(Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images)
In July of this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against Adrian Mutu's appeal against FIFA for a breach of contract. As a result, the Fiorentina player was ordered to pay his old employers, Chelsea, £14.65 million. Was the result fair?
In 2003, Claudio Ranieri was directly ordered by Roman Abrahmovich to sign Romanian striker Mutu from Parma for a fee of around £16 million. The Russian oligarch wanted his team to have a certain style and panache and saw Mutu as the ideal signing, ahead of Ronaldinho, who he thought was too much of a playboy.
Life at Chelsea started well for the most expensive Romanian player of the time. Four goals in his first three matches, including a double against Spurs meant that Chelsea fans took him immediately to heart.
But as the season went on, personal issues with his now ex-wife and a problem with settling in London began to take it's toll, and he slowly became a more peripheral figure with only six goals from 27 games.
With problems in his personal life mounting, Mutu was constantly hounded by his country's paparazzi and was photographed in numerous predicaments, most notably having sex with Romanian porn star, Laura Andresan.
Jose Mourinho took over from the sacked Tinker-Man and almost immediately the the striker and manager came to blows over the players attitude.
Mutu only made two appearances as a substitute under his new manager before the duo became embroiled in a battle across several newspapers over an alleged injury the Romanian had.
His Portuguese manager deemed the player unfit, and that he could not train. Logically, he could not represent his country in a World Cup Qualifier against the Czech Republic. Mutu said he was fully fit and played in the 1-0 defeat on October 9th.
On his return to England, the player was fined two weeks wages by his manager for disobeying his orders not to play.
The war of words between manager and player continued over the following week, each calling the other a liar, and culminated with the player allegedly walking out on the club on October 16th after a confrontation with Mourinho.
The following day, Mutu failed to show up for training, with two other players.
Mutu had this to say "I admit that in the heat of our confrontation I did threaten Mourinho. And, in a moment of total madness I almost hit him."
Obvious bad blood between the two, almost resulting in a fight.
However, Mutu had recently undergone a "random" a drugs test in September, which he consequently failed. The test turned out to be not so random, as Chelsea had already ordered Mutu to have a test in July, which he passed.
This test was by Chelsea and was as such not sanctioned by the FA, who fined the club over the breach of etiquette. The September test was also unsanctioned.
Initially he denied taking cocaine, saying he only took a recreation substance to help his sex life.
Under intense pressure from the PFA, Chelsea, and his own conscience, Mutu reluctantly admitted that he did take drugs on the 19th of October and declined to have his B-sample tested.
The strategy behind the admittance was to avoid the possibility of increasing any ban from the game he may face.
A PFA spokesman said "If the player accepts that he is guilty and if he is prepared to undertake rehabilitation, be checked regularly and to be clean then there is greater sympathy towards the player."
A precedent had already been set in 2002, when Mark Bosnich had been banned from the game for nine months for taking cocaine, while also at Chelsea.
In that case Chelsea sacked Bosnich in September 2002, the 'keeper had only signed from Manchester United in January 2001.
On October 29th, 2004, Chelsea sacked Adrian Mutu and released a statement on the matter.
The statement explained their decision:"We want to make clear that Chelsea has a zero tolerance policy towards drugs.
"This applies to both performance-enhancing drugs or so-called 'recreational' drugs. They have no place at our club or in sport.
"In coming to a decision on this case, Chelsea believed the club's social responsibility to its fans, players, employees and other stakeholders in football regarding drugs was more important than the major financial considerations to the company.
"Any player who takes drugs breaches his contract with the club as well as Football Association rules.
"The club totally supports the FA in strong action on all drugs cases."
Under FIFA rules at the time, Mutu was set to get a minimum of a six month ban as this was his first drugs offence.
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