Tom Welch

Founder & Editor of @EyeOnFootballUK.

Football writer. Chelsea supporter. Watching far too much football, from anywhere and everywhere.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

I’ve spent the last few months building Eye on Football, an independent football site covering the game through analysis, features, history, young players and the stories behind what is happening in football.

There is plenty more planned, but the site is now properly taking shape.

If you enjoy the stuff I post on here, have a look 👇

https://t.co/vMkGNTH4RF

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

If Manchester City is being described to a UK Chancellor by its own chairman as “an important Abu Dhabi asset”, then the argument that this is simply a privately owned football club becomes very difficult to sustain.

I’m not sure the Premier League can come out of all this with much integrity intact. But if it wants to salvage any, one of the first things it needs to do is ban state ownership and require the owners of Manchester City and Newcastle to divest.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

Surely it's possible the NFF briefed The Times first to put greater pressure on FIFA and Emperor Infantino, rather than simply to look good internationally?

On City, why assume the financial misconduct stopped in 2018? The Premier League certainly shouldn't make that assumption. It should immediately demand access to all relevant club records from 2018 onwards and launch a thorough investigation into whether those practices continued.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

I’m not Čeferin’s biggest fan, but I’m glad he’s staying on.

UEFA needs some stability at the moment if it is going to push back against FIFA and Infantino. The last thing European football needs is internal infighting and people jockeying for position while FIFA continues to expand its power.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

@Motor_Sport Schumacher
Fangio
Clarke
Verstappen about 10 laps behind

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

Multiple sources are reporting that @ChelseaFC sporting director Laurence Stewart is set to leave the club by mutual consent.

The timing seems interesting.

Clearlake have recently taken full control of Chelsea and Stewart will reportedly not be directly replaced, with responsibilities redistributed across the existing football leadership.

It raises the question of whether this is the beginning of a new direction at the club.

Chelsea’s sporting structure has often looked overly complicated since 2022. This could be the first sign of Clearlake simplifying that model and putting a clearer hierarchy in place.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

The future looks incredibly bright for the USMNT.

There have always been talented American players, but usually only one or two have emerged at the same time. But this feels like the first time so many exciting young players have emerged together.

MLS NEXT launched six years ago, and it is difficult to believe that is entirely a coincidence. The depth of young talent now coming through the American system looks very different.

There is still a long way to go, but by 2030 the USMNT could be a genuine threat on the world stage.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

This is exactly why I wanted a “Too Early to Call” rating in the Wonderkid system.

Mathis Albert is 17, already a USMNT international and the youngest American to play in the Bundesliga. There is clearly huge talent there, but nowhere near enough evidence yet to pretend we know his ceiling.

One I’m really looking forward to revisiting.

[Eye on Football @EyeOnFootballUK]

WONDERKID #011

The Boy Dortmund Bet On.

At 17, Mathis Albert is already the youngest American to play in the Bundesliga and a senior USMNT international.

Raw, fearless and exciting. But how good can Dortmund's winger become?

Read the full profile 👇https://t.co/rVIH9dNnQe

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

This is a crazy take from Rio Ferdinand.

Jorge Jesus is the manager. He is entitled to pick whoever he wants, leave whoever he wants out and decide how many minutes any player gets.

Ronaldo is doing real damage to his reputation in these final years by making every selection decision about him into a controversy. If anyone should be apologising, it is Ronaldo to Jorge Jesus and his Portuguese teammates.

For me, he is no longer good enough to be an automatic starter for Portugal, and the team increasingly looks better when it isn’t built around him.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

@F365 That is a crazy list with some outrageous people on the list.

As if Messi and Ronaldo are on that list! And Messi at four is ridiculous.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

It is ridiculous because City were not resisting an unjust system for some moral purpose. They were found to have deliberately circumvented football’s financial rules, using sham contracts, misstated accounts and disguised funding to gain a competitive advantage.

Sheikh Mansour was not doing this out of altruism to create a fairer game. The UAE’s involvement in football as part of a wider effort to improve the state’s international image despite serious human-rights concerns.

That is why the Mandela comparison is so absurd. One was resistance to racial oppression. The other was a football club trying to get around rules it did not want to follow.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

Looking forward to Italy v Türkiye tonight.

Italy are one of the strangest national teams in world football.

Growing up, Serie A dominated European football and Italy had players like Baresi, Maldini, Baggio, Del Piero and Vieri, to name a few. They felt like one of the great footballing nations.

Now they have failed to qualify for three consecutive World Cups, yet somehow won the Euros in the middle of that run.

I’d love to see Italy get back to their best. International football is better when they are one of the teams everyone fears.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

@stulah @michael54625373 @sportingintel That is also a ridiculous post.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

How is it fence sitting?

I have given two absolute positions and both can be true.

City broke the rules, FACT. They need to be punished.

The rules need to be changed going forward to stop this ridiculous position we are in whereby clubs like Villa are forced to sell their best players even when they are successful.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

What you missed was that you suggested that 14 teams were needed to pass the rule. That is factually wrong.

Also, they did all get a say. They were all there at the Premier League meeting and got to vote, Reading however chose to abstain.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd did not create the rules. Yes the voted in favour of them which they are entitled to do so.

And just to give the clear facts it was Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd and Tottenham that raised the motion to introduce FFP in order to align with UEFA rules.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

Exactly how have Chelsea had a “massively unfair advantage” from FFP?

And comparing what Chelsea did with what Manchester City did is a really poor argument.

Chelsea made £47.5m in undisclosed payments to agents and other third parties between 2011 and 2018. When those payments were added back into the relevant financial years, Chelsea would still have complied with the spending rules.

The current ownership also discovered the breaches, self-reported them, admitted wrongdoing and cooperated throughout the investigation.

Manchester City’s case is on an entirely different scale. More than £800m of owner funding was disguised through sham contracts and sponsorship arrangements. Had that money been properly accounted for, City would have failed PSR spending rules.

City denied wrongdoing and fought the investigation throughout. The commission also found that they made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the investigation and that false evidence had been presented to it.

Chelsea did wrong and deserved punishment, and more severe than we got, the punishment was far too lenient.

But pretending these two cases are equivalent simply because both clubs broke financial rules ignores the scale of the wrongdoing, the sporting consequences and the completely different way the two clubs behaved once investigated.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

That just isn’t how the world works, and I’m absolutely not sitting on the fence. I firmly believe Manchester City should face the most severe punishments available because they broke the rules on an industrial and systematic scale .

If I’m driving on a road with a 20mph speed limit, I have to abide by that limit even if I disagree with it. If I choose to drive at 40mph, I can argue that the limit is ridiculous, but I should still expect to be punished for breaking it.

City fans are perfectly entitled to dislike the rules. But their anger over the consequences should be directed at the people running the club who chose not to abide by them.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

Firstly, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United didn’t make the rules. The Premier League Executive drafted them, they were debated by all 20 clubs and then passed by the required majority.

Secondly, I do agree that the rules are bad and not fit for purpose. They shouldn't stop owners investing their own money in a club, but it should be regulated, transparent and above board.

But once again, the way to change bad rules is to challenge and reform them, not simply break them.

However much you dislike the regulations, what City did is not acceptable.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

That isn’t strictly true, and you’ve missed an important part.

Premier League rule changes require a two-thirds majority. Normally, with all 20 clubs voting, that means 14 votes.

In this particular vote, Reading abstained, so only 19 clubs voted. The required two-thirds majority was therefore 13, and the regulations passed 13–6.

City absolutely voted against them. But the Premier League doesn’t operate a system where clubs only have to follow the rules they personally voted for.

Once the rules were validly passed, they became binding on every member club. City remained in the competition and were required to abide by them.

[Tom Welch @TomWelchUK]

I don’t agree with the rules. I don’t believe they do what they were originally intended to do. If someone wants to buy a club and invest their own money, I think they should be allowed to.

But I go back to my first reply to you. Those were the rules in place, the rules City agreed to abide by, and City broke them. They should be punished severely. The club’s rule-breaking was on an industrial scale.

Other clubs would also have liked to invest more money but were prevented from doing so by those same rules. City didn’t level the playing field. They simply changed it so they were the only ones on the field.

The main thing that needs to come out of all this is a complete review and reform of football’s financial regulations.