Enzo Fernandez, Raheem Sterling and the utter chaos threatening to implode Chelsea's season

Here’s the thing about the way Chelsea are going about their business right now – they have relegated almost everything happening on the field to something of secondary importance. It doesn’t matter that they played reasonably well for large periods against Manchester City on Sunday, and analysis of the flaws that were exposed in the eventual 2-0 defeat is fundamentally pointless, because the actual football now plays second fiddle to the soap opera.

In the most recent episode of this self-financed, semi-improvised drama (WestEnders, presumably), two storylines started to unfold in front of our disbelieving eyes. Firstly, we discovered that Enzo Maresca, the main character, had tried to kill off show stalwart Raheem Sterling off-screen. And then, just as it looked as though that might be the main topic of conversation for the day, Enzo Fernández was named as captain. And all of this was a full 90 minutes before a dramatic doof doof drum machine beat brought in the closing credits.

The decision to hand Fernández the armband was simply astonishing. Back in July, after Argentina had won the Copa América, the former Benfica midfielder filmed himself singing a racist and transphobic song along with others, although only Fernández could be readily identified. The song explicitly and particularly mocked French players of African heritage, implying through coarse language and reductive stereotypes that Black players in France’s team were not ‘truly French’.

As he exposed his ignorance and bigotry to the world, Fernández apparently forgot that he was only one year into a nine-year contract with a club who also employ several Black, French players, not that race and nationality were necessary preconditions to offence. Wesley Fofana was among those who led the backlash, saying on social media that the video represented “uninhibited racism.” Other Chelsea players appeared to unfollow him on social media.

Since then, the reaction from the club and player have been unsatisfying. Chelsea announced an internal investigation but that has gone quiet. Fernández himself apologised via the Notes app, writing that the song did not “reflect my belief or character,” but the apology has not been backed up in any way since and any sincerity it contained was somewhat undermined by the fact that he chose to write it in Comic Sans. In fairness, given that it’s typically used to indicate a general lack of seriousness, that may as well be the official font of Chelsea at this point.

Maresca, meanwhile, has simply asked that everyone move on, apparently unaware that it isn’t his decision to do so: “All of our lives we make mistakes and it’s important to recognise the mistake, but it’s finished... If you make a mistake and you recognise it, then you should not be punished all your life. And I have nothing more to add.”

People may have the right to a second chance, and to make up for and correct their worst mistakes – but we don’t all get a free second chance card that we can wave whenever we do something unpleasant or even abhorrent, no further questions asked. A second chance is earned through sincere apology and through actions which make it clear that we wish to better ourselves and undo the damage that we have done if possible.

If Fernández has taken such steps, he has largely done so in private, which would be an unusual way to undertake penance for such a public sin. There was, apparently, a donation to an anti-discrimination charity and that is a laudable first step, but it’s also the very easiest for a multimillionaire to take. Certainly, he could at least have made it clear that he was taking steps to listen to the response of his Black team-mates and the wider communities affected by his actions in order to understand the harm he has done. If he can happily broadcast himself singing a racist song to the world, we know he could have made it equally explicit that he was doing the work necessary to make things right.

Perhaps Chelsea have successfully had the hatchet buried in the dressing room, and maybe Fernández has mended bridges, but it’s noticeable that players who publicly criticised him like Wesley and David Datro Fofana have not said any more about the incident.

Certainly, there is little evidence that he should have been given the armband in the absence of club captain Reece James. The captaincy is largely symbolic in this day and age but it is a potentially potent symbol, and an indication that a club believes that the player given that honour is someone who can be looked up to by the fanbase at large and who can be relied upon to represent the club with integrity and respect.

Giving a player the armband is making a point. Giving Fernández the armband made it feel like the point being made was a worrying one – appearing that Chelsea are more interested in rehabilitating and coddling their very expensive player than they are about the Black community, their own Black supporters or their own, mostly less expensive Black players. If that isn’t the case, then it would be good to see the club finding ways to make that point just as loudly in the near future, but right now it feels as though their priority is in making sure that Fernández’s racist actions are swept firmly under the rug.

Certainly, they don’t seem too fussed about Raheem Sterling any more. Despite the former England winger having three years left on a reported £300,000 weekly contract, he was dropped from the matchday squad this weekend - and with the way that move dovetails with the very public decisions to exile Ben Chilwell, Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher, it’s hard not to read between the lines and see the club trying to force another player out.

Sterling’s “camp” released a statement which politely but perhaps unnecessarily fanned the flames, saying that the player and his team “look forward to gaining clarity on the situation.” A few pundits have expressed their distaste for a public display of dissent, and certainly it isn’t the ‘done thing’ to air grievances in public, but it seems fair to suggest that the way Chelsea have very publicly hung other players out to dry means they haven’t really earned the courtesy of this one playing out in private. That sort of respect, rather like second chances, is earned.

The way that the club are treating their own players seems not only distasteful but also like an act of potential self-sabotage. Yes, Sterling struggled last season, was some way short of his remarkable best and a bit of buyer’s remorse might not be unwarranted – but has it occurred to Chelsea that they may not be able to find a team willing to take on one of the biggest contracts in the Premier League? If they can’t, then they will have created yet another source of dressing room tension for no gain whatsoever.

The same applies with Chilwell, Gallagher and Chalobah. It may well be necessary to sell them in order to balance the books, but banning players from first-team training just comes across as petty – and what does it tell potential future players about the club they’re considering signing with? What does it tell the players left behind at Cobham about the way the club regards them, apparently as commodities which can be discarded in a moment and as toys which can be thrown out of the pram whenever Behdad Eghbali wants to spent hundreds of millions of pounds on some newer, shinier ones?

It's hard to find a positive message that coach and club are offering up to their own players right now, let alone to their fans or to the wider world of the sport. Yes, tough decisions have to be made in football, but the only reason they are forced to sell or bench some players is because the board seem unable to stop drastically overspending on others, and there’s no reason to forgo basic decency with the players whose careers have been placed on the line – and there was no obvious incentive to give Fernández the captaincy, and in doing so brush aside the vocalised concerns of players and fans alike.

So lessons learned on the pitch this weekend feel rather irrelevant, because anything good is eroded by the constant absurdity off it and anything bad has to be placed in the context of the chaos the club have created for themselves. Chelsea are shooting themselves in the foot with rather more accuracy than Nicolas Jackson managed in the six yard box. If the head coach and boardroom don’t get a grip on things soon and start making smart decisions and start ensuring that the players they have are all on the same page, then they will struggle to get anywhere near their goals this season. Cue the drums.