It was technically legal when Chelsea did it, although they more than Man City or PSG (or collapsing clubs like Leeds or Portsmouth) are the reasons behind the FFP rules.
I think its pretty obvious who is old enough to remember the first few years under Abramovich compared to Man City currently by the level of fury towards Man City cheating.
Chelsea spent double or even triple what their nearest rivals did in 2005 or so. Man City outspend their rivals sure, but not by an insane amount.
The real issue is that a team like City “shouldn’t be allowed to spend as much as Man U or Arsenal” which is odd IMO, I think there should be a hard salary/transfer cap to level the playing field, not a “well you were massive before we changed the rules, so you can spend X, but you weren’t as big so can only spend Y”
People can disagree with that if they like, but the fact that Chelsea themselves managed to spend way more “non football income” than Man City, become one of the “big clubs” just before the rules changed, so now are “allowed” to spend more than City, because now their “football income” is huge is just mad to me.
But they didn’t want long term options. They’ve got the cash to sign a Casemiro every year or two.
They’d rather overpay for proven players than risk spending a chunk on a player who’s not quite as good, but has room to improve.
Players of his calibre are so rarely available, and especially not willing to go to a borderline CL qualifier with little realistic chance of a title win.
The problem Man U have is that they’ve got the resources for those top drawer players, but they’re not an attractive option.
I mean, imagine them trying to sign Jude Bellingham. Is there actually an amount of money they could have given him to sign there? 3, 4, 5 times the wages Madrid offered? I think he’d still go to Real.
And if he did go to Man U, it would literally only be for money, so not that motivated to put in a good performance. As we’ve seen over and over.