There cannot have been a better way to sum up the rotten state of English football than the moral vacuum that lay at the heart of this strange and upsetting occasion at Stamford Bridge, where a capacity crowd turned up to watch one club with a disqualified owner take on another backed by the public investment fund of a nation which executed 81 people on Saturday.
This was a dark day for anyone who cares about the game’s soul. No amount of sportswashing could make the putrid air hanging over this fixture disappear. Not when some Chelsea fans were still determined to belt out their boorish chants of support for Roman Abramovich, a man described by the UK government as a pro-Kremlin oligarch with long-term links to Vladimir Putin, and the sight of flags of Saudi Arabia in the Shed End served as further evidence of soft power at play, making Newcastle look like little more than a useful tool for a repressive regime hoping to cleanse its reputation through sport.
