Choosing a top PR catastrophe from Chelsea’s ownership crisis is becoming as difficult as picking Thomas Tuchel’s best side.
First, there was Roman Abramovich’s hasty and ill-conceived attempt to hand the “stewardship and care” of the club to the trustees of its charitable foundation, which was soon exposed as meaningless and dismissed by the trustees themselves.
Then, there was the claim of Abramovich’s spokesperson, repeated by Chelsea, that the oligarch was involved in talks to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine — an extraordinary story about which literally nothing more has been heard since.
And yesterday provided perhaps the most damaging misjudgment of the lot, with Chelsea’s call for their FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors in the interests of “sporting integrity” because they were unable to sell a “full allocation” of away tickets due to Government restrictions.
“It is important for the competition that the match against Middlesbrough goes ahead, however it is with extreme reluctance that we are asking the FA board to direct that the game be played behind closed doors for matters of sporting integrity,” read a Chelsea statement.
Not since the European Super League has a statement united everyone from the club’s own fans, to the Government, to former players, to opposition teams in outrage.
Within hours, the FA announced that Chelsea had withdrawn the request following talks — which you imagine were swift and to the point.
To recap, Chelsea are banned from selling away tickets because their owner, Abramovich, has been sanctioned by the Government for his close links to Vladimir Putin and potential role in bankrolling the death and destruction currently raining down on the Ukrainian people.
In the circumstances, Chelsea’s request was not only tone-deaf but entitled and illogical, suggesting a precedent that could have ultimately worsened the club’s own position.
Most obviously, for the club which distorted the entire financial landscape of English football with an oligarch’s questionably-accumulated roubles to complain about “sporting integrity” was, as Middlesbrough put it in response, “ironic in the extreme”.
Rather than go into more detail here, over to Boro chairman Steve Gibson, who offered a withering assessment of Chelsea’s request in a series of interviews.
“Chelsea and sporting integrity do not belong in the same sentence,” Gibson told The Athletic website. “Where is the intellect of Bruce Buck, the chairman of Chelsea, who has been an apologist for his owner, where the trophies won over 19 years have come from the corrupt money provided by Abramovich? Where is the intellect of the chairman of Chelsea when it comes to playing his games at home in front of his season ticket holders? Does he want to play all his away games at empty stadiums?”
Chelsea’s request seemed designed to pressure the Government into allowing them to sell tickets and perhaps create a siege mentality among fans, and even within Thomas Tuchel’s squad. It did neither, and suggested the club has fundamentally misunderstood the severity of its situation.
Rather than moaning, Chelsea should count their blessings that they are allowed to continue competing after Abramovich’s other UK assets were frozen.
The upshot is that any sympathy for Chelsea’s predicament is fast draining away. It has been easy to feel sorry for many people connected to the club, particularly the non-football staff, as well as elements of the fan-base (and, to be clear, not those who have misguidedly chanted Abramovich’s name in recent matches).
The supporters who followed the club loyally long before 2003 and will continue to do so long after Abramovich has gone have been caught up in a mess not of their making.
In enraging Whitehall and burning bridges in the game, Chelsea are only making their situation even worse for their employees, supporters and the club as a whole.
