Oh the irony of it all: One of the wealthiest football clubs in the world, with a proven world-class manager who is yet to splash some serious cash at his new club, and suddenly the bank has been forced to involuntarily shut its doors until January 2011. All due to a little unknown reserve team player (unless you play Football Manager. FYI, he becomes incredible…) named Gael Kakuta, originally bought two years ago at the age of 16 from Lens. And it was all going so well for those boys in blue…

Just a week after UEFA suddenly decided to crack down on diving by handing out a ludicrous two match ban to Arsenal’s Eduardo, FIFA are clearly making a determined effort to banish ‘tapping up’ from the professional game. This issue is not new, however, as many will remember the entire furore that surrounded the ‘tapping up’ of Ashley Cole by Chelsea’s then manager Jose Mourinho, and a well documented meeting at a hotel. Even the legend Brian Clough famously stated during his days at Nottingham Forest that “we tapped more players than the Severn-Trent water board!”

It appears that the season 2009-10 is one where neither FIFA nor UEFA are willing to take any more of the long-standing happenings that threaten to blight professional football: Who knows, maybe next on their list is banning those players who surround the referees and linesmen when a decision goes the wrong way? Perhaps the introduction of video referees? Or possibly finally preventing Tony Pulis from being able to wear a tracksuit at the games? I suppose we can only dream so much.

Clearly Chelsea will dispute this ruling to the highest court possible, and to be honest I agree that they should. However, if the decision does in fact stand and they are prevented from adding to their squad, there are several English Chelsea fringe players who stand to benefit greatly from it: The likes of Michael Mancienne, Daniel Sturridge and Scott Sinclair. This could be the chance English football needs in order to produce the next generation of national talent. The talent we take to the World Cup in 2014 may just rest on FIFA’s next move….

Tags: Abramovich, ban, chelsea, Kakuta, tapping up, transfers