The ongoing case of Chelsea v Adrian Mutu has finally reached a conclusion, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport has decided that he must pay the full £14.6m compensation owed to his old club.
After rejecting all the legal arguments put forward in Mutu’s defence, the CAS issued this statement: “In his appeal to the CAS, Adrian Mutu sought to set aside the DRC decision and establish that no compensation was due to be paid by him to Chelsea FC.
“The CAS Panel concluded that the appeal brought by the player was to be dismissed and the measure of damages, as awarded by the DRC, was to be confirmed. Adrian Mutu must therefore pay €17,173,990 (£14.6m) to Chelsea.”
There is talk of how Mutu may manage to get out of paying the damages, and it has been suggested that if he retires he will make himself outside of the jurisdiction of the decision-makers in football, therefore making it impossible for them to obtain any sanctions against him in the game.
If he decides to take that step, Chelsea may then face yet another long legal battle to get the award ratified by the European Court in a civil action.
It is also in FIFA rules that his club, Livorno (or Juventus at the time of the original judgement) are also jointly liable to pay the compensation. Juventus probably morally owe Chelsea money as they got a £15m rated player for free since Chelsea terminated his contract. Perhaps there is a possibility of Chelsea reclaiming at least some of the money from that avenue, but one thing is for sure, this ruling is unlikely to be the end of the matter.
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