Chelsea ‘deeply regret’ joining The Super League in letter of apology to fans

Chelsea were one of the last teams to join The Super League, one of the first to leave The Super League, and one of the last yet again to post The Super League apology open letter to the fans. I suppose it’s the middle step that matters the most, especially as it was the first domino to fall in a spectacular collapse of this harebrained scheme.

The apology touches on all the expected notes. Mistakes were made. Deep regret. Fans should’ve been consulted. We did it for the secure future of the club. And so on.

You can read the apology in full on the official website.

What it doesn’t do is throw a scapegoat to the wolves to carry away all their sins. Chairman Bruce Buck has come under fire the most for this sequence of events, but if there is one thing we know about the way Chelsea’s board operates — and we don’t know much! — it’s that no big decisions are made without the approval of Roman Abramovich. Buck would just be the fall-guy; hopefully he and the rest (Abramovich, Granovskaia, Laurence, whoever) do in fact learn from this experience and go about it a better way next time. (Because rest assured, this isn’t the last time something like this will happen, as the CPO will tell you.)

That’s not to say the apology is entirely meaningless or entirely just a standard corporate exercise, but it would’ve been a perfect opportunity for Roman Abramovich to talk personally to the fans.

Oh well.

Time to move on?