🗣️ Richard Masters to #FTFootball on Chelsea spending. "I am not here to defend [them]. The new owners have owned the club for less than a year. They've had two transfer windows. You need to judge the football club after three or four years... 
"They might have bought, but they would probably argue they have a different transfer policy to the previous regime with younger players, longer contracts and lower wages...
"Within our rules it's a test over a 12-month period, so the question is whether they are going to sell some of their existing players in the next window. I am not here to defend them but you have to judge these things over a period of time."
On strategy compared to LaLiga: "There's three differences between LaLiga and the Premier League. At the moment we have significantly higher revenues. We do distribute revenue in a very fundamentally different way...
"And our financial regulatory regime is slightly more permissive than it is in Spain. And we think those three things work well together off the pitch to deliver on the pitch."
On the new independent regulator: "We would be worried that over time football would become the ultimate political thought ball..."
On 1500 blackouts. "We are proponents of Article 48 [UEFA statute allowing for a blackout]. I don't necessarily see that changing in the near term..."
On European Super League. "The ESL as a concept lasted about 48 hours before it imploded on itself... it would have been very hard to sustain it with existing rules. The rules have [now] been strengthened...
"And the government regulator is going to strengthen that further. What is dead is the old idea... but the ambition to change things is still there, so everyone should keep a watching brief."
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