One of the many good reasons to subscribe to
Rich Cawley's Substack is "The Peter Varney Diaries". In this edition he gives some insights into the 1999 "Floodlight Gang" which saw us nail an Asian match fixing gang - and as Peter relates, the FA trying to take credit for it😡. But the main story is Parker to Chelsea. Peter is very good at revealing some juicy details but leaving it up the reader to draw their own conclusions. So we learn that Parker (and his agent) was insistent that when he had signed a new contract, Richard Murray had "promised" him that if a big club came in for him, he would let him know. But Peter as CEO had no knowledge of this and RM had buggered off to "Bermuda or the Bahamas" to visit his sister, just as the window had opened. That wasn't clever of RM if so; but I'm sure that he was not the only owner at the time to do things like that. Nowadays we are all used to young talented players with "trigger clauses" making such promises part of the contract, and often naming a minimum price a club has to offer, to trigger talks.
But as someone who already hates Abramovic with every fibre of my body, I was triggered by this revelation: "...
they told Scott: ‘If you don’t sign in this window, we won’t be signing you’." WTF? I'm certainly one of those who believed that Abramovic made this move (after the Boxing Day tonking which Parker orchestrated) primarily to "take Charlton out" much like a Moscow gangster would take out a rival with a car-bomb. Otherwise why say such a thing? And of course in the event Parker hardly featured when he did make the move. Probably Claudio Ranieri never quite knew why Scott had arrived there. His career didn't exactly stall but it lost a lot of momentum, whereas if he had stayed until May, having helped us into Europe (as PV discusses) he would have had plenty of better options than that circus.
Great insights. I can't recommend too highly what Rich Cawley is delivering with his new venture, there is plenty of audio (with Louis Mendez) as well as regular news articles. Since he's not even a fan, I'd say we're lucky he's chosen to pick us, rather than the Spanners, for his venture (although I suppose he dreams of expansion at some point...) 
Comments
They had the likes of Djemba-Djemba playing that Parker would've been ahead of.
Will still be Mr Moneybags.
Him, Taylor & Defoe can all do one as far as I'm concerned.
How much is the subscription?
Confirmed his lack of club loyalty when he handed in a transfer request the day after West Ham were relegated.
Obviously this footballer attitude is common place these days, and as fans we have kinda had to accept it (don't tell the Mags re Isak) . But back then it was considered very poor form to disrespect your current club in this way
For most footballers, it's a career move - better pay / better opportunities. Generally it's only the fans that are emotional.
Chelsea's financial might meant they had the whip hand in negotiations, not just over Charlton. They mopped up more than just Spotty, from 'smaller' clubs then threatening the top 6.
The leak that he'd demanded the move, ensured his reputation was ruined with (some of) the faithful. The appearance of his brand new Aston Martin in the players' car park was a pretty loud FU. His conduct since has been exemplary but the sin of ambition is vehemently unforgiven in the minds of this noisy few. Weird.
Who really was the greater sinner? Parker and his ambition, or moneybags Chelsea and their flagrant abuse of the rules?
In contrast, the sale of Lee Bowyer to Leeds is accepted as 'one of those things, we're a selling club, can't turn down those millions'. I don't remember any leaks or rumours about how blatantly Lee had been tapped up, or how he then behaved if/when he found out. He had of course already misbehaved in ways for which people could legitimately think badly of him. He matured, didn't continually repeat the misdemeanours and his reputation with (most) Addicks is fully restored. Odd innit?