re Chelsea/FIFA - David Conn & Others

[QPR Report]

David Conn/Guardian

Fifa should be applauded for making a stand on honouring contracts Chelsea may find appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the principle of honouring a contract tough going


Fifa's stand should be applauded, not derided. The Gaël Kakuta case follows several episodes in which former clubs of talented young players, often in Italy, have howled with outrage that their teenagers have been "poached" or "robbed" by ruthless English clubs waving wads of money.

Chelsea have figured in a few of those accusations, as did Manchester United for signing Federico Macheda at 16; Lazio's president, Claudio Lotito, described the environment then as "a proper cattle market".

Yet the Italian clubs had no rights in those cases; they were vulnerable because of their own regulations, which prohibit young players from signing contracts until they are 18. With Kakuta, it was different. He was playing in France, for Lens, who say they had a contract with him. Fifa's Dispute Resolution Chamber moved in, to apply clear rules which enforce a solid principle: contracts in football must be honoured. Fifa's regulations set out that any club which signs a player who has a valid contract with another club is considered to have induced that breach of contract. The penalties – fines, suspensions and the one we had barely heard of until this: banning clubs from signing any more players for one or two transfer windows – all have precedents.

While English football reeled in shock and Chelsea, although not denying that Kakuta had a contract, protested that the penalty was "without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence", the Lens president, Gervais Martel, was taking it calmly.

"We expected this kind of decision," he said. "The player was under contract with us, and they came and stole him away."

Chelsea have said they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but in recent cases the CAS has encouraged Fifa by upholding its rulings. In January the CAS upheld a Fifa penalty against the Al Kuwait sports club which was very similar to the one imposed on Chelsea. Al Kuwait were found to have sacked an Estonian player, Vjatseslav Zahovaiko, in breach of his valid contract. The club was fined $120,000 (£73,500) and, like Chelsea, banned from signing new players for two transfer windows.

The case being cited to give Chelsea hope was in 2005, when the CAS reduced a Fifa sanction against Roma, who were found guilty of inducing the centre-half Philippe Mexès to breach his contract with Auxerre. Still, the CAS upheld the ban on Roma signing players, reducing the period from two transfer windows to one.

There are several other cases in which the CAS has upheld Fifa rulings over players breaking their contracts, and FC Sion, of Switzerland, are currently appealing to the CAS against a two-transfer-window ban imposed in May.

Fifa has publicly welcomed the CAS when it has backed the sanctions, saying the regulations are dedicated to "defending contractual stability in football".

So Chelsea are on a stickier wicket, and Fifa surer of its ground, than some might have thought when the news first broke and the ban on signing players seemed, on these shores, unheard of.

If Chelsea are to appeal, they may have to argue that they did not do what Fifa found they did – we have been given scant details so far – or that somehow Kakuta's contract with Lens was not valid. It might safely be assumed that the DRC members are not complete fools and will have considered the issues fully, knowing that Chelsea were certain to appeal to the CAS. If the facts are upheld, the appeal will be on the severity of the punishment, and there the Al Kuwait case could stand as a precedent. Where a club has been found guilty of inducing a player to breach a contract, the CAS has upheld a two-transfer-window ban.

The case is not what it seemed at first, that Fifa had finally been able to get tough on rich clubs who poach young talent being nurtured by smaller clubs around Europe and elsewhere in the world. Nor does it have anything to do with that other stain on football's treatment of young people, the trafficking of fledgling talent across continents, by men who hope to make pots of money somewhere along the chain.

This one is more straightforward: Chelsea wanted Kakuta. No great scouting insight was necessary because he was an outstanding young player at European youth level, known to all the clubs. Chelsea signed him at 16, presumably paying him very well to join the multinational hopefuls in Roman Abramovich's academy. Chelsea's only problem, Fifa have found, is that Kakuta already had a contract, and breaking that is not allowed.

Those in English football inclined to a knee-jerk criticism of Fifa, or Sepp Blatter, for supposedly having it in for English football should perhaps think instead about applauding the world governing body for taking a stand.

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2009/sep/04/chelsea-fifa-contracts-transfer-ban

[QPR Report]

Meanwhile ...

Guardian/Matt Scott - FA still drawing a blank on Panorama tapping up case• FA yet to ask Arnesen about approach to Nathan Porritt
• Panorama aired in September 2006

When in September 2006 the BBC's Panorama broadcast footage of Frank Arnesen apparently tapping up Nathan Porritt, a Middlesbrough academy player, the Football Association announced it would conduct "exhaustive and thorough" investigations.

Yet three years on, Chelsea's youth-development director, who has always denied any wrongdoing, has not been asked a single question about the issue, with the FA privately saying that it cannot unilaterally pursue the matter without an official complaint from Boro.

Yet under "duties of clubs" the FA's own player-agents' regulations state: "When a player is under contract with a club, another club or any person on behalf of a club shall not enter into negotiations or make any approach with a view to facilitating or effecting the transfer of that player."

With Fifa having acted robustly on a separate tapping-up case, today Chelsea face a ban on player recruitment until 2011: the FA's apparent inaction in 2006 is difficult to understand.

Shaun Harvey, the Leeds United chief executive, believes it is the lower-league clubs who suffer most from the FA's inaction. Chelsea took the England Under-16 internationals Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo from Elland Road in disputed circumstances, prompting Harvey to challenge the Chelsea chairman, Bruce Buck, over the club's recruitment policy at a conference at Stamford Bridge last year.

A year ago he told this column of his proposals for the FA to introduce rules forcing a player to sign his first professional contract with the training club, "so that if they sell him at 17 years old they can commercially negotiate a fee."

If not, Harvey attests: "Football League clubs will start shutting their academies." Twelve months on, the FA has still not introduced any such rules....


www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/sep/04/chelsea-frank-arnesen-fa

[QPR Report]

Independent/Sam Wallace

Chelsea plunged into crisis as Fifa bans transfers until 2011

Spotlight on rift between Kenyon and Arnesen after 'illegal' Kakuta deal backfires

Chelsea are facing a ban from signing players during the next two transfer windows after Fifa punished them for breaking regulations during the transfer of Gael Kakuta

Chelsea's extraordinary transfer ban has sparked a bitter power struggle at the heart of the club between the chief executive, Peter Kenyon, and sporting director, Frank Arnesen, over the responsibility for the disastrous train of events that led to Fifa sanctions over teenage prodigy Gaël Kakuta.


The two men have battled for influence since Arnesen's arrival from Tottenham Hotspur four years ago and the stunning news that Chelsea have been banned from buying or selling players for the next two transfer windows until January 2011 because of their conduct over the transfer of Kakuta, 18, from French club Lens has brought into focus the differences between the club's two highest ranking administrators.

Chelsea's owner, Roman Abramovich, who appointed both men, has steadfastly backed Arnesen despite the Dane's woeful record at producing young players for the first team. He was even promoted from chief scout to work with the first team as sporting director this summer, but the feeling at the club now is that either Kenyon or Arnesen will have to take the rap for the Kakuta debacle.

Related articles
Lens insider puts Kenyon and Arnesen in line of fire
Player profile: A midfield prodigy blighted by injury at Stamford Bridge
James Lawton: Chelsea and Arsenal may not agree but game needs harsh punishments
The decision came as such a surprise to the club yesterday that Arnesen was still on his summer holiday in Puerto Banus in Spain. The mood at Stamford Bridge was that, despite the many expensive duds he has signed to the Chelsea academy, his influence was growing to the extent that he would force Kenyon out. The situation is expected to be resolved soon.

Fifa made the announcement yesterday that Chelsea would be fined £113,000 and banned for two transfer windows for what Fifa's rules call "inducement to breach of contract". Kakuta, who was just 15 when he joined Chelsea from Lens, has been fined £680,000 for breach of contract and banned from playing for four months. Chelsea have agreed to pay his fine if it stands.

The Lens president, Gerard Martel, told The Independent yesterday: "It is a logical punishment for a club that goes to intermediaries who turn the heads of young players on behalf of them. Someone who worked for Chelsea must have told them there was a way of getting him out of here. I have got my idea who it is, but I am not going to say.

"I have worked for football for 21 years and there has always been respect from clubs when we sit around a table [to discuss transfers]. But when Chelsea steal a player that is not acceptable. I was the president of the UCPF [body representing French professional football clubs] for 15 years. I know what we are doing is exactly right."

It is an enormous embarrassment for the club, who have been accused of illegal transfer procedures before, most infamously in the case of Ashley Cole when at Arsenal in 2005. Chelsea last night described the ban as "totally disproportionate and extraordinary" and announced their intention to appeal, which will be heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne.

The Independent has learnt that, more than two years ago, Martel sent his then managing director Francis Collado to ask Chelsea for €5m (£5m in today's terms) in return for Kakuta but was turned down. Collado said: "I said to Kenyon, 'He has a contract with our club, you have to pay us the right money'. Kenyon said: 'It's my information that he does not have a contract.' I said to them 'Please reflect on this and call us back.' They never, never, never called."

Kakuta was one of the most highly rated players in France when he was signed by Chelsea in 2007 as part of a massive recruitment drive by Arnesen. The player had been at Lens since the age of nine where the club had an agreement, ratified by the French football federation, that he would sign a professional deal on his 16th birthday.

Lens submitted their complaint to Fifa in July 2007, which resulted in a dispute resolution chamber case that opened on Thursday. By yesterday lunchtime, the five-man committee, chaired by Tunisian Slim Aloulou, had come to a decision.

Didier Roudet, Lens' general secretary, said: "We told Chelsea the player was under contract. They argued that he was not. All I can say is that our lawyers are very confident of their position and so are Fifa. Lens are a little team. Chelsea are a big team with a lot of money and for sure the player's family were offered a lot of money. We couldn't keep the player."

The ruling was made so rapidly that the club have not received the detailed "legal grounding" from Fifa from which they will launch their appeal. Chelsea said yesterday that they would "mount the strongest appeal possible". The club said: "The sanctions are without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence. We cannot comment further until we receive the full written rationale for this extraordinarily arbitrary decision."

The usual procedure for bringing a foreign teenager into a club involves payments to his family and the promise of a professional contract when he turns 17, the youngest age a player can sign terms.

The transfer ban is worrying for Chelsea given the age profile of their squad. It is widely believed that the club will need to rebuild their squad over the next two years.

Manchester United may also wish to settle their differences with the French club Le Havre over the teenager Paul Pogba. The club's president Jean-Pierre Louvel has threatened to report United to Fifa.

Age concerns: Why Blues may suffer

* Chelsea's starting line-up this season is the second eldest in the Premier League, with an average age of 28.9. With only one of those players under 28 at the end of the ban, Carlo Ancelotti may be forced to look to the reserve and youth teams...

* Most-selected starting XI Cech (27 years, three months); Bosingwa (27, 0), Carvalho (31, 3), Terry (28, 9), A Cole (28, 8); Lampard (31, 2), Essien (26, 9), Ballack (32, 11), Deco (32, 0); Drogba (31, 6), Anelka (30, 6).

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/chelsea-plunged-into-crisis-as-fifa-bans-transfers-until-2011-1781382.html

[QPR Report]

Independent - Lens insider puts Kenyon and Arnesen in line of fire

Anatomy of the deal: How Kakuta was poached

By Sam Wallace and Matt Fleming

Francis Collado can still remember the day two years ago that he turned up at Peter Kenyon's Stamford Bridge office and asked the Chelsea chief executive to pay him the money his club Lens believed they were due for their teenage prodigy Gaël Kakuta. "Kenyon looked at me and smiled," Collado said. "He told me: 'That's not possible'."


On that day Lens wanted €5m for Kakuta, about £5m under today's exchange rates, but rather less when that conversation took place. He was a young player no one had heard of from a small club who bounced around the first and second tiers of French football. For Chelsea it must have been easy to say no. It would turn out to be the costliest mistake they ever made.

Yesterday The Independent caught up with Collado, who no longer works for Lens. When he visited Kenyon he was the managing director, the right-hand man to the club's president of 21 years, Gervais Martel. When the news broke of Chelsea's extraordinary transfer ban and fine, Collado was happy to talk about the story that has turned English football upside down.

Related articles
Chelsea plunged into crisis as Fifa bans transfers until 2011
Player profile: A midfield prodigy blighted by injury at Stamford Bridge
James Lawton: Chelsea and Arsenal may not agree but game needs harsh punishments
In the room that day were Kenyon and Frank Arnesen. The two men have fought a bitter battle for influence behind the scenes ever since the latter's appointment as chief scout and director of youth development in 2005. Both of them have always sought to be the club owner Roman Abramovich's representative at Stamford Bridge. And on this occasion with Collado, Kenyon was trying to clear up a mess not of his own making.

Arnesen, 52, who was promoted to sporting director this summer, had found Kakuta through his extensive network of scouts and brought him to Chelsea in 2007. The Dane, who was formerly a footballer at Ajax and Valencia, had established himself as one of the leading youth scouts and was mandated by Abramovich to sign the best young talent in the world. Recruited in controversial circumstances from Tottenham, he had been given an unprecedented budget by the Russian to do so.

Kakuta was just one of many unproven young talents that Arnesen had bought at great expense. He had infuriated Leeds chairman Ken Bates by signing two England Under-17 internationals, Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods, who eventually cost £5m. He had signed an Argentine, Franco Di Santo, from Audax Italiano in Chile for £3m. Jacob Mellis came from Sheffield United for £1m. There were many more, from Europe and beyond. It was a bigger budget than many Premier League clubs would spend on their first team.

But Kakuta was the pick of them all. Signed in April 2007 at the age of 15, he was left-footed, fast and immensely skilful. He was soon in the France Under-17 team and no secret among Europe's scouts. Collado had been told by Martel that if Lens did not get the compensation they thought they deserved for the player they would have to go to Fifa. This was a unique player and one worth fighting for.

"I told Peter Kenyon that Kakuta had signed a contract," Collado said. "In France we call it the contract aspirant. Players are not allowed to sign professional deals until they are 16 so instead they sign a bridging deal with the clubs. It is a deal that says when they get to 16 they will agree to sign a professional contract with the club. Kakuta's contract was lodged with the FFF [French football federation]. It was all above board. He was our player."

Kakuta had first trained with Lens at the age of nine. He was born in Lille, 40 kilometres to the north-east of Lens, and came from a family who are believed to have emigrated from Ivory Coast. Collado admitted that Kakuta's background did appear a little chaotic – the club were not certain who of those who brought him to training was his father or his uncle. But his ability with a ball was not in doubt.

Collado said: "He signed with our centre de formation and then he signed a contract aspirant. Our academy programme costs €5m every year to run and we cannot just afford to lose our players for nothing. I said to Kenyon: 'He has a contract with our club, you have to pay us the right money.' Kenyon said: 'It's my information that he does not have a contract'.

"So I told Kenyon that we, as a club, were in the right and that we were prepared to take it all the way. I think that their lawyers thought they were right, that they had a good case and they would not get punished, or that the major sanctions would not apply to them. I said to them: 'Please reflect on this and call us back.' They never, never, never called."

Instead, a move to Chelsea was facilitated with the help of Roger Boli, the player's agent. Boli, a brother of the famous France international Basile, was also a footballer, albeit less successful. A long-serving Lens player in the early 1990s, he played at Walsall and Bournemouth towards the end of his career. He did not respond to a call from The Independent yesterday. It is understood he no longer represents Kakuta.

When Martel, the Lens president, was contacted by The Independent yesterday he was even more strident about the behaviour of Chelsea. "It's a logical punishment for a club that goes around trying to turn the heads of players through their intermediaries," he said. "It was a feeble amount that Chelsea offered us for this young player when you consider his potential. The clubs must respect the rules of other countries."

Kakuta was a major success in Chelsea's youth teams. He played above his age group in the club's Under-18s team that competed in the prestigious FA Youth Cup while he was still only 17, and was in the side that lost in the final to Manchester City last year. At Chelsea, Kakuta was known as one of those players whom Arnesen personally promoted along with Di Santo and Jeffrey Bruma, the Dutch midfielder expensively acquired from Feyenoord.

Chelsea were well aware that the Fifa case against them was outstanding but they expected it to take at least three months before the dispute resolution chamber came to a verdict. When the governing body made its decision yesterday there was disbelief at the club. Arnesen was still on holiday in Puerto Banus in Spain. It was hours before the club's lawyers could get out a statement. They may be one of the few to benefit from the months of legal wrangling ahead.

Lawyer's view: What next for Chelsea?

Chelsea have the right to appeal the case to Fifa, but the substantive appeal lies to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. They will be looking to adopt the same tactics as Sion, and ask for a stay of the ban pending the final hearing, which was granted in the Swiss club's case.

But when will the appeal be heard? If it is before the January transfer window, then the issue of seeking a stay is irrelevant; if the hearing occurs after January then one issue arises: what will happen if the ban gets upheld and, in the interim, Chelsea buy a player who influences matches which result in clubs getting relegated and eliminated from the Champions League? We could end up with another situation like West Ham had with Carlos Tevez, who scored goals that relegated clubs – only worse.

Adam Morallee, partner at the law firm Mishcon de Reya

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/lens-insider-puts-kenyon-and-arnesen-in-line-of-fire-1781380.html

[QPR Report]

Telegraph/Henry Winter

Sepp Blatter is correct – English clubs had this coming after Gaël Kakuta incident
Good. English clubs have been getting away with this for too long.

Whether exploiting loopholes, as Manchester United and Arsenal did respectively to acquire Federico Macheda and Cesc Fàbregas or inducing a youngster to breach a contract, as Fifa rule Chelsea did with Gaël Kakuta, Premier League plundering of foreign youth academies needs stopping.

As ever with football, the emotional reaction to rulings can cloud the reality that the underlying principle is sound. Chelsea are seething about the Kakuta decision, and may even get the two-window ban halved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but, as in the Eduardo diving controversy, the logic behind the authorities’ judgment is indisputable. Why should Lens not reap the rewards of all the hard work they poured into nurturing Kakuta?

Lens is a French mining town of minimal charm but it has a beating heart and soul at Stade Félix Bollaert. The future of Racing Club de Lens would be compromised if all their youngsters were cherry-picked. Their assets should be protected and Sepp Blatter has done that.

Fifa’s president has come up with some madcap ideas, from tighter shorts for women to trying to broker a peace meeting on Robben Island between World Cup antagonists Zinedine Zidane and Marco Materrazi, but he is right to fight for youth development systems. And right to argue that contracts should be respected.

Although 85 per cent of Premier League academy scholars are British, and outstanding development work is done at Manchester City, West Ham and Arsenal, among others, the system can reek of an international cattle-market. “Smaller’’ English clubs, as well as foreign ones, are exploited.

According to Leeds United, a £10 million deal to take Fabian Delph to City fell through because Eastlands were not playing fair over the evaluation of two Leeds academy starlets they also coveted.

Angered by what he saw as City’s penny-pinching, Leeds chairman Ken Bates sold Delph to Aston Villa and took the unusual step of issuing a statement thanking Martin O’Neill’s club for conducting negotiations properly.

Chelsea, who controversially took Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods from Elland Road, boast a magnificent academy, with some very good staff, and they would feel aggrieved if any of their rising stars were lured elsewhere.

Chelsea have been cutting corners in youth recruitment, as their chief executive, Peter Kenyon, has admitted in the past, citing a need to catch up with Arsenal and United.

Many likeable people inhabit Stamford Bridge. Few chairmen in football are as approachable as Bruce Buck while Roman Abramovich clearly loves his football. But Chelsea’s public image is one of arrogance and the Kakuta affair adds to that perception.

They are not alone among the Premier League raiders of foreign and domestic nurseries. Fifa’s stance over Kakuta may encourage them all to temper their predatory policies.

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/chelsea/6135166/Sepp-Blatter-is-correct---English-clubs-had-this-coming-after-Gael-Kakuta-incident.html

[QPR Report]

Because Chelsea are so English! Owners. Manager..Players! Just a shame the bad didn't occur a couple of months ago


From The Times September 4, 2009

Chelsea fear anti-English vendetta is behind ban
Club vow to fight Fifa transfer embargo

Matt Hughes, Matt Dickinson

Chelsea reacted with fury last night after being banned from signing any players until January 2011.

The club have been found guilty by Fifa of inducing Gaël Kakuta, an 18-year-old winger, to break his contract with Lens two years ago. They will be unable to buy any players during the next two transfer windows.

In addition, Chelsea must pay Lens £113,000 “training compensation” for Kakuta, who has been suspended for four months. The teenager was also ordered to pay £682,000 compensation, for which Chelsea are “jointly liable”, according to Fifa.

Chelsea have pledged to mount “the strongest appeal possible” and will take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne if they fail to have the ban overturned by the world governing body.

Their progress will be monitored closely at Old Trafford after Le Havre confirmed yesterday that they are pursuing a similar case against Manchester United. The French club are angry about the way in which United signed Paul Pogba, another French teenager, this summer.

Chelsea will argue that the punishment is disproportionate to the relatively modest fine imposed and the nature of the offence, while senior figures at the club — who have maintained their innocence — believe that they are victims of an anti-English conspiracy at the heart of Fifa and Uefa.

Yesterday’s punishments came two days after Eduardo da Silva, the Arsenal striker, was given a two-match ban for diving by Uefa, leading Arsène Wenger, the manager, to voice similar concerns about Barclays Premier League clubs being victimised.

“Chelsea will mount the strongest appeal possible following the decision of Fifa’s Dispute Resolution Chamber over Gaël Kakuta,” a club statement read.

“The sanctions are without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence and the financial penalty imposed. We cannot comment further until we receive the full written rationale for this extraordinarily arbitrary decision.”

Lens insisted that Chelsea have got what they deserve, claiming that they effectively stole a contracted player after an illegal approach before his 16th birthday. “The outcome was expected as the kid was under contract and was stolen from us,” Gervais Martel, the Lens president, said.

“Chelsea behaved unacceptably by contacting the player before he even reached his 16th birthday. He’d been training with us since he was 8½. He did have a contract according to French training rules.”

Chelsea claim that Kakuta was playing as an amateur for Lens’ youth academy and, as he was not registered with the French Football Federation, was available to sign for them as a free agent. But at a hearing in Zurich last week, Fifa’s Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) ruled against them.

The DRC adjudged that Kakuta had a valid contract with Lens and that he was offered inducements to break it by Chelsea in June 2007.

The details of the DRC’s judgment have not been made public, but when news of Chelsea’s interest in Kakuta first emerged, rumours began circulating in France that he had allegedly been offered a massive signing-on fee and lucrative professional contract.

Chelsea deny this and insist that Kakuta’s first contract was that of a typical first-year scholar, who can expect to earn less than £1,000 a month.

Chelsea were stunned when they received a fax from Fifa yesterday as they had not been expecting a verdict for another three months. The club have been found guilty of making illegal approaches in the recent past and if the DRC’s decision is upheld, questions will be asked about the future of Frank Arnesen, the sporting director, who was in charge of their youth development at the time.

Le Havre are seeking sanctions against United over the signing of Pogba, although the Old Traffrord club claim that they have acted properly. “Of course we are still pursuing our case,” Alain Belsoeur, Le Havre’s managing director, told The Times. “It is a very serious case. This is clearly a message from Fifa. I am aware of the details of the Lens case and ours is similar.”

Both cases would appear to hinge on French law, which prevents young players signing professional contracts before their 16th birthday.

Any attempts by Chelsea to delay the hearing in the hope of having the transfer ban frozen by the CAS, thereby enabling them to buy players in January, are likely to fail as Fifa seems certain to fast-track the appeal.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6821061.ece

[QPR Report]

The Times September 4, 2009

Gael Kakuta case is another blot on Chelsea's reputation

Matt Hughes and Oliver Kay

The kneejerk response is to denounce Frank Arnesen as the man who was poached quickly reinventing himself as a poacher.

The smooth-talking Dane could find himself in hot water at Chelsea if embarrassing details of his courtship of Gaël Kakuta leak out and Fifa's remarkable transfer ban is upheld, but given the manner in which Arnesen pitched up at Stamford Bridge, does Roman Abramovich really have grounds to complain?

Those pictures of Abramovich wining and dining Arnesen on his yacht four years ago were brazen in the extreme, leading to the mother of all rows with Tottenham Hotspur, which was only settled by the Russian reluctantly agreeing to pay £5million in compensation. Part of Abramovich must be regretting his own recruitment policy, though he has no right to.

Arnesen's arrival is not even the most high-profile example of a transfer strategy at Chelsea that has scant regard for the rulebook, with mal-practice appearing to be endemic.

The names of Ashley Cole, Michael Woods, Tom Taiwo and Nathan Porritt all trip off the tongue as examples of Chelsea making illegal approaches to players under contracts at other clubs, having been found guilty in the first three instances. The case of Kakuta is the most serious as Fifa has concluded that, in addition to tapping up the 18-year-old, they bribed him. In his role as the club's director of scouting and youth development, Arnesen stands accused of offering a 15-year-old boy dizzying inducements to break his contract with Lens.

Before condemning Chelsea too readily, however, it should be noted that rather than the cases of Cole or Arnesen, this latest controversy most closely resembles that of John Obi Mikel, in which, after a lengthy Fifa investigation, the club were cleared of any wrongdoing. As with the wrangle with Manchester United over Mikel, the Kakuta case rests on a dispute over a teenager's signature on a contract. Mikel was shown to have signed for Lyn Oslo, and later United, under duress, while in this instance Chelsea are claiming that Kakuta had not signed any contract with Lens and was available as a free agent.

Chelsea's defence in previous tapping-up cases has been that every other big club is guilty and they have been unfairly singled out, though they are attempting to mount a more persuasive defence this time around. Arnesen has accepted responsibility for the situation internally, but is adamant that he did nothing wrong, claiming that rather than the huge sums alleged in France, he offered a one-year scholarship with the promise of a three-year professional contract to Kakuta shortly after his 16th birthday in June 2007. Chelsea's interest in the player had been relatively longstanding after he was spotted by the club's France scout, Guy Hillion, playing for France Under-16 in September 2006.

Arnesen's claims that he was treated precisely the same as the 20 other youngsters he has signed for Chelsea are supported by the fact that Kakuta was billeted with a local family near the club's training ground in Surrey.

The version of events offered by Lens is rather different, but there is at least some agreement regarding the discussions that followed Kakuta's declaration that he wanted to go to Chelsea the next summer. Lens demanded a £4.3million transfer fee shortly after he made his debut at the Champions Youth Cup in August 2007, but as they argued that Kakuta was a free agent, Chelsea were only prepared to pay £870,000 in compensation.

Ironically, Fifa appears to have given Kakuta a similar value with the combined £795,000 fines that have been levied, increasing the club's sense of outrage at the transfer ban. Further discussions took place at Stamford Bridge between Peter Kenyon and officials from Lens at the start of 2008, but no agreement was reached and a formal complaint was made to Fifa.

Francis Collado, a former administrative director of Lens, was present at those negotiations and told The Times yesterday that he warned Kenyon that they risked being subject to a transfer ban. “Chelsea didn't have the right to take him,” Collado said. “He wasn't free to go. At 14 we proposed a contract. In effect this was a pre-contract because in France you can't pay a player until he's 16. The contract was registered with the French FA and the French league.

“At a certain point last year I went to see Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen in London. I said to them: 'We cannot just let this player leave. We have a youth development centre to run. That costs money. We invest in it. This boy is a phenomenon.'

“I took the contract to them. I gave them the figures and then they proposed a ridiculous figure. They said they thought they had the right to take him. I told them that I would go to Fifa, that they could be fined and banned from making transfers, but they thought they could get away with this. What has happened is a shame for Chelsea, but they were warned.”

Collado claimed that “it's an English speciality to take players, much more than the German, Italian or Spanish clubs”, which ironically may form part of Chelsea's appeal. Poaching has been a sport in this country for centuries, but it seems to be only Chelsea who hunt their game in public.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6821081.ece

[QPR Report]

And BBC Gossip "Manchester United could be the next big club to be punished with a transfer ban if they are found guilty of an illegal approach to Le Harve youngster Paul Pogba. (Various)"