The Chelsea Dilemma

Anyone that has stumbled upon this site will already know about the Chelsea transfer ban and if you don’t know its probably not worth you going further with this post. But the Chelsea transfer embargo due to the illegal approach Gael Kakuta has hit SI games with a dilemma of whether or not this should be represented in the upcoming Football Manager 2010 and also how.

The way the game will be dealing with the scenario at the moment is that in the first transfer window of the game Chelsea will be allowed to buy any player they want within the budget that has been laid out by the board at the start of the game. I expect that this years release will reflect fairly on the more cautious approach to funding that Roman seems to have undertaken in the credit crunch which has wiped billions off his worth. But nevertheless Chelsea will be blessed with funds that any Premiership side could hope for as well as a fantastic inherited squad for anyone who takes the hotseat. But the interesting problem I see in this is that although periodically accurate with when the embargo is placed on Chelsea, anyone who chooses to manage the club will already be forewarned of their fate and have the ability to plan for the future two transfer windows, something that Carlo wasn’t blessed with.

Carlo’s reluctance to dip into the transfer market this season this will give any player a nice little bit of funds to bring in those young and talented players that will see Chelsea through the two transfer windows, then the manager would be able to sit back and watch the funds role in to the ISA account building up interest ready for a squad overhaul when it will probably be most needed. Making the punishment for Chelsea in gaming terms virtually non-existent. Anyone who fails to meet the requirements laid down by the board should really be looking at other games to spend their time on, because obviously Football Management isn’t for them.

But will the embargo affect the enjoyment of the game? Well you got to look to why people take control at Chelsea in the first place, it is obviously not in the enjoyment of the struggle, trying to build up a squad with hard work and tactical know how. No, instead it is about being able to use the money at your disposal to buy in those trophy signings, building a dream team of players like of Aguero, Messi and Gerrard. This is surely what makes the average Chelsea fan or FM manager tick so the transfer ban will obviously kill off the main reason anyone would choose to manage them in the first place unless they are planning on a long term game.

What other alternatives are there? Well it is not even certain that it will make it in the final version of the game just yet, Chelsea will certainly stick there large resources behind appealing the case, with an aging squad, two transfer windows can be a pretty long time in football. SI will definitely keep up with developments of this case as it being such a big club, I am sure if they can (or even do) collect information about what teams we play in the game a huge percentage of players will at some point take on the Chelsea (although this season they may all defunct to Manchester City). It has already been hinted that any decision made by FIFA to any appeal may force a special patch from SI to change the affects within the game.

But I feel the best and more realistic thing to do in the game would be to stick in the embargo straight from the start of the game, not allowing any signings throughout the summer 2009 transfer window. This would mean that the benefit of hindsight isn’t placed into the game, as the expectation of the ban just makes the challenge void. But instead with the way that it will work out for Ancelotti now, since knowing about the ban he hasn’t been able to bring in the players to shape the squad how he would like, bringing in players that are able to play in his own unique system. I think it would add to the challenge and enjoyment, giving another dimension to the game if this was also the case for any new starter on a Football Manager game and seeing if they can meet the challenge and problems of any ban from the start of their career.

But when it all comes down to it, the consumer will have the final choice in the matter I am sure just like a lot of things that SI games will make it easy to remove this from the game if anyone so wishes, meaning that the Chelsea fans won’t need to suffer at all. The transfer embargo though will be an interesting test for those players who want to see how they can develop their squads without the stop gap of just drafting in ready made players and it is good to know that Football Manager continues to reflect the different scenarios of the real world.