Ken Bates

[iggy]

Sour grapes? Actually he makes some very valid points imo.

 

Leeds United chairman Ken Bates feels hitting Chelsea with financial penalties is a waste of time due to owner Roman Abramovich's huge personal fortune.

 

The former Blues supremo has reported the Premiership champions for allegedly poaching Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods.

 

Bates wants to see the West Londoners punished severely by the authorities, in a similar fashion to the Serie A clubs affected by the recent refereeing scandal in Italy, and is even advocating throwing the capital club out of the UEFA Champions League.

 

"We have considerable and great weight of evidence to demonstrate quite clearly, without a shadow of doubt, that Chelsea behaved consistently aggressively in stealing these two players from Leeds United," stated Bates on Sky Sports News.

 

"It is not a question of punishing Chelsea for this latest breach. It is a question of stopping them doing it in the future.

 

"Because of the financial strength of the owner, financial punishments alone will make no difference to them at all.

 

"If you belong to a league or any competition, or a club or any organisation, there are rules. By continuing in that competition, there is implicit acceptance to play by those rules. If you don't wish to play by those rules and refuse consistently to do so, why should you be allowed to play in these competitions?

 

"We think, therefore, not only a financial punishment should be imposed but other punishments such as deduction of points, banning of registration of new players or suspension from European competitions would be more appropriate.

 

"It would make Mr Abramovich, who is the owner of Chelsea and has the ultimate responsibility, to act to make sure his employees behave in accordance of the rules and regulations of the various competitions Chelsea play in.

 

"It's ironic, in fact, Mr [Peter] Kenyon stated recently they'd reported Real Madrid to Fifa for an alleged illegal approach for one of their players - Arjen Robben. We recognise their right to do that in that case and feel it's also appropriate to report Chelsea to Fifa and Uefa over these two incidents.

 

"Hopefully, any punishments Fifa deem appropriate to Real Madrid will be consistently applied to Chelsea.

 

"I'm encouraged by the fact that the recent scandals in Italy were punished severely by the Italian FA. This should be a good example to our FA to act in similar stern fashion."

[Romey 1878]

I think its a bit of sour grapes but also truth aswell. Sour grapes because he poured money into Chelsea and they still didnt do much and now they have. Truth because Chelsea do think their money can get them anything.

[Romey 1878]

The FA are going to look into his allegations

 

 

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1...1380239,00.html

[Adams]

Good hope chelseas get a bad punisshment

[scouse]

hope theyget get punished aswell

[thebluenose]

heres hoping they start with a -20 points come next season. give em a challenge

[java2001e]

if chelsea have been poaching, and they have behaved questionably in the matter of ashley cole, (and so has cole, incidentally), they should be hit where it hurts, and thats not in their wallet.

 

bates isnt the only one to gripe about chelsea. its reasonable to ask if their seemingly endless supply of cash has been a bad thing for soccer. and not just in the uk!

 

blatter, has also made the same point, because they have had an impact worldwide, not just here.

 

it may be time to take a fresh look at the structure of the business side of the game, to see if the situation they have created can be changed to make it a more level playing field.