Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has unloaded on Chelsea by claiming that they have "taken advantage of every other club" since Roman Abramovich bought the Blues.
The Russian billionaire recently announced his intention to sell Chelsea after his links to Vladimir Putin emerged following the invasion of Ukraine, but the UK government 's decision to freeze his assets have put the buffers on a deal.
With the Blues' dealings over the past two decades now in the spotlight - as Abramovich paid £140million to buy them in 2003 - Carragher has become the latest critic of his reign.
"Chelsea have been doing that for 20 years. That was the big thing of Roman Abramovich coming," the Sky Sports pundit said in a discussion with Gary Neville on Monday Night Football.
"'We can throw our money about and we can get who we want, we're going to go to Manchester United, the first thing we do, we're going to get Peter Kenyon their CEO, we'll go to Liverpool and take the best midfielder in Europe and destabilise that club for two summers.
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"We'll go and get Ashley Cole, an invincible, we'll get caught tapping up, doesn't matter, we'll play the fine, England flying at the time with Sven-Goran Eriksson, no we want him as Chelsea manager, we'll pay the fine don't worry'.
"They win the Youth Cup every year or get into the final, not because they have the best coaches or the best academy, but because they go and basically take the best players from every club within this country and relocate the family.
"So, Chelsea football club have taken advantage of every other club in the last 20 years because of Roman Abramovich. So if I give an opinion of another club taking advantage of them, that's just a way of life.
"I don't want Chelsea to go to the wall. But that’s my opinion of it, I don't want Chelsea fans the next time I go there questioning that opinion because that is exactly what Chelsea have done for the last 20 years."
Carragher's rant came amid a wider debate over sportswashing in the Premier League, with Neville warning top-flight chiefs that criticism is "coming absolutely hurtling down the street."
"Football's got a big problem, because I don't think it'll be accepted anymore," the ex-United captain added. "I think there'll be an independent regulator put into football, I think it was coming anyway.
"But Super League, Saudi money, Russian money, Bury, Derby, lack of sustainability, lack of real-time financial monitoring, lack of fit and proper persons test, football is absolutely coming under huge scrutiny. And it's not just a football problem.
"Russian money has washed its way through London; it's washed its way into political parties. So it isn't just football. But football is a massive part of this country's fabric, and it will be the centre of a lot of what will be a lot of the sort of things that happen and how it deals with it.
"It's going to be an issue in the next couple of years. And I'd suspect if you’re Abu Dhabi at Manchester, if you're Saudi Arabia at Newcastle, you're going to be doing your risk assessments, I would suggest as we speak thinking what's going to happen."
