Mutu’s Just Rewards?
Everything about Adrian Mutu was too good to be true, from the game winning goals to the model girlfriends, to the celebrity parties. Unsurprisingly he became the face of reckless football superstardom and the butt of countless one-liners. All this was no more than a cheater’s just desserts?
Until his sacking by Chelsea in 2004, Mutu was not a fraudster – but the shining light of Romanian football and a Serie A striker of the highest caliber. Arriving at Stamford Bridge for a fee of £15.8m from Parma, Mutu took little time to shine in blue, bagging 4 goals in his first 3 matches. But as the summer nights faded so did Mutu’s form and come the New Year he found himself warming the bench.
With plenty of pent up energy, the Romanian found London nightlife a suitable platform for letting off steam and soon began dabbling in recreational drugs. At the beginning of his sophomore season, a random FA administered drugs test, encouraged by Jose Mourinho and Chelsea, soon revealed Mutu’s extracurricular activities and he was subsequently relieved of his duties.
Mutu confuses line paint with something else
Suspended for the remainder of the season, Mutu re-surfaced 7 months later at Juventus and began piecing together his career. But it wasn’t until his move to the “cradle of the Renaissance,” Florence, where he returned to the kind of form that convinced Chelsea to splash out on him in the first place. Scoring 46 goals in three seasons for Fiorentina brought Mutu’s star back out of the shadows and a return to the international set-up followed.
But last week’s Court of Arbitration ruling now sees Adrian Mutu, on the wrong side of thirty, facing bankruptcy and/or retirement. The CAS ruling quashes Mutu’s final appeal at redemption and upholds FIFA’s initial compensation award of £14.7m in favor of Chelsea for Mutu’s breach of contract.
The Mutu case throws an interesting light on drug use in top level football and the fragility of wealth in the modern game. While Mutu sits back and contemplates the implications of the most expensive line of coke he‘s ever snorted, Rio Ferdinand can thank his lucky stars he only got an 8 month ban for ‘forgetting’ to attend his drug test in 2003 and Mark Bosnich can breath a sigh of relief that his talents were so worthless that Chelsea didn’t bother attempting to recoup damages following his tango with cocaine in 2002.
Prandelli checks for signs of life following the failed appeal
2 Responses to “Mutu’s Just Rewards?”
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While I am not in any way condoning what Mutu did, are we sure
Chelsea acted properly? It doesnt look like they ever tried to help their
player, and they apparently knew there was a problem. And would they have
acted in the same way and just immediately terminated the player if it
was Drogba, Terry or Lampard with the drug problem? We will — hopefully
– never know the answer to that question.
I feel like Chelsea’s had this problem before and dealt with it differently. Didn’t Bosnich have drug problems several years back?