An announcement on the Official Chelsea web site yesterday confirmed Adrian Mutu has been ordered to pay the club £13.68million in damages. Mutu, 29 failed a drug test in October 2004 and was subsequently banned for seven months and sacked by Chelsea.
Harsh maybe? Well for a start, despite being in a privileged position, earning a substantial amount of money, Mutu was having far too much fun shovelling Bolivian marching powder up his nose to count his blessings. He had a contract, which I assume he’d read before signing and therefore knew the consequences. He also showed very little in the way of remorse either immediately after the test or in the time since.
In fact, Mutu and his agent have fought Chelsea all the way. From the initial hearing with the Premier League and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who incidentally both agreed Chelsea were within their rights to sack the player for “sporting just cause”, on to FIFA’s Disputes Resolution Chamber. But rather than sitting back while the DRC initially declined to take up Chelsea’s case, Mutu was busy keeping himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons whilst whingeing about how unfair Chelsea were being in his fight against a decision. And despite being ordered to pay £9.6million some two months ago, Mutu and his agent again decided to contest this and drag it out even further.
On announcing the ruling, the club stated:
“This is an important decision for football. Not only did the DRC make us a significant monetary award, the decision also recognised the damaging affect incidents involving drugs has on football and the responsibilities we all have in this area.”
So, is FIFA’s decision to hand out the biggest ever fine to a player harsh?
Well, Chelsea paid out £15million for a player who ultimately failed to either behave in a professional manner or adhere to the terms laid out in his contract and whilst there are some who’d suggest the club failed him with the manner in which they responded to his drug habit, it should be noted it was his poor conduct and inability to carry out his job which prompted the test in the first place. So whatever the club did would be a risk: keep him and risk further negative press as well as the possibility a lengthy spell in rehab could fail (as is very often the case), leaving the club with a player who was neither use nor ornament and certainly un-saleable; or let him go and spend the next four years running up a six-figure legal bill.
Sadly, with Mutu almost certain to argue the decision yet again, it’s doubtful we’ve heard the last of this yet.
Blue is the colour
