Chelsea's Money And Other Tedious Issues

I've been enjoying the debate over at The Small Print over whether Chelsea are ruining football but I find the argument that Chelsea have bought their success irrelevant and pointless.

Carping on about Abrahmovic's money is nothing more than jealousy on the part of other clubs and their fans. So, Abrahmovic is richer than Croesus and enjoys spending his money on his football club. So what ?

Over the history of football, there have been many other multi-millionaire benefactors who have plowed their occasionally-hard-earned cash into football clubs. Jack Walker at Blackburn Rovers did it; Dave Whelan at Wigan is doing it now as is that crazy hippy guy up at Gretna.

In fact, I'm not a football historian, but I'm willing to wager that the only reason we have professional football at all is because some rich guys spent a lot of money on the local works teams.

So, what's the difference with Abrahmovic ? Nothing. He has a lot of money. He spends it on football. He buys good players and a few mediocre ones as well.

Lots of teams buy good players and a few mediocre ones. The argument that 'because of their money Chelsea can buy anyone they like' doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. They seem to get turned down an awful lot and, like any other club, they too have players who want to leave, want more first team action, want to live in Milan and so on.

The reality is that Chelsea are really not that different from other top English clubs. They have won the Premiership the last two seasons because their team is better than anyone else's.

You can't actually buy a team - no matter how much money you have. You can only buy players.