NotClayMerritt

They can financially dope all they wish, but the players still have to perform, the manager still has to do a job. Money doesn’t buy competence or success.

I’m not sure if anything substantial will wind up happening mostly because Clearlake have been upfront with the Premier League and self reported potential infractions.

BUT if this leads to significant punishment down the line, it will taint Abramovich’s legacy as owner. He will no longer be known as strictly the serial winner who took us to a household name. It’s not my place to adjudicate nor am I naive enough to think his image was totally clean before all of this. It’s just something to ponder. Potential punishment on top of the two transfer bans we were handed? It skews the measurements.

You do have to question this entire piece of journalism considering it’s not telling us anything new or groundbreaking. We already know as fact that Clearlake have reported secret payments that were made under previous ownership to the Premier League months ago when going through the club’s finances. I don’t suppose Bruce Buck or Marina are around to face questioning?

I swear it’s like a new publication gets to write this exact story every couple of weeks (coincidentally the last one came during the last international break aka slow news cycle).

Next they’re going to tell us we paid Andreas Christensen’s dad as a scout or that we paid Bertrand Traore’s mum - both of which we’ve already served two transfer bans for btw.