I get Roman Abramovich’s decision to put Chelsea into the stewardship and care of the trustees of the club’s foundation.
He is distancing himself in order to let the club function without other people in it being tarred with the very real sanctions he may face from around the world in the coming weeks and months.
But the optics showed that even in a statement which basically said, ‘I'll be back when all this dies down’, a football club — one at the pointy end of the world’s biggest sport as European and world champions — can’t even muster the cojones internally to use the words ‘war’ or ‘conflict’.
Or, for that matter, define what exactly the Chelsea Trust will do other than reporting to ‘The Boss’ every other day rather than daily.
It’s that condescending attitude which has been shown across all levels of the game, from FIFA’s woeful, ‘We’ll call Russia the Football Union of Russia ’, stance following the invasion of Ukraine, to owners treating their supporters like dispensable chaff or on-tap cashpoints.
Unless we have strong laws and rules which actually mean something, then our precious sport will continue to be dragged into the mud.
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All this goes back to the fit and proper persons test, and the reason I and other media colleagues have banged on about a need for it to be more rigorous for years now is because we foresaw something serious happening.
Now it’s the links of one of our owners to Russia’s government dragging one of our clubs into geopolitics, but next it could easily be an issue involving Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi.
Look, I’m not anti-Roman Abramovich, Sheikh Mansour or Amanda Staveley, before anyone starts.
And no one is saying Abramovich hasn’t given lots of money to great Jewish causes and the NHS, or that Abu Dhabi hasn’t done wonders in regenerating an area of Manchester and that Saudi won’t do the same for parts of Newcastle.
But shouldn’t we know, clearly and unambiguously, where all of that money has come from in the first place?
What football needs now is for a robust body to be set up to deal with takeovers and only when they have been satisfied about how money has been made and the legality of it should any individual or collective be allowed to buy one of our clubs.
I know Chelsea fans will argue Abramovich is damned whether he does or doesn’t at the moment but you can’t argue one minute that he has no involvement in politics and then the next be saying he has been asked to get involved in negations between the Russia and Ukraine governments.
What is worrying is that, if you asked all football fans if they would take any dictator in history as their owner as long as they won the next 10 Champions League, you’d be staggered how many would say, ‘Yes’.
As trophies go up, morality goes down, and no questions are asked — a sad indictment on all of us as football supporters.
And unless football does something to protect supporters from themselves, English clubs will find themselves increasingly engaged in geopolitical atrocities, wars and conflicts in years to come because it’s a free for all to buy a club and have the cache and clout that comes with it.
