[cite]Posted By: Brunello[/cite]Thats bad news. I think the would have brought Dickson in january
Done deal I heard. That's why he turned down Gills : - )
On a more serious note weren't Chelsea rumoured to have bid for Shelvey? Might be a good thing for us then (unless we needed to sell him!!)
This could, conversely make it more likely that Shelvey goes to Chelsea. If they can't sign and play any players for eighteen months, they might consider signing and loaning back players, to avoid other big hitters (Manchester's two clubs, Merseyside's and, north London's one) from signing them. And Shelvey might be near the top of their list of this type of player.
Says they can't register players so I read that as ruling out your buy Shelvey idea.
I wonder if they can register youth players on pro contracts even.
On BBC it said that Swiss team Sion had been hit with a similar ban so it's not just English clubs.
My guess is that here and abroad clubs now it happens and they know they do it themselves so no one is willing to give evidence in case them themselves get caught.
[cite]Posted By: Brunello[/cite]Thats bad news. I think the would have brought Dickson in january
Done deal I heard. That's why he turned down Gills : - )
On a more serious note weren't Chelsea rumoured to have bid for Shelvey? Might be a good thing for us then (unless we needed to sell him!!)
This could, conversely make it more likely that Shelvey goes to Chelsea. If they can't signand playany players for eighteen months, they might consider signing andloaning backplayers, to avoid other big hitters (Manchester's two clubs, Merseyside's and, north London's one) from signing them. And Shelvey might be near the top of their list of this type of player.
They're banned from registering new players, so does that mean only playing? I thought registering players was part of the signing of contracts, which means Shelvey (or anyone else) cannot even be bought until Jan 2011.
[cite]Posted By: Brunello[/cite]Thats bad news. I think the would have brought Dickson in january
Done deal I heard. That's why he turned down Gills : - )
On a more serious note weren't Chelsea rumoured to have bid for Shelvey? Might be a good thing for us then (unless we needed to sell him!!)
This could, conversely make it more likely that Shelvey goes to Chelsea. If they can't signand playany players for eighteen months, they might consider signing andloaning backplayers, to avoid other big hitters (Manchester's two clubs, Merseyside's and, north London's one) from signing them. And Shelvey might be near the top of their list of this type of player.
They're banned from registering new players, so does that mean only playing? I thought registering players was part of the signing of contracts, which means Shelvey (or anyone else) cannot even be bought until Jan 2011.
That wouldn't necessarily preclude Chelsea buying the right to buy the player at a price fixed "now" and allowing him to continue at his current club. Possibly.
If the do appeal i wonder where they will stand as Roma got hit with the same sanctions previously for the same offence as did a swiss club (who are currently appealing)
i think it is an excellent piece of News.
Instead of all thses clubs going round nicking young players at home and especially abroad.
In my opinion if a youngster lives within an agreed catchment area of say 20 miles and gets taken through a clubs youth system he should HAVE TO sign with that club for 3 years minimum once he turns 17 unless that club drops out of the bottom rung of the fotballing ladder of the country in which they are born.
There should be NO signing of players from abroad under the age of 20 to any country.
If Uefa and Fifa are serious about this then all they have to do is make that the rule and you would no longer have this problem.
you would ensure that youngsters at all football teams get to play 3 yrs of football to bed them into their career and some blinding little player at Exeter (for Eg) wont get his head turned by Man Utd and not even get the chance to play football whilst being with his parents and family with no pressure.
the system is a joke there are loop holes everywhere.
yes the punishment fits the crime but personally i dont think Fifa/Uefa do enough
How sad for Chelsea......Screwed them in one fell swoop. And a fifa ban as well. The argument according to bbc is that 'if the offence was so serious why only a million euros fine!'........ Sorry can we have that again ONLY...... I know this is not even loose change for the big 'four' and in Chelsea and Man city who have to scrape by on the odd 200 million transfer budget/transfer window, but that is the issue with football today. Brand Chelsea, like Man city is cheque book football. Poor old John Terry, scrapping by on £150,000 a week no wonder his family have to ' borrow' clothes from the local supermarket!...Don't hold your breath I am sure fifty lawyers are working away now with an appeal, perhaps they will be happy with ONLY a @10 million euro fine..... Talk about a game divided only by reality, the reality of big money
'Pat Nevin told BBC Radio 5 live that he believed clubs have been guilty of "tapping up" players for years.
"It has gone on forever," said the ex-Chelsea winger. "If it's done in a really subtle way, usually clubs can get away with it. If Chelsea have made a mistake on this one, it's a very, very heavy price to pay."
..............................
Chelsea appear to have been found guilty of not cheating correctly. Really hope that this time it signals serious change and tells the big money that they won't get away with it, but not holding my breath.
Although this ban will get reduced IMO, Chelsea will be limited as they have only got the likes of Kalou, Zhirkov and Malouda on the bench, oh no they're screwed.
Can we get Gilingham banned for trying to tap up Dickson?. good idea, I can just see FIFA banning Gillingham from the paint trophy..... As they did not offer any money, is this the first instance of a 'tap down' or a tap dance!
why couldnt they have banned us from buying players when dowie was manager it would av made such a difference why do they bring these rules in to late.
[cite]Posted By: SE7[/cite]Although this ban will get reduced IMO, Chelsea will be limited as they have only got the likes of Kalou, Zhirkov and Malouda on the bench, oh no they're screwed.
It could really set them back a few years, i reckon.
They won't be able to sell players like Drogba, Carvalho, Deco, Ferriera or Ballack, Lampard who are all 30-somethings, because they can't replace them. It means they're stuck with an ageing squad and all those players will lose their sell-on values and some of them will lose form as they get older. Drogba, Lampard and Carvalho will be about 33 by the time they can sign replacements and Ballack will be about 34.
Also, if Ancelloti does a rubbish job, what top manager would be willing to replace him next summer if he can't make any signings?
For the Champions League, they're pretty much stuck with the same squad until 2011/12, because although they can first buy players again in January 2011 the sort of players they look at will be cup-tied for europe.
[cite]Posted By: SE7[/cite]Although this ban will get reduced IMO, Chelsea will be limited as they have only got the likes of Kalou, Zhirkov and Malouda on the bench, oh no they're screwed.
It could really set them back a few years, i reckon.
They won't be able to sell players like Drogba, Carvalho, Deco, Ferriera or Ballack, Lampard who are all 30-somethings, because they can't replace them. It means they're stuck with an ageing squad and all those players will lose their sell-on values and some of them will lose form as they get older. Drogba, Lampard and Carvalho will be about 33 by the time they can sign replacements and Ballack will be about 34.
Also, if Ancelloti does a rubbish job, what top manager would be willing to replace him next summer if he can't make any signings?
For the Champions League, they're pretty much stuck with the same squad until 2011/12, because although they can first buy players again in January 2011 the sort of players they look at will be cup-tied for europe.
It's a nice scenerio but it ain't going happen IMO. I'd stake my house on them getting the fine and the ban reduced, which is why it's been set at the level it is i.e to give them some wiggle room. At worse they'll miss the Jan transfer window.
It is said that serial offenders become inured to their misdemeanours, that repetition of a transgression leads the perpetrator to consider it normal. Perhaps the phenomenon explains the shock and anger with which Chelsea reacted to being found guilty of inducing a 15-year-old French footballer to breach a contract with his former club. For what makes the Gael Kakuta case unusual is not the manner in which Chelsea acquired the jewel of their infamously profligate academy, it’s that they’ve been caught and punished.
April 3, 2008 represents the high watermark of Chelsea’s youth policy. That evening at Stamford Bridge, a Kakuta header allowed the under-18s to draw the FA Youth Cup final first leg with Manchester City and come as close to claiming significant silverware as one of Roman Abramovich academy teams has managed. The second leg was lost 3-1 and with it an opportunity for Frank Arnesen, then director of the Chelsea academy, to justify the unprecedented investment in his youth project — conservatively estimated at £30m.
Large chunks of that money had been spent on extracting talented young footballers from other European clubs as they approached their 16th birthdays and could be offered scholarship contracts at Chelsea. Looking down the cup final line-up, five of Kakuta’s teammates had been acquired by questionable means.
England youth internationals Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo were part of Leeds United’s academy when Gary Worthington, a coach at the Leeds academy, left the club to take up a role in Arnesen’s burgeoning network of scouts. Worthington remained in contact with the boys, arranging for them to be flown to a League Cup tie against Charlton on a private jet. When they rejected scholarship contracts the following summer in 2006, Leeds cried foul, accusing Chelsea of approaching underage players without their permission.
With Worthington’s phone records — he was still using a Leeds mobile — and photos of the trip provided by a third Elland Road schoolboy, the Yorkshire club requested a Premier League-FA investigation into the approach. Threatened with the deduction of three League points (a hangover from their tapping-up of Arsenal’s Ashley Cole in 2005), Chelsea agreed to pay Leeds an initial £4m for Woods and Taiwo.
The lesson was not learnt. In the summer of 2007, Chelsea took Ben Gordon from Leeds’ academy. Again the left-back had been invited to London to watch his suitors play a cup-tie without Leeds’ permission; again the Yorkshire club obtained photographic evidence (their technical director happened to be sitting a few Wembley seats away from Gordon); again Chelsea were forced to pay a substantial fee to avoid official sanction.
Questions also surround some of Arnesen’s European acquisitions. Both Dutch defender Jeffrey Bruma and Danish striker Morten Nielsen joined Chelsea’s academy before they turned 16. Fifa regulations outlaw such transfers unless the player’s family have already decided to change countries for non-sporting reasons. It is not known whether this was the case with Bruma and Nielsen’s families.
FA procedures in such cases have been tightened up since, with Huw Jennings, the former Premier League youth development manager, playing a leading role. “We felt the Football Association were accepting without scrutiny the reasons given them for players coming,” he told The Sunday Times, “typically a letter from a parent saying: ‘We’ve moved to the UK, our address is Y and my son attends school X.’ The FA were saying okay, that’s fine, shipping it off to the association being dealt with and the [international transfer] certificate being granted. We felt there was sufficient grounds for concern with a number of these applications to ask the FA what level of scrutiny they were applying. We wanted to create a level playing field, so in conjunction with the FA, we agreed a series of checks. It wasn’t aimed at any individual club but there were concerns with a number of clubs who had applied for international clearances for a number of players. I’m not going to deny that Chelsea was one of them.”
In Bruma and Nielsen’s case, Arnesen paid Feyenoord and FC Copenhagen enough for them not to raise objections. To get Sergio Tejera, Chelsea exploited Spanish contract law that prevented Espanyol signing the playmaker to a professional contract until he was 16. By then, Chelsea had offered him an unmatchable wage and could sign him legally by paying Fifa-mandated training compensation.
The controversy surrounding Kakuta seems to stem from Arnesen thinking he was equally free to entice the French attacker. Though Kakuta had signed a “contract aspirant” with Lens tying him to the club until 2008, Chelsea believed the agreement was a pre-contract with no legal weight. Having decided to pursue Kakuta when he shone in an under-16 international against Turkey in November 2006, Chelsea made his family an irresistible offer six months later. The agent Roger Boli was mandated to pay them €1m.
Lens were outraged, more so when Arnesen and Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon offered what the French club say was a paltry €30,000 in compensation. “Everything was sorted with the player,” said Lens president Gervais Martel. “We had a pro contract waiting for him, but Chelsea came and stole him from us. We didn’t get any money, but I think a few people got rich with this deal. People surrounding Gael and probably agents.”
Boli insists his “conscience is clear”. He goes on: “There are many people who have more things to explain than I do. Lens and Chelsea have an awful lot to talk about.” A Lens striker for more than a decade, Boli recognises that Kakuta’s move to England began badly, with the unhappy 16-year-old regularly taking the Eurostar to watch former teammates play. “There were problems,” Boli says. “Gael had no English. With no family members with him, he was homesick and often returned to France.”
Asked, during the FA Youth Cup final, if they’d stolen Kakuta, Chelsea denied Martel’s claim, stating that: “Chelsea is certain that all the matters referred to have been conducted within Fifa and other regulations.”
The fact that the world governing body disagreed, suspending Chelsea from transfers for two windows and ordering them to pay £115,000 compensation to Lens, may reflect a deep-seated disquiet with a club that has a record of approaching those it wishes to recruit while they are under contract to other clubs. Abramovich met and attempted to recruit Sven-Göran Eriksson when he was England manager, and made his first approach to Carlo Ancelotti (the current Chelsea manager) a year before he contracted the Italian. Chelsea were heavily fined in 2005 for approaching Cole without Arsenal’s leave.
That Arnesen works for Abramovich at all (he earns a £2m salary) was originally controversial, the pair meeting on one of the Russian billionaire’s yachts without leave from Arnesen’s then employers, Tottenham. Spurs’ protests were silenced by £5m in compensation as Arnesen entered a battle of wills with Jose Mourinho that ended two years later with the sacking of Chelsea’s most successful coach.
Mourinho complained privately about the senior players Arnesen tried to buy in tandem with Abramovich’s personal adviser Piet de Visser, and attacked the academy for its lack of quality. Two seasons later not one of their youth signings has come close to establishing himself in the first team, while questions continue to be asked as to why many of the deals are handled by agents Arnesen has worked with since his time at PSV Eindhoven, Soren Lerby and Vlado Lemic. Arnesen seemed under pressure last Christmas, then recovered to be formally made sporting director in the summer.
The current calculation for Chelsea is a grim one: Tens of millions spent and little in return beyond internal strife and a Fifa transfer ban. Abramovich is appealing the club’s sentence. Perhaps when that is over he should reconsider the appeal of Arnesen.
Other contentious approaches
The Star Player
Ashley Cole In 2005 Chelsea were fined £300,000 and earned a suspended three-point deduction for tapping up Cole, who was then an Arsenal player — included was a secret meeting at a London hotel THE MANAGER Carlo Ancelotti The Italian’s recently published book revealed that he held talks with Roman Abramovich in early 2008, in a Geneva hotel, while still the Milan manager. ‘We talked only about football... never about money,’ wrote Ancelotti.
Head of Scouting
Frank Arnesen Spurs nearly reported their rivals to the Premier League for making an illegal approach — especially after pictures surfaced of Arnesen on Abramovich’s yacht. The clubs eventually agreed on a settlement of about £6m.
the irony is, all those teams without the resources of chelsea are the ones that are really going to suffer from this ban...people tend to overlook the fact that it was the chelsea money filtering down that probably stopped a lot of teams going under...today there's just the man city money and how much longer that little spree will go on is anybody's guess if they dont actually win something and i think the likelihood of man u, liverpool or arsenal splashing the cash is going to be a non-starter for a while with the debt they've got, while spurs might have to rein in their spending if they are going to implement their planned ground improvements...and surely sunderland's little spending spree will have to come to an end if they dont have a sucessful season...outside those teams, there's no other team that buys big ticket players...real madrid of course but i suspect the cash they splash is going to go into the bank accounts of the likes of man u and either stay there or get used to reduce some debt...all guess work by me and probably wide of the mark of course but the charlton model of bringing the youth through and signing players for sod all seems to be paying off so perhaps other clubs will start talking about wanting to do a charlton again shortly...
[cite]Posted By: letthegoodtimesroll[/cite] but the charlton model of bringing the youth through and signing players for sod all seems to be paying off
I don't think you can call having to sign players on a free because we are skint a "modal".
More of a necessity that has been forced on us.
And don't forget Mcleod, Bailey and Racon all cost fees far higher than most clubs in this league have paid for a long time, if ever.
mcleod, bailey and racon were bought once upon a time in a galaxy far far away and not in this league...and it'll be the charlton model if we keep winning and everybody else that's skint think that they can do the same...
Dario Gradi is worth listening to on this topic, imo.
"Crewe Alexandra have reported an unnamed Premier League club to the Football Association for an alleged illegal approach for one of their young players.
The club's director of football, Dario Gradi, said the League Two side had complained in the wake of Fifa's decision to ban Chelsea from signing players until January 2011 for inducing a French player to break his contract.
"We have a situation where one of our 15-year-olds has been approached," said Gradi, who was Crewe manager between 1983 and 2007 and brought players including David Platt, Danny Murphy, Seth Johnson, Robbie Savage and Dean Ashton through the ranks at Gresty Road.
"He is an outstanding player by any standards and he has come in and told us that he wants to leave right now to join a big club. The big clubs are stealing other people's players and you worry financially for the clubs where the players are stolen from.
"What sort of compensation are we going to get for all the work that has gone into developing him? Any compensation is insignificant for the effort that has gone in."
Gradi, 68, supports Fifa's decision to place a transfer embargo on Chelsea after they were found guilty of inducing the 18-year-old French midfielder Gaël Kakuta to break his contract with Lens in 2007. Chelsea have confirmed they will launch the "strongest possible appeal" against the ruling.
The Premier League champions, Manchester United, could also face an investigation after it emerged that another French club, Le Havre, are going to ask Fifa to look into Paul Pogba's move to Old Trafford last month.
"I'm delighted with what has happened with Chelsea," said Gradi. "I would hope all the big clubs are frightened to death. There is no excuse for breaking the rules.
"We lost a 12-year-old to Everton. He was our best 12-year-old. The lure is that the bigger clubs pay big expenses. This kid will be getting several hundred pounds a week in expenses. We pay expenses but nothing like that. It's more a case of giving out £20 if someone can pick a kid up en-route.
"It is so hard to protect your players. All this goes against the morality of the game – it's the rich robbing the poor. At least Fifa have given the smaller clubs hope."
I wonder if there's a big-spending club in the Manchester area who needs to acquire the services of a Chief Executive with experience gained at half the Premiership's top four clubs.
And I wonder if he's been tapped up. I do hope so!
Comments
I wonder if they can register youth players on pro contracts even.
On BBC it said that Swiss team Sion had been hit with a similar ban so it's not just English clubs.
My guess is that here and abroad clubs now it happens and they know they do it themselves so no one is willing to give evidence in case them themselves get caught.
They're banned from registering new players, so does that mean only playing? I thought registering players was part of the signing of contracts, which means Shelvey (or anyone else) cannot even be bought until Jan 2011.
i think it is an excellent piece of News.
Instead of all thses clubs going round nicking young players at home and especially abroad.
In my opinion if a youngster lives within an agreed catchment area of say 20 miles and gets taken through a clubs youth system he should HAVE TO sign with that club for 3 years minimum once he turns 17 unless that club drops out of the bottom rung of the fotballing ladder of the country in which they are born.
There should be NO signing of players from abroad under the age of 20 to any country.
If Uefa and Fifa are serious about this then all they have to do is make that the rule and you would no longer have this problem.
you would ensure that youngsters at all football teams get to play 3 yrs of football to bed them into their career and some blinding little player at Exeter (for Eg) wont get his head turned by Man Utd and not even get the chance to play football whilst being with his parents and family with no pressure.
the system is a joke there are loop holes everywhere.
yes the punishment fits the crime but personally i dont think Fifa/Uefa do enough
not long enough should be a minimum 3 yr contract from once they can sign professional terms.
no international signings till 20 then atleast all international teams will get stronger
Sorry can we have that again ONLY...... I know this is not even loose change for the big 'four' and in Chelsea and Man city who have to scrape by on the odd 200 million transfer budget/transfer window, but that is the issue with football today. Brand Chelsea, like Man city is cheque book football. Poor old John Terry, scrapping by on £150,000 a week no wonder his family have to ' borrow' clothes from the local supermarket!...Don't hold your breath I am sure fifty lawyers are working away now with an appeal, perhaps they will be happy with ONLY a @10 million euro fine..... Talk about a game divided only by reality, the reality of big money
'Pat Nevin told BBC Radio 5 live that he believed clubs have been guilty of "tapping up" players for years.
"It has gone on forever," said the ex-Chelsea winger. "If it's done in a really subtle way, usually clubs can get away with it. If Chelsea have made a mistake on this one, it's a very, very heavy price to pay."
..............................
Chelsea appear to have been found guilty of not cheating correctly. Really hope that this time it signals serious change and tells the big money that they won't get away with it, but not holding my breath.
good idea, I can just see FIFA banning Gillingham from the paint trophy.....
As they did not offer any money, is this the first instance of a 'tap down' or a tap dance!
It could really set them back a few years, i reckon.
They won't be able to sell players like Drogba, Carvalho, Deco, Ferriera or Ballack, Lampard who are all 30-somethings, because they can't replace them. It means they're stuck with an ageing squad and all those players will lose their sell-on values and some of them will lose form as they get older. Drogba, Lampard and Carvalho will be about 33 by the time they can sign replacements and Ballack will be about 34.
Also, if Ancelloti does a rubbish job, what top manager would be willing to replace him next summer if he can't make any signings?
For the Champions League, they're pretty much stuck with the same squad until 2011/12, because although they can first buy players again in January 2011 the sort of players they look at will be cup-tied for europe.
It's a nice scenerio but it ain't going happen IMO. I'd stake my house on them getting the fine and the ban reduced, which is why it's been set at the level it is i.e to give them some wiggle room. At worse they'll miss the Jan transfer window.
It is said that serial offenders become inured to their misdemeanours, that repetition of a transgression leads the perpetrator to consider it normal. Perhaps the phenomenon explains the shock and anger with which Chelsea reacted to being found guilty of inducing a 15-year-old French footballer to breach a contract with his former club. For what makes the Gael Kakuta case unusual is not the manner in which Chelsea acquired the jewel of their infamously profligate academy, it’s that they’ve been caught and punished.
April 3, 2008 represents the high watermark of Chelsea’s youth policy. That evening at Stamford Bridge, a Kakuta header allowed the under-18s to draw the FA Youth Cup final first leg with Manchester City and come as close to claiming significant silverware as one of Roman Abramovich academy teams has managed. The second leg was lost 3-1 and with it an opportunity for Frank Arnesen, then director of the Chelsea academy, to justify the unprecedented investment in his youth project — conservatively estimated at £30m.
Large chunks of that money had been spent on extracting talented young footballers from other European clubs as they approached their 16th birthdays and could be offered scholarship contracts at Chelsea. Looking down the cup final line-up, five of Kakuta’s teammates had been acquired by questionable means.
England youth internationals Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo were part of Leeds United’s academy when Gary Worthington, a coach at the Leeds academy, left the club to take up a role in Arnesen’s burgeoning network of scouts. Worthington remained in contact with the boys, arranging for them to be flown to a League Cup tie against Charlton on a private jet. When they rejected scholarship contracts the following summer in 2006, Leeds cried foul, accusing Chelsea of approaching underage players without their permission.
With Worthington’s phone records — he was still using a Leeds mobile — and photos of the trip provided by a third Elland Road schoolboy, the Yorkshire club requested a Premier League-FA investigation into the approach. Threatened with the deduction of three League points (a hangover from their tapping-up of Arsenal’s Ashley Cole in 2005), Chelsea agreed to pay Leeds an initial £4m for Woods and Taiwo.
The lesson was not learnt. In the summer of 2007, Chelsea took Ben Gordon from Leeds’ academy. Again the left-back had been invited to London to watch his suitors play a cup-tie without Leeds’ permission; again the Yorkshire club obtained photographic evidence (their technical director happened to be sitting a few Wembley seats away from Gordon); again Chelsea were forced to pay a substantial fee to avoid official sanction.
Questions also surround some of Arnesen’s European acquisitions. Both Dutch defender Jeffrey Bruma and Danish striker Morten Nielsen joined Chelsea’s academy before they turned 16. Fifa regulations outlaw such transfers unless the player’s family have already decided to change countries for non-sporting reasons. It is not known whether this was the case with Bruma and Nielsen’s families.
FA procedures in such cases have been tightened up since, with Huw Jennings, the former Premier League youth development manager, playing a leading role. “We felt the Football Association were accepting without scrutiny the reasons given them for players coming,” he told The Sunday Times, “typically a letter from a parent saying: ‘We’ve moved to the UK, our address is Y and my son attends school X.’ The FA were saying okay, that’s fine, shipping it off to the association being dealt with and the [international transfer] certificate being granted. We felt there was sufficient grounds for concern with a number of these applications to ask the FA what level of scrutiny they were applying. We wanted to create a level playing field, so in conjunction with the FA, we agreed a series of checks. It wasn’t aimed at any individual club but there were concerns with a number of clubs who had applied for international clearances for a number of players. I’m not going to deny that Chelsea was one of them.”
In Bruma and Nielsen’s case, Arnesen paid Feyenoord and FC Copenhagen enough for them not to raise objections. To get Sergio Tejera, Chelsea exploited Spanish contract law that prevented Espanyol signing the playmaker to a professional contract until he was 16. By then, Chelsea had offered him an unmatchable wage and could sign him legally by paying Fifa-mandated training compensation.
The controversy surrounding Kakuta seems to stem from Arnesen thinking he was equally free to entice the French attacker. Though Kakuta had signed a “contract aspirant” with Lens tying him to the club until 2008, Chelsea believed the agreement was a pre-contract with no legal weight. Having decided to pursue Kakuta when he shone in an under-16 international against Turkey in November 2006, Chelsea made his family an irresistible offer six months later. The agent Roger Boli was mandated to pay them €1m.
Lens were outraged, more so when Arnesen and Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon offered what the French club say was a paltry €30,000 in compensation. “Everything was sorted with the player,” said Lens president Gervais Martel. “We had a pro contract waiting for him, but Chelsea came and stole him from us. We didn’t get any money, but I think a few people got rich with this deal. People surrounding Gael and probably agents.”
Boli insists his “conscience is clear”. He goes on: “There are many people who have more things to explain than I do. Lens and Chelsea have an awful lot to talk about.” A Lens striker for more than a decade, Boli recognises that Kakuta’s move to England began badly, with the unhappy 16-year-old regularly taking the Eurostar to watch former teammates play. “There were problems,” Boli says. “Gael had no English. With no family members with him, he was homesick and often returned to France.”
Asked, during the FA Youth Cup final, if they’d stolen Kakuta, Chelsea denied Martel’s claim, stating that: “Chelsea is certain that all the matters referred to have been conducted within Fifa and other regulations.”
The fact that the world governing body disagreed, suspending Chelsea from transfers for two windows and ordering them to pay £115,000 compensation to Lens, may reflect a deep-seated disquiet with a club that has a record of approaching those it wishes to recruit while they are under contract to other clubs. Abramovich met and attempted to recruit Sven-Göran Eriksson when he was England manager, and made his first approach to Carlo Ancelotti (the current Chelsea manager) a year before he contracted the Italian. Chelsea were heavily fined in 2005 for approaching Cole without Arsenal’s leave.
That Arnesen works for Abramovich at all (he earns a £2m salary) was originally controversial, the pair meeting on one of the Russian billionaire’s yachts without leave from Arnesen’s then employers, Tottenham. Spurs’ protests were silenced by £5m in compensation as Arnesen entered a battle of wills with Jose Mourinho that ended two years later with the sacking of Chelsea’s most successful coach.
Mourinho complained privately about the senior players Arnesen tried to buy in tandem with Abramovich’s personal adviser Piet de Visser, and attacked the academy for its lack of quality. Two seasons later not one of their youth signings has come close to establishing himself in the first team, while questions continue to be asked as to why many of the deals are handled by agents Arnesen has worked with since his time at PSV Eindhoven, Soren Lerby and Vlado Lemic. Arnesen seemed under pressure last Christmas, then recovered to be formally made sporting director in the summer.
The current calculation for Chelsea is a grim one: Tens of millions spent and little in return beyond internal strife and a Fifa transfer ban. Abramovich is appealing the club’s sentence. Perhaps when that is over he should reconsider the appeal of Arnesen.
Other contentious approaches
The Star Player
Ashley Cole In 2005 Chelsea were fined £300,000 and earned a suspended three-point deduction for tapping up Cole, who was then an Arsenal player — included was a secret meeting at a London hotel THE MANAGER Carlo Ancelotti The Italian’s recently published book revealed that he held talks with Roman Abramovich in early 2008, in a Geneva hotel, while still the Milan manager. ‘We talked only about football... never about money,’ wrote Ancelotti.
Head of Scouting
Frank Arnesen Spurs nearly reported their rivals to the Premier League for making an illegal approach — especially after pictures surfaced of Arnesen on Abramovich’s yacht. The clubs eventually agreed on a settlement of about £6m.
I don't think you can call having to sign players on a free because we are skint a "modal".
More of a necessity that has been forced on us.
And don't forget Mcleod, Bailey and Racon all cost fees far higher than most clubs in this league have paid for a long time, if ever.
Dario Gradi is worth listening to on this topic, imo.
"Crewe Alexandra have reported an unnamed Premier League club to the Football Association for an alleged illegal approach for one of their young players.
The club's director of football, Dario Gradi, said the League Two side had complained in the wake of Fifa's decision to ban Chelsea from signing players until January 2011 for inducing a French player to break his contract.
"We have a situation where one of our 15-year-olds has been approached," said Gradi, who was Crewe manager between 1983 and 2007 and brought players including David Platt, Danny Murphy, Seth Johnson, Robbie Savage and Dean Ashton through the ranks at Gresty Road.
"He is an outstanding player by any standards and he has come in and told us that he wants to leave right now to join a big club. The big clubs are stealing other people's players and you worry financially for the clubs where the players are stolen from.
"What sort of compensation are we going to get for all the work that has gone into developing him? Any compensation is insignificant for the effort that has gone in."
Gradi, 68, supports Fifa's decision to place a transfer embargo on Chelsea after they were found guilty of inducing the 18-year-old French midfielder Gaël Kakuta to break his contract with Lens in 2007. Chelsea have confirmed they will launch the "strongest possible appeal" against the ruling.
The Premier League champions, Manchester United, could also face an investigation after it emerged that another French club, Le Havre, are going to ask Fifa to look into Paul Pogba's move to Old Trafford last month.
"I'm delighted with what has happened with Chelsea," said Gradi. "I would hope all the big clubs are frightened to death. There is no excuse for breaking the rules.
"We lost a 12-year-old to Everton. He was our best 12-year-old. The lure is that the bigger clubs pay big expenses. This kid will be getting several hundred pounds a week in expenses. We pay expenses but nothing like that. It's more a case of giving out £20 if someone can pick a kid up en-route.
"It is so hard to protect your players. All this goes against the morality of the game – it's the rich robbing the poor. At least Fifa have given the smaller clubs hope."
Dario Gradi
I wonder if it has anything to do with all that transfer stuff
never really liked him just seems a bit too slippery for my liking
And I wonder if he's been tapped up. I do hope so!
How annoying.