Chelsea have to punished with different methods

By Chris O'Keefe

If Chelsea are guilty of misdemeanors, whether it is illegal approaches to players or their conduct towards referees then surely the book has to be thrown at them. However the punishment needs to be one that sticks if they are to work.

Whatever fine is given to Chelsea is only going to be pocket money to the bottomless abyss of funds Roman Abramovich can dip into. There is no financial sanction that UEFA can impose or the Premier League for that matter.

If they are docked points then they will claim that they would have won the title and you can be sure that it won't affect their Champions League qualification unless they are deducted around 30-40 points.

Surely the only solution is to stop them by not letting them sign the players they want. If a fine of £500,000 is small change and they get Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole anyway then the action will serve no purpose.

If there is an embargo on players being allowed to join the club or that they are barred from signing Cole and Gerrard, then Chelsea have been taught that they cannot waltz around with a "laissez faire" attitude.

However there is also precedent - if authorities are not brave enough to take new and decisive action - to take another step.

Olympique Marseille - winners of the 1993 European Cup - were banned from competition by UEFA and relegated from France's top flight. Then chairman Bernard Tapie was at the centre of a bribery scandal.

It was even suggested he'd poisoned the away team dressing rooms with laxatives. Although that statement was a bit hard to believe, Tapie was jailed for his part.

Lazio and Milan were even relegated from Serie A in the early 1980's for involvement in a gambling scandal.

So there is precedent for action of that nature and would certainly work better than a fine because surely the goal of any punishment is to stop the offender doing it again. But as you know the real world is never that logical and Chelsea will in the long run get away with it.