There were plenty in English football who feared the worst when Newcastle came under mega-rich Saudi Arabian ownership.
After years of seeing Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners turn more than a billion pounds into Premier League domination, the arrival of new super-rich owners threatened the existing elite. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was predictably quick to air the concerns of that crowd when he twisted something Newcastle's chief executive had said to make his point that 'there are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially' and that 'nobody can compete with City' in that regard.
It should shake Klopp and the rest to their cores then, to see Todd Boehly, a man who very much doesn't appear to be a nation state, not just compete with City and the rest but smash them to pieces in terms of spending. In a January transfer window where City spent a shade over £8million, Liverpool splurged 'just' the £35m; Chelsea not only broke the British transfer record to sign Enzo Fernandez for £105m but paid out over £280m across the month to bring in six players.
Also read: Erling Haaland agent sends Man City warning over 'mystery' clause
Added to the £220m spent in the summer window, that takes Chelsea's spend under Boehly to over £500m in just two windows - or almost as much as moneybags City have spent in the last four years. City have still invested heavily in that time, spending more than £100m each year on the squad, but those numbers are simply blown out of the water by the West London club.
Amortisation may well be the word of 2023 as everyone rushes to explain the accountancy tricks that have enabled Boehly's team to spend so much so quickly, and there has been widespread praise for both the ambition and effort to make all of the signings happen. Absent from most of the coverage has been the sniping that accompanied previous splurges from City, or that surely would have come if Newcastle had decided to aggressively gatecrash the top four.
Perhaps that will come in time. Maybe we will see the cost of the Chelsea bench feverishly added up by broadcasters every game - or the cost of the January signings that will be ineligible to play in the Champions League given they can only register three out of their six new players - or expectations that Chelsea must win every trophy going because of the money they've spent, or extra scrutiny on the arrivals because of their high price tags, or widespread acknowledgment that such skewed spending to stretch the margins of the transfer window can only be bad for the health of the game.
If that doesn't come into coverage, suspicions already brewing will be raised further about why there is different treatment for the clubs that Klopp mentioned when others are at it as well. Some of the more entrenched supporters cannot take any criticism of their club (and that isn't just a City thing), but there are plenty of Blues who hold no grudge over other teams' spending, they simply want what their club does to be treated fairly in the context of those others.
Chelsea moving the goalposts in the market has also kiboshed those claims that nobody can compete with City. A look at total or net spend or wage bills over the last five years would also do that, but a £500m splurge from another rival in under a year is a far more eye-catching way to make the point.
Nobody is saying that City haven't spent heavily in the past and won't do it again, but there are other clubs who are not just competing with them financially but blowing them out of the water. Klopp might question why his American owners haven't done what Boehly's group have done the next time he is asked, because they have shown it is very much possible.
If Chelsea's unprecedented spending should see the conversation about money in the Premier League shift, it should also bring to an end the long-fantasised excuse about City having an unfair advantage over everyone else.
READ NEXT:
