Chelsea in trouble?

[Meijer]

The John Obi Mikel case coming back to life. Chelsea has now sued the Norwegian club Lyn for £ 16 million.

 

According to an article today in Dagens Næringsliv here in Norway, Chelsea has been doing a lot of dogdy business involving you African players. John Obi Mikel was "smuggled" into South Africa and then kept in Oslo by people working for Chelsea. This is a violation of the FIFA rules about protecting under-age players.

 

In a book covering the Mikel-saga coming out on Monday, several new issues in this case are revealed. According to one of the authors, Chelsea will be in big problems if they bring this case to the court.

 

The authors / the newspaper have got hold of strictly confidential documents showing an agreement between Lyn, Man Utd and Chelsea to bury the Mikel-case. For Chelsea, who has been involved in an extensive import of underage African talents, it would be a disaster if the Mikel-case was investigated properly. Exclusion from CL and exclusion from buying players for a year was two potensial sanctions against the club which led them to use all means necessary to close the case, including paying Lyn £ 16 million.

 

In May 2006 former Lyn-director Morgan Andersen was in London for meetings with powerful men, including Richard Scudamore. Scudamore got involved in the Mikelcase as he was afraid that Premier League could get in trouble with FIFA over this matter, and that an investigation could lead to loss of money if one of the top clubs was involved in a scandal of illegal "trafficking" of African boys.

 

Richard Scudamore was very angry with Morgen Andersen, as Morgan Andersen had asked FIFA to throw Chelsea out of CL and suspend the club from the transfermarket. Initially Scudamore was the one to investigate Chelsea's involvment in the case, but now he seemed more interested in silencing Lyn's criticism of Chelsea. "He behaved like he was Chelsea's man", says the sales director of Lyn Viggo Aaberg.

 

The solution was a coverup story including Man Utd, Chelsea, agents and Lyn. Man Utd and Lyn signed an agremeent stating that Chelsea had never breach FIFA's strict rules on the matter, and that Chelsea never did have dealings with agents / 3. parties breaching the rules. These two matters are exactly what Lyn and Man Utd accused Chelsea of doing just months before through telephone calls & letters to FIFA. The document between the clubs also state that no part should act in a way leading to investigation from The Norwegian Football Federation, FIFA or the FA.

 

End of story, Chelsea paid off Lyn and Man Utd enough money to stop them from following up on the matter, and Lyn also got the players Ezekiel Bala and Chinedu "Edu" Ogbuke....both friends of John Obi Mikel.

 

Lyn involvert i storstilt dekkoperasjon | Aftenposten.no

[RobbieOR]

Arsenal do the same things like that.I rmemeber there was a programme on RTE a few years ago about smuggling players in from Africa.Many players are just left out in the cold and cannot get home.Its very sad.

[Meijer]

More on this matter (can translate this later). Chelsea also threathened to sue the authors of the book about the John Obi Mikel - case.

 

- Chelsea truet oss med søksmål

 

The authors do not fear any reactions from Chelsea....they claim that they have the documents to prove that Chelsea has violated article 19 in the FIFA rules concering player transfers.

[Unrighteous]

Heh... Chelsea are dodgy pricks.

[ratcatcher]

Sounds like a load of hokum to me. Lyn Oslo are the ones in trouble by the sound of it. Much as I detest the chavs, why would they smuggle mikel out of africa to Oslo then let mikel join the filth who they then had to pay £12m to buy him off them?

[Unrighteous]

Sounds like a load of hokum to me. Lyn Oslo are the ones in trouble by the sound of it. Much as I detest the chavs, why would they smuggle mikel out of africa to Oslo then let mikel join the filth who they then had to pay £12m to buy him off them?

 

Not sure but you know there was something dodgy done there.

[Torvald Utne]

all the hassle they went through to get him kind of explains why he is still playing for them.

[JoeyKop]

Roman Abramovich has lost £12 billion on the Russian stock exchange, it was revealed today.

 

The owner of Chelsea FC has seen his fortune dwindle as Russia's Micex Index has gone into freefall.

 

The decline in value of two of his companies on the Moscow-based index, steel maker Evraz and mining company Highland Gold, has left the 41 year-old tycoon $20.3 billion (£11.9 billion) out of pocket.

 

The staggering loss was revealed today by analysts who said it represented a decline in the equity value of traded companies.

 

Abramovich's woes come on a disastrous financial day for London's Premiership football clubs with the owners of Arsenal and West Ham also suffering.

 

Arsenal FC's part owner Alisher Usmanov has lost £7 billion ($11.7 billion) on the Micex index which has declined 61 percent since its peak in May and was closed today for the second time this week.

 

The metals and mining mogul and Abramovich are part of a list of 25 Russian oligarch's who have lost £140 billion ($238 billion) on the Micex index.

 

The country's ailing economy has also been hit by war with Georgia and foreign capitalists withdrawing billions of pounds worth of investment from a nation facing a period of instability.

 

West Ham were plunged further into crisis as it was revealed that the east London club's Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson is considering selling the club after losing £230 million in the country's own economic crash.

 

Abramovich's unprecedented loss will set alarm bells ringing in the football world and the City.

 

It comes after Chelsea chairman, Bruce Buck suggested this week that the club could sell players to survive the financial turmoil.

 

He said: “Even with a benefactor like Roman Abramovich, if we think revenues are going to go down a bit we have to look at our expense side to look for areas where it is appropriate for us to save money. That's actually a process we are engaged with at the moment.”