GREED IS GOOD

This weekend sees what is likely to be the climax of the domestic football season, as Chelsea, the wealthiest club in Britain, take on Manchester United, the biggest, and almost certainly clinch their second successive league title.

Nothing better encapsulates this money-dominated football era: the combined salaries of the two squads would probably be enough to finance the average eastern European country. But the crucial difference between the two clubs has been lost because, in their routes to wealth, United and Chelsea are at opposite ends of the morality spectrum.

United have earned the right to be the highest spenders. They became the nation's best-supported club because their dramatic history captured the public imagination: a manager who moulded a title-winning team, the "Busby Babes", but lost most of them in a tragic plane crash, then built another team, which within 10 years became the first English club to win the European Cup.

United's support swelled, so when money did enter the game they could make the most of this support in gate receipts, merchandising and TV money.

Chelsea had none of this, but had just qualified for Europe's Champions League when Russian oil company Sibneft paid out billions of pounds in dividends to its major shareholders, one of whom was Roman Abramovich. It was relatively easy then for a tiny group of well-connected businessmen to exploit their links with the post-communist regime of Boris Yeltsin, and persuade ordinary Russian workers into giving up their individual share vouchers, unaware of their real value.

The obscenity of this is borne out by figures out last week which show that the 100 richest Russians are worth more than a quarter of Russia's GDP. There is vast inequality in Britain, but Russia is another universe: 18% of its people live below the poverty line; the average wage is the equivalent of £2,000. Yet last year Abramovich sold off his last Russian business interest for £7bn, bringing his total wealth, as estimated in this week's Sunday Times Rich List, to £10.8bn.

At Chelsea they all know where the money has come from. Football agents, of course, don't give a damn about its source. And football pundits and commentators talk about the quality of the players, or the tactics, or the managers' quotes, turning a blind eye towards the mass poverty left behind.

The fact is, Chelsea now stands for nothing but greed; the club has become a moral stain on the face of the sport. The more these injustices are tolerated, the more we are all corrupted.

[Such Chelsea bashing is all well and good of course, but what goes unmentioned is that in the current day the Glazer (wibble, wibble) regime is every bit as reprehensible as that of Abramovich.]