Chelsea are, with huge financial backing, trying to forge a sustainable future. It requires a huge investment to begin with – they needed to buy the players to create the best squad in England/Europe. Once they have this squad they can win things. Once they ahve won things they will ahve gained a big enough reputation. They will have also enticed more new young talent. Roman himself said that he wanted to have top quality internationals palying alongside homegrown palyers. In fact, it becomes EUFA law soon that you must have a few homegrown palyers in your squad does it not?

The pragmatic approach on the pitch [what is seen as boring tactics] has this far worked well enough to return 2 premiership titles. They don’t need to worry about style yet. They are on the way to becoming a huge club. Once they are there, they will create enough revenue to become profitable. They will sell more shirts, and get much bigger gates once they have a new stadium/redeveloped stadium. Their sponsorship income must be huge now.

Also just think how many more Chelsea fans you see about these days all of a sudden. They are becoming a huge force in English football. They have not reached anywhere near their potential yet, but it is a long term plan. To break even in 2010, considering the investment of Roman, will be a pretty special acheivement if it happens. At that point, they will probably be at Man Utds level. -A club that, it must be pointed out, are now themselves actually in more debt than Chelsea. Give it a few more years and Chelsea will get creative – just you wait, well maybe more attacking than creative…. The thing is you don’t win any trophies for being creative, so for the time being, they will not be.

Chelsea are hated for 2 reasons – 1) They are very hard to beet. 2) People put this down to money. This leads to the asumption that the money at stake is unfair. Life is unfortunately. But to then bitterly suggest that Abramovic was not srewd in accruing his huge personal wealth as Jimmy does is ridiculous, and this merely shows how succesful Roman etc. has been. -The fact they wind Man Utd fans up so much is a true testament to their success. Chelsea will go on to be as big as Man Utd, with a different means to the end, and they will become selfsustainable its just a long term business plan, and jelous fans of other teams fail to understand it.

I must just point out at this point that I do not support either MU or Chelski!

They run at such a high loss that it surprises most of us in English football as we are used to teams making and spending their own money or surviving on someone/business ploughing just a couple of million pounds in to cover some running costs. In europe though, the likes of Juve, AC, Barce and Madrid have been run with huge losses (maybe not quite Chelski losses but big none the less) year in, year out with only investment from millionaires or government letting them spend spend spend like they do…almsot unheard of in England pre-Roman. Manchester Utd have been a special case over the years and have spent as they have earnt running succeslfully with huge profits. If EU law and Uefa regulation change the games rules and states clubs can only spend ‘x’ amount of what they earn there could be some big changes afoot in european and english football.

Succesful football teams earn money from success, they can then reinvest this money in future success. This is why Manchester United have been able to buy the likes of Rio Ferdinand for huge sums of money, they earnt their money by winning and all the exta sponsorship, gate receipts and TV money that comes with it. Chelsea, by contrast, are actually heavilly in debt – and will not break even until 2010 if recent forecasts are accurate. The only reason they have just won 2 premiership titles is Roman Abramovich, they, like him, have not earnt their success. They did not gradually build a team with shrewd transfers on a limited budget, slowly building strength until generating enough money to buy better players, finally being sufficiently stong, consistent and lucky to win the premiership. Chelsea bought their titles, backed by money of dubious, if not criminal origin.

If there is one reason Chelsea are hated it is not the amount of money they have spent, but the fact that they have not earned it. Our hate for Chelsea is then compounded by their arrogance, particularly that of the self-appointed ‘special one’: claiming skill, passion, struggle, teamwork, vision, commitment and more. If that were true, we could admire Chelsea, albeit with some jealousy as they beat our clubs in a fair contest. But as I have argued, this is not the case.

Chelsea beat us because Abramovich buys their success, we hate them for it: not because they beat us, although that does hurt, but because they don’t deserve to.

Stuart, you talk of the likes of Man Utd, AC Milan, Inter and Real Madrid spending vast sums and this is true, but do they, like Chelsea, spend £16 on a back-up midfielder (Mikel) £7m on a 2nd choice centre back (Boulahrouz) £24m on a reserve winger (SWP) or £12m (that price may not be exact, sorry) for a back-up winger/forward (Kalou)? I think not. Real, although they have always spent big, have worked on the policy of ‘Zidanes and Pavons’, that is big money spent on the first 11 with the gaps filled by youth team players. Although, admittedly, that policy is beginning to change.

AC Milan haven’t spend huge money on big-name players for a couple of years now, with perhaps the exceptions of Gilardino and Kaka (though I don’t know how much he cost). Indeed their replacement for £30m Sheva was Betis’ Ricardo Olivera, who they hardly broke the bank to sign.

Man Utd, of course, have spent big, but again any big-money signings are regular first teamers and don’t spend most of their time in the reserves or on the bench a la Mikel and SWP.

That is one of the reasons why they are hated. It’s not just that they have a bigger budget than everyone else, it’s that they can spend huge sums for players they don’t really need, and are happy to do so.