But this raises some intriguing questions as to the extent and reach of powerful football men and organisations. In addition to his interests in Chelsea and the Russian Football Federation, Abramovich did, through his companies, sponsor CSKA Moscow to the tune of something like $30 million per annum - this for a team whose annual revenue was barely in six figures and would represent the equivalent of Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United being sponsored for billions rather than their current tens of millions. The logical conclusion being that this must have had an influence on competition within Russian football, in much the same way as his bankrolling of Chelsea has in the English Premiership. Indeed during that period it brought them three Russian Premiership titles.
UEFA investigated Abramovich's apparent conflict of interest and concluded that no rules were contravened as 'interests' are normally defined in terms of ownership. However, you have to wonder what would have happened if Chelsea, needing a certain result to go further in a competition, had played CSKA at that moment. But these levels of dubious influence are not confined solely to Chelsea and Roman Abramovich. All the big four have tie ups with other clubs such as Arsenal and Beveren in Belgium. In fact, Peter Kenyon was the architect of these types of deals when he announced that Manchester United were hooking up with the New York Yankees baseball team (a 'deal' that made United shares go up in price but never really came to anything). The truth is that these 'arrangements' (for want of a better word) are often announced with a fairly serious PR machine behind them only to disappear into the 'fog' that surrounds them over time. The main reason to have these arrangements seems to be a way for English clubs to recruit non-EU nationals.
Alongside this, you have the situation, following the Ondigital collapse, where the loan of players to Championship, League 1 and League 2 clubs is at an all time high. This was not a bad thing in the short-term given that so many clubs were left out of pocket by the collapse. But, we now have the increasing situation where richer clubs buy up the best young talent and farm it out on loan, even to to other Premiership clubs.
This adds more distortion to what is supposed to be genuine competition and can seriously hinder the development of young English players. Glen Johnson was a promising young player at West Ham and England. He was bought by Chelsea in 2003 and spent the next four years or so in the reserves or on loan - in this case to another Premiership club, Portsmouth (a practice RTG is completely against). His England career appears to be, temporarily at least, over. The point being, this is another anti-competitive influence that powerful people in football can exert almost without being questioned. Again it should be stressed this practice is not confined just to Chelsea. How ironic then that in possibly the most crucial weekend last season, Tim Howard was prevented from playing for Everton (by agreement) against Manchester United, his previous club. His replacement made costly errors which turned a two-goal advantage into a four two deficit while Chelsea could only draw.
We at RTG believe that the maximum size of a squad should be fixed. Changes can be made in the mid-season transfer window, but only within the numbers stated. Any additional players can go out on loan but only to lower division or foreign non-European involved clubs. There should also be limits on the number of loanees any one club can make or take and subsequent parity agreed across the whole of UEFA. The EU must also equalise its rules with regard to allowing non-EU nationals to play within member countries.
Most importantly, it is time that FIFA and UEFA draw up a new, comprehensive set of clear rules as to what constitutes an individual or corporate 'interest' in a football club and how that is to be monitored, if genuine competition is to be maintained.
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