No, thank you sir, Clichy says, you only turn oil into rubb-(er)-ish anyway.

nah mate, i was referring to my own comment as being hypothetical and off topic.

Abramovich has now missed SIX Chelsea games in a row.

According to reports he has said he won't be going to the Carling cup final either! .. and there's gullible old me believing Chelsea fan's who say he is a true supporter who has the club at heart!

Jose said that Roman would be away for another month, on Business,
but I have a feeling that as he is now only Russias sixth richest man, he's gone back to do a bit of hard graft

he is also said to have set up a 200 milion pound trust fund for the club in the event of his son taking over.

onnly things I have read on the net mind you

Internet, eh? (emulating Homers voice)

200m pound trust fund, all I can say is………..daddy?

I have read about that trust fund thing before; it was in 'the evening standard ' aka 'The Chelsea Voice', it probably is true though.

Afterall, what's 200m when you've spent that amount on players in a couple of seasons anyway.

On a serious note, will the trust fund be settled in the best interest of Chelsea or his son? 200m pound will probably yield enough money in interest to invest in a top notch player a season, but far from allowing the same spending as now (I assume none will be allowed to cash out the initial deposit).

No idea, in fact I have only heard about any of it on a Chelsea Forum, its not so bad if there's a link to the site where it originated but in this case I cant find one.

glad to see Karuda has heard of it though so it might have an element of truth in it.

I have had a power cut since about 10 minutes after I posted to about 5 minutes ago, freezer defrosted and everything...missus is sorting it out and I am back on here

priorities

Poor chip. Must have been very unpleasant for you to eat up all the ice cream by yourself while missus did the cleaning.

Over the past week whilst looking for tickets and luckily getting one, the Chavski ticket situation has made me chuckle. Whilst trying to get a reasonabilly priced ticket I have noticed how many Chavski tickets are being offered. Not only being offered but also for far less than Arsenal tickets. I have a friend who supports Chavski and he offered me 4 tickets at face value for their end! I politelly told him no.

It makes me think of two things. One, that Chavski fans will always jump on the bandwagon and once it starts to crumble so will their support. Even though they are second they are not selling out their games and tickets are going on general sale. Their fans, or die hard ones are very few and far between. Secondly at Arsenal many fans struggle to get tickets and for the final they are very hard to find if not impossible for a decent price.

Chavski fans hate to admit they bought success and when I mention that they have no history they say that is in the past and what matters is here and now. Well yes it does, so why do they struggle to sell out their games, even for a final? They may say the Carling Cup isn't important but its still a Final, maybe 4th important but they certanly made everyone aware they had won it a couple of seasons back!

History is important. Chavski have none and never will have like us , Man U, Liverpool, Real Madrid, AC Milan etc etc. They are a flash in the pan and once the money goes and with it Mourinho they will be back to cup side with intermittent success. They will never be the biggest side in London let alone Britian or Europe! Rant over!

Chelsea claim £80m loss is a sign of success
By David Bond

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Chelsea will announce today that they have reduced their annual losses by £60 million but still recorded a pre-tax loss of £80.2 million - the third-largest in the history of English football. With the Premiership champions committed to breaking even by 2010, owner Roman Abramovich will be encouraged at the way chief executive Peter Kenyon slashed losses by 42.9 per cent for the financial year ended June 2006.

But the sheer scale of the amount lost last season demonstrates, once again, the huge task Kenyon faces in meeting that target and the reliance on billionaire Abramovich's vast fortune. The losses will also spark fresh calls to curb Chelsea's spending from critics who claim the club are distorting competition. Up to June 2005, the Russian oligarch had invested £440 million in buying the club in 2003, settling debts and bankrolling the purchase of big-name players.
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That figure will almost certainly go beyond the £500 million mark following the latest set of results. Although the £80.2 million loss is bigger than the turnover of most Premiership clubs, it is lower than the £87.8 million Chelsea lost during Abramovich's first season at Stamford Bridge And it is a massive improvement on the staggering £140 million they lost during the 2004-05 season when they became League champions for the first time in 50 years.

That season the club took a major hit on a number of exceptional items. They included the £25.5 million to write off their kit deal with Umbro, £13.8 million to cancel the contract of disgraced Romanian striker Adrian Mutu, £9 million to offload Juan Sebastian Veron and £5 million in compensation to Tottenham for sporting director Frank Arnesen. The 2005-06 accounts do not include the first instalment of the £100 million 10-year deal negotiated with Umbro's replacements, Adidas. The kit deal only started this season. But the club's improved turnover did include the new £11 million-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with Samsung.

While Chelsea did not spend any money in the January transfer window, most of the losses made in the last financial year can be put down to player purchases. They spent more than £100 million on new players, including Andrei Shevchenko (£30m), Shaun Wright-Phllips (£24m), Michael Essien (£21m) and John Mikel Obi (£16m).

I can't even imagine what Wenger would do with £100m at his disposal for players. He wouldn't need half of it.

Wenger and a 100 million pounds.God it would make him go crazy, I think he would just some other brilliant way to improve the club, like he did with the money he got from Anelka. Even then he probably wouldnt spend it like.

Heres a bit more insight on whats going on at the Bridge,

How Blues give youth a chance
By Henry Winter

Many future star has graced the green, green grass of Chelsea's lush Cobham training retreat. Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of one of the planet's most successful bands, Bush, used to parade his midfield skills for his old boys' XI on the Surrey playing fields where Frank Lampard now roams.

Rossdale was a popular fixture at Cobham before he glided off to conquer the world. Harbouring similar global ambitions are Chelsea, the new owners of Cobham, and they, too, must look to native talent if they are to become a similarly respected and profitable force.

However eye-catching a headline figure, the £80.2 million loss announced by chief executive Peter Kenyon should not alarm Chelsea fans. Roman Abramovich, is not only hugely committed to the Bridge, but particularly to nurturing tyros in the Cobham dream factory who will mature into first-team players, as John Terry has done, so pre-empting the need to buy in so expensively.

"Youth is a very, very important part of the future,'' said Kenyon yesterday, aware that the losses were sustained through the purchases of Andrei Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips, and Michael Essien.

The patter of tiny feet is already being heard across Cobham. If some of Chelsea's recruitment tactics have been embarrassingly underhand, the broader approach of giving youth a chance must be lauded. Anyone doubting Abramovich's enthusiasm to youth development need only see him wandering around Rossdale's old playground, unobtrusively watching Academy games. The Russian regularly attends such matches, aware that Chelsea's long-term livelihood rests here, as much as in his wallet. The plan of one graduate per year into the first-team squad remains ambitious, but reflects Chelsea's desire to promote youth.

Encouraged by Abramovich, Jose Mourinho and Frank Arnesen, the scholars and schoolboys are part of the Chelsea family, sharing meals and ambitions with the elite. Some clubs prefer an upstairs-downstairs ethos, but Chelsea are keen to foster an "aspirational'' culture among their kids.

The idea is that apprentices will have their desire for first-team involvement quickened by experiencing the banter of Joe Cole and company, by rubbing shoulders with sorcerers. They will look and learn, acquiring good habits just as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs did under Eric Cantona's imaginative tutelage.

Apprentices, as Alan Sugar would agree, are the future, the only way forward for a club that must maximise resources if it is to come close to balancing the books. Chelsea hailed a "significant'' increase in merchandising revenue, up 44 per cent, yet the figure rose only to £11.1million. All the blue baby-grows, novelty celery, and Special One tribute coats will just about cover the season's wages of Shevchenko and Drogba. A different strategy is required.

The champions will never be as big a club as Kenyon believes. Chelsea will never catch Manchester United, for local, nation or global appeal. Impossible. United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, talks of expanding Old Trafford from its 76,000 capacity. Chelsea are considering moving to a new home, yet realistically require only a 55,000-seater home. Anything larger risks empty seats.

Chelsea's real future revenue stream runs through stockbroker-belt Surrey, not down the King's Road. Arnesen is looking all over the world for the first-team stars of the future, but Abramovich appears particularly keen on an English accent in the dressing-room. Mourinho's first-team squad already contains six England internationals - Terry, Lampard, Wayne Bridge, Wright-Phillips, Ashley Cole, and Joe Cole.

Of longer-term significance, 11 of Chelsea's players outside Mourinho's squad have represented England Under-21s or below: Michael Woods, Tom Taiwo, Michael Mancienne, Jimmy Smith, Anthony Grant, Jack Cork, Adrian Pettigrew, James Simmonds, Scott Sinclair, Lee Sawyer and Nana Ofori-Twumasi. With one eye on their losses, the club with one lion on a shirt are assisting those with three lions on their kit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.j ... nwin20.xml

I'm really impressed. They have six full England internationals (of which Terry is the only youth product or player to have graced the academy). They then have a load of players who represent England who have about 4 first team appearances between them. The futures bright. The futures Chelsea.

a number of those kids joined recently from other academies; most notably the Leeds fiasco which almost got them into serious trouble.