Chelsea should get any exceptions for being a football club that people have heard about.

Not sure where you get this idea that Chelsea is too important to fail. who has said that? Looking at it purely as a business - turnover in the last FY was just over £400m and made a loss - its not that big.

The point above was that you were trying to say the club should not have taken his money when as a wholly owned subsidiary, the club had no say and it was purely down to Abramovich as shareholder. Which then makes it rather difficult for you to support your previous assertion that employees and fans are somehow acceptable collateral damage when we are seeking to punish/damage the shareholder.

Just FYI - if it was a failure of government then worth mentioning that Labour were in power when Abramovich bought Chelsea.

MattFalle

rick_chasey said:

FWIW, it could be worse.

Here's Dynamo Kiev (or i guess Kyiv).

blimey, its Phil Foden

surrey_commuter

Stevo_666 said:

surrey_commuter said:

seems a lot of confusion between the legals and the morals. It was perfectly legal for Ken Bates to sell Chelsea FC to RA and the FA did their due diligence and confirmed him as a fit and proper person to own it.

Strikes me that somebody could be given the keys in exchange for clearing the debts off. Chelsea will become more Spursy and most of the fans will look back fondly at the golden era and the jonny come lately glory hunters can fvck back to where they came from

Did a Chelsea fan p1$$ in your front garden as well?

That would ake more sense if you asked if the FA p1ssed in my garden

rick_chasey

kingstongraham said:

If he was going to ever make Chelsea repay the loans, that could be money laundering I suppose.

Loads of ways to launder money. You can buy the club, invest in various things to inflate the value (via your stolen money) and then sell a portion of it to a tax haven company (that you own) or take out loans against it, if you so wish.

You can launder it through ticket sales. You can sell say, 1000 fewer tickets than you have capacity for, claim all the tickets were sold and use the stolen money to buy those remaining 1000 tickets.

With rival murky clubs you can buy and sell players at inflated prices. "agent fees" which go to tax havens with secrecy laws where it's not obvious who is the money is going to, or you can have weird player ownership rights which essentially help to siphon money into different pots.

Then there's the gambling side.

Loads of ways to do it.

shirley_basso

Also you don't need to make a profit to launder money. you just need to show provenance of cash. Profit would be stupid anyway as you'll pay tax on it.

Profit is vanity etc. Hence the loans (cash) and losses (tax efficient).