Romanian still struggling to pay ridiculous £14.6m fine

Adrian Mutu was sacked by Chelsea in 2004 on account of his cocaine abuse, and was given a seven month ban and a £20,000 fine by the FA. When he signed for Juventus (via Livorno) as a free agent during this mandatory exile period, the Blues demanded £9.6m from the player to compensate for the initial transfer fee.

Mutu soon regretted hiring a lawyer he saw running down the street after an ambulance, as the fine was increased to £14.6m after two appeals to the very same Court of Arbitration for Sport who recently banned Chelsea from transfer activity.

Some might say that the transfer ban helped to restore karmic balance following Chelsea’s lack of compassion towards the Romanian, but the point remains that £14.6m is a penalty that only a handful of footballers could realistically afford to pay. In his latest bid to avoid the angry Russian debt collectors, Mutu has written an open letter to FIFA and his former employers. Sky Sport Italia printed the highlights, which Goal.com roughly translated:

“To Chelsea, the FIFA disciplinary committee and FIFA president Josep Blatter

“I write this letter

TaiKai dance could earn players £10,000 and disciplinary action

As a means of promoting the TaiKai betting craze, Betfair are offering any player who does a ridiculous goal celebration dance (ably demonstrated by Page 3 lovely Peta Todd) the princely sum of £10,000. If anyone fancies supplementing their income via the medium of expressive movement, however, they will face the wrath of the FA:

“We have spoken with The FA and expressed our concern at what we see as a wholly inappropriate PR stunt,” said a Premier League spokesman. “We would urge The FA to use their existing relationship with this gambling company to dissuade them from this action.

“We have written to our member clubs to inform them that their players leave themselves open to potential disciplinary action if they endorse this campaign through the enacting of this ‘celebration’.

The FA must be delighted that no one took the offer up at the weekend, although that could be attributed to the fact that none of the big four sides could be bothered to score, and just eight other sides rippled the net.

There can’t be too many players who are willing to debase themselves with this stunt, but if we had to pick the person most likely to do something embarrassing on the pitch to earn a few extra quid in the name of PR, it would probably be the striker who wore pink boots at the weekend…

[The Telegraph via The Offside]