Luring Teenage Talent From Round the Globe Is Not so Worldly Wise

Summary

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BE CAREFUL what you wish for, lest you get it. Roman Abramovich's supposed desire to transform Chelsea from the bloated plaything of a capricious billionaire into a wholesome, grow-your-own, self- sustaining outfit has been given the most practical form of encouragement by Fifa. By banning the club from making any transfer acquisitions until 2011, the football authority has taken away the temptation to snap up just one more GBP 50million superstar before getting back to an austere diet of academy graduates.

The problem was that Chelsea's hothouse was stuffed full of exotic blooms transplanted from foreign climes, rather than pinch- faced urchins dragged from the gutters of, er, Kensington and Chelsea. One such import, the 17-year-old Gael Kakuta, has now landed them with a two-year exclusion order from the transfer market.

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Extract

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Luring Teenage Talent From Round the Globe Is Not so Worldly Wise

Chelsea are now discovering that Schadenfreude is not just a decent 14-year-old centre-back ripe for plucking from the Wolfsburg junior team. There's a general sense of satisfaction that persistent offenders have been...

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