Chelsea have hit back at Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon's claim that their spending power may over-inflate transfer fees for other European clubs.

Calderon expressed concern at the huge financial loss Chelsea have made since Roman Abramovich became owner in 2003.

 

He told BBC Five Live: "It's a problem, prices are high. It's very dangerous."

 

But Chelsea director of communications Simon Greenberg retorted: "It is an open market but sometimes we have to pay more because we are Chelsea."

 

He added: "The money that we have spent has been invested into football - the majority of it. A very small amount of Roman's investment went on purchasing the club.

 

"The rest of it has gone into football and filtered down through football.

 

"Although we made a substantial loss last year, there were a number of one-off payments that won't be repeated this year.

 

"We run ourselves as much as we can as a plc and we are completely transparent about our accounts - which is something that cannot be said for many top European clubs, including, I would say, Real Madrid."

 

Calderon is frustrated as he believes Real will have to spend more to attract the world's best players to the Bernabeu.

 

"Abramovich is paying a lot of money for players but we have to compete with it," said Calderon.

 

"In his case, he admitted to having lost nearly £150m last season.

 

"You just don't know how long those people are going to stay in soccer. If somebody decides to leave, it's going to be a problem."

 

Source: BBC Sport

 

IMO Chelsea really have ruined the transfer market. -_- A club with a star prospect or a decent player now will always wait to see what Chelsea do after another club makes a bid. -_- I mean this problem was highlighted with Jon Obi Mikel I mean they payed what 14 million for him?. :unsure: Could have probably got him for a third of that price if it was any other club. -_- Other clubs now get priced out of moves for players because they really just can't compete with Chelsea in the transfer market.

 

Any Other Views?

 

No. Not at all. Transfers and wages were ridiculuos enough before Abramovich came. They've only done what what any club with money would do. And I thought that they only paid £16m for Mikel because the poached him off Utd. Man Utd had paid a fee to his old club then he decided he wanted to go so Chelsea were forced to pay Utd £12m and his old club £4.

I know wages and transfer fees etc have been beyond a joke for a long time but I think Chelsea really have increased everything on the whole. I mean I can only begin to imagine how many players at Chelsea are on over 100k+ per week. -_- I know a lot of clubs have players on 100k+ but Chelsea probably have a fair few more than any other club.

Yes. :arrr:

 

How many clubs can run at a loss of £449 million over 3 years or 38% of their business turnover in the same period?

 

If they were a "legitimate" business running at that percentage loss, then they would not be in business by now.

 

Next question.

Absolutely, in fact I'd go one stage further, Roman Abrahmovic and his ridiculous Russian "oil" monopoly money has brought the sport as a whole into disrepute, because I'm not entirely convinced that Abrahmovic is on the level anyway, if you get my meaning... When the fukk are people gonna wake up and realise that this man and others like him have totally fukked up football as a sport and have turned it into a commodity... The Premiership isn't even worth following anymore (and neither is the SPL), because it's the same three-horse race every year - Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U; I'm old enough to remember when it was the old First Division as was and it was a lot more unpredictable as to who the top three clubs would be in any given season.. Big money has ruined football.

Absolutely, in fact I'd go one stage further, Roman Abrahmovic and his ridiculous Russian "oil" monopoly money has brought the sport as a whole into disrepute, because I'm not entirely convinced that Abrahmovic is on the level anyway, if you get my meaning... When the fukk are people gonna wake up and realise that this man and others like him have totally fukked up football as a sport and have turned it into a commodity... The Premiership isn't even worth following anymore (and neither is the SPL), because it's the same three-horse race every year - Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U; I'm old enough to remember when it was the old First Division as was and it was a lot more unpredictable as to who the top three clubs would be in any given season.. Big money has ruined football.

You can't blame Man Utd and Arsenal for just being good, we've spent hardly anything really in the last few years.

Not on players. But you've just spent well over £200m on a new stadium!!

 

Oh yeah, I forgot buying a new stadium was ruining the transfer market. :rolleyes:

You said "we've spent hardly anything really in the last few years."

 

You could easily have spent it all on players and wages!

Oh yeah, I forgot buying a new stadium was ruining the transfer market. :rolleyes:

 

No, it just proves Arsenal had the money to make the same type of transfers as chelsea....

Edited October 6, 200618 yr by chap stick

Not on players. But you've just spent well over £200m on a new stadium!!

 

Was it paid for by Arsenal or Emirates though...? It is called "The Emirates Stadium" bear in mind... Mind you, it'll probably be paid for, in the end, by the fans through grossly inflated ticket and season ticket prices... Thus, again, pricing the ordinary working-class fans, who historically were the foundation of the sport, out of the stadium and into the pubs where they'll have to make do with seeing it on big screen TV....

 

And the way that the local community in Highbury has been dealt with by Arsenal and their sponsors leaves a fair bit to be desired from what I've heard.....

 

Well they're supposedly about £200m more in debt than they were so I can only assume they've paid for the majority themselves.

 

Completely agree with the ticket prices though. They say the new stadium will generate £2-2.5m extra per game than at Highbury. At 25,000 extra capacity that's between £80 and £100 per new spectator! Ridiculous!

£80-£100 :o , and i thought chelsea's £45-£65 where bad.

Something needs to be done and quick... and I mean a possible wage cap (of a certain amount of money rather than a percentage of the clubs' turnover) The Premiership will never be a COMPETITION again if all the clubs don't get a fair chance and it needs to be made so money isn't such a big object but of course the things are going it's just a fantasy really :( So basically YES Chelsea have ruined the transfer market AND they're starting to ruin English football too. -_-

Well eventually I think just about every club in the Premiership will turn out like Chelsea. -_- The Premiership is the richest league in the world by far and theres a lot of money to be made. Liverpool, West Ham, Newcastle ; they've all had intrest from big business men in buying them. -_- The FA should do something to stop but this, but they won't. -_-

Villa, Pompey and United also already have!

I agree that Chelsea have ruined the game. Let's face it, a few seasons ago Chelsea were a reasonable team, but one that never really had a chance of winning the premiership (like Charlton, for example). Abromovic came along wafting his chequebook left right and centre, and suddenly they've become this "unstoppable force" in which all the very best players in the world are part of. It could have happened to any team in the premiership, but it happened to Chelsea.

I would love it if one day the FA decided for football to go back to 'Grass Roots' and stop all this £752193m foreign superstar nonsense. Get rid of all the silly price tags and clubs getting taken over and just play football.

But it's not gonna happen, because, as someone already said, there's too much money involved.

 

I guess in that case we should be thankful it's like this atm, because let's face it, in a few years time it'll be about 4 times as bad

At 25,000 extra capacity that's between £80 and £100 per new spectator! Ridiculous!

 

Christ, how many gigs could you go to for the price of one Arsenal game....?

 

I think it'll include the new executive boxes though but it's still far too large a sum!